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Judelow
The wind was a physical presence, a living thing that howled across the mountain ridge with enough force to steal the breath from one’s lungs. It scoured the exposed rock and ice, whipping the falling snow into a blinding, disorienting frenzy.
The world had been reduced to a palette of white and grey, where the horizon was an indistinguishable smear, and the only landmarks were the shifting shadows cast by the storm itself. Visibility was a joke, a few meters at best, and the sound was a constant, deafening roar that swallowed all but the most desperate shouts.
Judelow moved through it all with a restless energy that defied the cold. His heavy coat was lined with fur, the high collar turned up to shield the lower half of his face, but it did little to muffle his inherent warmth. He was a creature of heat and motion, his rabbit traits making him uniquely suited to endure the biting chill. His long ears, tucked close to his head under the hood of his coat, weren’t just for show; they were finely tuned radars, twitching at every shift in the gale.
Jude was here on a fool’s errand, and he knew it. A trap he’d spent days fine-tuning, an absurdly complex mechanism of pistons and redstone designed to humiliate any unlucky player who stumbled across it, was calling to him, begging for his attention.
He just had to see if the storm had damaged it. The need was a persistent itch, the pride of a master craftsman refusing to let his work be undone by a little bit of shitty weather.
As he crested a narrow drift, a shape resolved itself from the swirling white. A silhouette, tall and familiar, moving with a cautious, deliberate grace that was instantly recognizable. The blonde hair, even plastered down by melting snow, was a beacon.
Sharpness.
The sight of him, even in these conditions, was enough to set Jude’s teeth on edge, his stomach rolling with a complicated cocktail of anxiety and something he refused to name. Their relationship had been a frozen wasteland ever since the betrayal.
He could still feel the phantom sensation of the ground giving way beneath him, the sickening lurch of Sharpness activating his own trap, betraying their partnership. The fact that it had been a ploy, that Jude had turned the tables and trapped Sharpness in his own backup mechanism, was irrelevant. The intent had been there. Their trust had been shattered.
Part of him, the loud, dramatic part, still craved a spectacular, humiliating revenge. Another, quieter part that he refused to acknowledge, just wanted to understand why. Why had Sharpness betrayed him?
As he stared at him across the icy terrain, the stupidest, most traitorous part of him that he’d never admit existed thought Sharpness looked… good. Even half-frozen and miserable, there was a stark, ridiculous beauty to him that made Jude’s stomach clench.
But the closer Jude got to him, seeing his lone figure battling the elements, the more his old instincts took over. The rivalry was a language they both spoke fluently, a dance of provocation and response that felt as natural as breathing.
“Lost, Blondie?” Jude called out, his voice sharp and sarcastic, the words torn away by the wind almost as soon as they left his lips. “Or are you just trying to freeze that stick out of your ass?”
Sharpness’s head snapped up, his movements precise even as he squinted against the snow. He was a study in controlled grace, his dark netherite armor a stark contrast to the monochrome world.
“I could ask you the same thing, Jude,” he shot back, his voice carrying a low, cutting edge. “Come up here to admire your handiwork? Or did you just miss the company?”
Jude bristled, the familiar irritation a welcome warmth against the cold. “Oh, I missed the company, alright. Watching you fall into your own pit was the highlight of my month. I was just hoping for a repeat performance.”
They began to circle each other, a slow, cautious orbit on the narrow ridge, their banter a familiar rhythm in the chaos of the storm. Each step was measured, testing the stability of the snow-packed ground. The air between them crackled with the old tension, a volatile mix of fascination and resentment.
From across the divide, Jude could see the way the wind whipped a few stray strands of blonde hair across Sharpness’s face, and he had a sudden, idiotic urge to tuck them behind his ear. He pushed the thought down with a mental shove.
The frustration, the lingering sting of the betrayal, suddenly boiled over. It was an impulsive decision, fueled by weeks of stewing in silence. Jude told himself he just wanted to see the look on Sharpness’s face, to force a reaction, to break that infuriatingly composed mask. He lowered his shoulder and charged, plowing forward through the knee-deep snow. The world became a tunnel of white, his target the dark, unmoving figure of his rival.
Sharpness’s instincts were flawless. There was no hesitation in his movement, not even a split-second instance of frozen panic. He sidestepped, a fluid, economical movement designed to let Jude’s momentum carry him harmlessly past.
But Jude had anticipated the sidestep. He’d been counting on it. At the last second, he corrected his course, twisting his body. Instead of stumbling past, Jude slammed directly into him.
The impact was jarring, a solid thud of armored bodies colliding. For a moment, they were a tangled mess of limbs and surprise. The force of the collision sent them stumbling backward, their boots scrabbling for purchase on the icy snow. They took two, three, four steps back, directly onto a section of ground that looked no different from the rest.
Click.
The sound was barely audible over the howl of the wind, a faint, mechanical whisper from beneath their feet. Jude’s blood ran cold. He knew that sound. He’d engineered it.
The realization came a millisecond before the world fell out from under them.
The snow-covered ground collapsed, a perfectly cut square of stone and earth dropping away into darkness. There was no time to shout, no time to brace. They were in free fall, the storm’s roar replaced by the rushing of air past their ears. Together, they landed hard in a heap at the bottom of the pit, a tangle of limbs and clanging armor. Stone scraped against netherite, and the impact drove the air from Jude’s lungs in a painful gasp.
For a moment, they just lay there, stunned. Then, like repelling magnets, they scrambled apart, putting as much distance as the narrow space would allow. The pit was maybe twenty feet deep and five feet across, the walls of packed snow and stone offering no easy handholds. Above them, the storm raged on, a window of angry grey sky.
Jude was the first to find his voice, and it was pure, undiluted fury. “You absolute idiot!” he yelled, his voice echoing slightly in the confined space. “Look what you did! You couldn’t just stand still, could you? You had to go and fall into my trap!”
Sharpness, already pushing himself to his feet, stared at him in disbelief. “How the fuck is this my fault? Jude, you charged at me. You’re the one who pushed us onto the plate!”
“That’s not the point!” Jude gestured wildly at the walls around them, his face flushed with anger. “The point is that you were stuck in here, dumbass! If you hadn’t shown up, I wouldn’t have been distracted, and we wouldn’t be down here!”
Sharpness just shook his head, a look of profound exasperation on his face. He didn’t even bother arguing. He knew it was pointless. Instead, he pulled out his communicator, the screen glowing faintly in the dim light. He tapped at it, his expression growing grim. “No signal,” he said, his voice flat. “The storm’s blocking everything.”
Jude yanked out his own communicator, his movements sharp and angry. He tapped, swiped, and then swore under his breath. Nothing. The screen was a stubborn, blank slate.
The reality of their situation began to sink in, cold and heavy. No signal. No visibility. No way to call for help. And even if they could, who would be stupid enough to come searching the mountain in a blizzard like this?
They couldn’t even try to climb out of the hole. Jude’s trap had closed automatically above them, and the ice and dirt around them were frozen as solid as obsidian. They were well and truly... trapped.
The initial burst of adrenaline-fueled anger began to fade, replaced by a creeping, insidious cold. The pit was a natural icebox. The stone walls leached warmth from their bodies, and the frigid air pooled at the bottom, stagnant and biting.
Jude, with his naturally high body temperature, felt the chill but could endure it. He lowered himself to the ground with a huff, resigning himself to waiting the storm out.
Sharpness, however, seemed much less suited to the cold.
At first, it was a subtle change. There was a slight tremor in the blonde’s hands as he tried to brush the snow from his armor. It caught Jude’s eye, and when the rabbit traced his gaze upward, he found that Sharpness’s nose and the tips of his ears had turned a bright, angry red.
He always was cold, Jude recalled with a jolt. If he closed his eyes and thought back, he could remember the freezing brush of Sharpness’s fingertips against the soft skin of his inner wrist as Sharpness corrected his sword grip. Jude swallowed, forcing away the memory.
Pride, however, was a much more powerful force than ice. Sharpness would rather freeze to death than admit he was suffering.
Nevertheless, Jude kept watch with a critical eye.
Sharpness’s fingers, now bare after removing his gauntlets, were losing color. He rubbed them together thoughtlessly as an uncontrollable shiver began to wrack his shoulders that he was clearly trying to suppress. Snowflakes, drifting down from the disturbed ground above, melted on his pale lashes, clinging to them like tiny, frozen jewels.
He looked exhausted and half-frozen, and despite the fury still simmering in Jude’s chest, the sight was deeply unsettling. Annoyingly, he also looked… delicate. The word was wrong, completely wrong for a man like Sharpness, but it popped into Jude’s head anyway, unbidden.
Oh, fuck me.
“Stop being a stubborn bastard and get over here,” Jude said begrudgingly, fighting back the blush that threatened to stain his cheeks. He unfastened his own heavy coat, shrugging it open to offer the heat radiating from his body.
Sharpness’s head snapped up, his green eyes narrowed. “I’m fine,” he bit out, the words stiff with pride.
“You’re not fine,” Jude shot back, his annoyance rising. “You’re turning blue. I can practically hear your teeth chattering from over here. Don’t make this a thing. Just… get over here.”
“No.”
The single word was a wall of ice. Jude’s patience, already worn thin by the fall and the cold, finally snapped. “That’s it,” he growled, and he moved. He crossed the small space in a single stride, his own anger a shield against the awkwardness of the situation. He grabbed Sharpness’s arm, his fingers closing around the cold metal of his vambrace. “I swear to fucking god, Sharpness, I will knock you out and drag you over here myself. Don’t test me.”
Sharpness tried instinctively to resist, but it was pointless. Jude was fueled by a mix of frustration and a strange, grudging concern. He was stronger than he looked, and he used his leverage to yank the taller man toward him.
They stumbled together, a clumsy collision of bodies in the cramped space. Ignoring Sharpness’s muffled protests, Jude wormed his way into the blonde’s personal space until they were pressed together, the back of Jude’s shoulder pressed against Sharpness’s broad chest.
Sharpness was taller than him, making it impossible to curl around him like Jude wanted to do, but their position would have to do. Then, he pulled his own coat behind Sharpness’s back and closed around them both, following it with Sharpness’s heavy wool cape, creating a small, dark pocket of shared warmth.
The effect was immediate.
Jude could feel the intense, unnatural cold radiating from Sharpness’s body even through their layers of clothing. It was a shocking, profound chill that went deeper than the ambient air. For a man who always seemed so untouchable, this level of vulnerability, of weakness, was jarring.
Despite his lingering anger, it… unsettled something in Jude.
“There,” Jude muttered, his voice uncomfortably loud in the intimate space. He could feel the warm puff of Sharpness’s breath against his ear. “Now stop trying to be a martyr and just… absorb my body heat, you resource-stealing parasite.”
Sharpness was rigid behind him, his entire posture screaming with humiliation and resistance. Jude could feel the fine tremors that wracked Sharpness’s frame, shivers that he was clearly trying to suppress. The blonde said nothing, but his silence was a heavy, resentful thing.
They sat in a tense, uncomfortable nothingness for what felt like an eternity, the only sounds the howling of the wind above them and the soft, frantic beat of Jude’s own heart.
The sheer closeness was nearly overwhelming. The texture of Sharpness’s cloak was rough against his cheek, and the cold was seeping through his own clothes where they pressed against Sharpness’s chest. He could smell the faint, clean scent of snow and something else, something uniquely Sharpness, something he had tried very hard to forget.
Finally, Sharpness couldn’t take it anymore. “This is the most stupid situation I have ever been in,” he muttered, his voice strained.
“Blame yourself, Mr. I’m Gonna Sidestep,” Jude retorted instantly, a flicker of their familiar back and forth returning. “If you’d just let me run past you like a normal person, we’d be up there arguing instead of down here… arguing.”
“I wasn’t the one who charged in like a rabid wolf,” Sharpness shot back, sitting up straighter in irritation. “You’re the one with the impulse control of a goddamned toddler.”
“Oh, fuck you, too! I’ll have you know, my impulse control is perfectly fine when I’m not being provoked by a walking, talking ice sculpture.”
“I am not an ice sculpture.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Jude’s tone couldn’t have been drier if he tried. “I’m pretty sure my fingers are going to get frostbite just from touching your armor.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry that me freezing to death is so bad for you,” Sharpness said, his voice dripping with sarcasm, though the shiver that ran through him slightly undermined the effect.
Jude felt a weird pang of… something. Guilt? Annoyance? It was hard to tell. “Just… shut up and– and c’mere,” he grumbled, pressing back a little further. “You’re letting all the warm air out.”
There was a heavy pause, less charged with anger and more with a strange, simmering awkwardness. Despite the bone-chilling cold, heat began to crawl its way up the back of Jude's neck and onto his cheeks. He did his best to ignore it.
Soon, time lost meaning. As the storm audibly raged above them, minutes bled into each other, marked only by the slow, steady drain of their energy. The warmth they generated together was a fragile shield against the encroaching cold, and exhaustion began to set in.
Jude felt his own eyelids growing heavy, the adrenaline of the day finally giving way to a profound weariness.
It was in this state, teetering on the edge of sleep, that Sharpness shifted. His head lolled forward against Jude’s shoulder, into the crook of his neck, and in a delirious, absent-minded motion, Sharpness reached up with a hand that was no longer shaking quite so badly. His fingers, clumsy with cold, brushed against the sensitive fur of Jude’s rabbit ears, stroking them gently.
The contact was like a lightning strike. Jude jolted, his entire body going rigid. The touch was so unexpected, so strangely intimate, that it sent a burst of energy straight through him.
“Soft,” Sharpness mumbled, his voice thick with sleep. His hand dropped back into his lap, and he seemed to drift off again, completely unaware of the chaos he had just caused.
Jude’s face bloomed with heat, a furious, embarrassed blush that had nothing to do with the cold. “What the fuck–” he sputtered, his voice a hoarse whisper, even though Sharpness was already mostly asleep.
He felt his ears twitch uncontrollably, a dead giveaway of his flustered state, and he pressed them flat against his head, wishing he could disappear into the icy walls surrounding them. His heart was hammering against his ribs. Of all the stupid, awkward, ridiculous things to happen.
Sharpness shifted again, snaking his arm downward and wrapping it around Jude’s waist, pulling him closer.
Jude groaned, burying his face in his hands. This could not be happening.
Despite his desire to stay awake, the combined warmth from the man pressed behind him and the sheer exhaustion of the day were too powerful. Jude's eyelids began to grow heavy, the steady, rhythmic sound of Sharpness’s breathing against his shoulder a sweet lullaby. Jude fought it for as long as he could, but eventually, his own eyes slid shut.
Curled together beneath the heavy capes, trapped in the narrow pit, the duo finally succumbed to a fitful, uneasy sleep.
—
Sharpness
Sharpness blinked his green eyes open, squinting groggily.
The first thing he was aware of was warmth. A solid, persistent heat was pressed against his entire front.
The second thing he was aware of was Jude.
He was curled tightly against him, tucked beneath his cape, a small, furnace-like animal. His head was nestled on Sharpness’s chest, his dark hair soft against his chin. In sleep, he looked smaller than usual, almost fragile.
The difference in size between them had never felt more pronounced than in the cramped space, and a fierce, unfamiliar surge of… of something washed over Sharpness. One of Jude’s long ears was draped over his shoulder, twitching slightly in his sleep.
The more Sharpness came back to himself, the more he realized the intimacy of their position. A deep, hot blush began to creep up Sharpness’s pale neck.
He told himself he should move away, to put some distance between them, to re-establish the boundaries that had kept him safe for weeks. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb the quiet peace of the moment, or to deny himself the warmth that was steadily chasing the last of the chill from his bones.
Watching Jude sleep, unguarded and vulnerable, he was struck by how much he had missed him during their self-imposed avoidance. The server had been too quiet, and the rivalry and partnership he’d claimed to despise had left an aching void in its absence.
Sharpness watched, enraptured, as Jude's eyebrows drew together, and his ear flicking unconciously in sleep.
He must be dreaming, Sharpness realized, the thought altogether too fond to be about the man who was supposed to be his sworn enemy. Guilt, as creeping and all-consuming as the cold, began to churn in his stomach. It was his fault they were in this pit, it was his fault he and Jude had been avoiding each other, it was his fault Jude no longer trusted him, that they were no longer partners.
Frowning, Sharpness studied Jude's curled form, desperate for any distraction from his spiraling thoughts.
Like this, Judelow looked… annoyingly cute.
The red on Sharpness's cheeks darkened, and he sent a silent thank you to the gods that Jude wasn't awake to see him. It was true, though. Jude was cute. Not that he'd ever say it out loud, of course. Sharpness wasn't that stupid. If Sharpness ever went around preaching to the world about how adorable Judelow the deadly trapper looked while he slept, Jude would definitely kill him… again.
Eventually, the bunny in question stirred. He shifted, his body stretching, and then he stiffened as he became aware of their closeness. He lifted his head, his magenta eyes blinking open, still hazy with sleep. For a few moments, they just looked at each other, the space between them charged with a new, unspoken tension.
Jude scrambled backward, putting distance between them, his movements clumsy and panicked. “Wha– I mean– what the fuck?” he stammered, his face turning a shade of red that was visible even in the dim light, darker even than Sharpness's. He smoothed down his hair and his ears, which were twitching wildly. “This is– you were– I was just–”
“Shut up,” Sharpness said, his voice rough from sleep and disuse. He tried to sound annoyed, but it came out more tired than anything. He ran a hand through his hair, trying to regain some semblance of composure, to pretend he didn’t have a flush on his cheeks matching Jude’s. “It was an accident. We were just trying to get warm.”
“Right. Right, accident,” Jude repeated, nodding a little too quickly. “Not… whatever this looked like.”
“It didn’t look like anything,” Sharpness said, though he knew that was a lie. It had looked quite a lot like… cuddling. The word made his stomach feel strange.
“Right. Good. Okay,” Jude said, still looking flustered. He started picking at a loose thread on his coat, refusing to make eye contact. “So. This is… great. Just great. I’m still stuck here. Trapped in a hole with my least favorite person.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Sharpness retorted, but the venom was gone. The feeling, evidently, was not mutual.
The stillness that followed was thick with everything they weren’t saying. The weeks of avoidance, the betrayal, the weird, unspoken thing that had always simmered between them. It was all here, in this frozen hole, and it was suffocating. Absently, Sharpness fiddled with some of the fluff attached to the hood of Jude's coat.
“So,” Jude started, his voice too loud in the quiet. “This is fun. We should do it more often. Maybe next time we can get trapped in a volcano. Really mix it up.”
“Just- be quiet, Jude,” Sharpness sighed, rubbing his temples. A headache was brewing, a dull throb behind his eyes that had nothing to do with the cold. “Don’t talk for a minute.”
“What? I’m providing vital morale. You know, to combat the crippling despair of our imminent demise,” Jude said, but his voice had lost its edge. He was just filling the silence, and they both knew it.
After who knows how many hours of sleep, the sheer restlessness of being trapped had returned full force. Sharpness was itching to move around, to get out of his god-awful frozen pit, and he knew Jude was feeling the same.
The quiet stretched, becoming more and more unbearable. Every small sound—the drip of melting snow, the shift of armor, their own breathing—was amplified in the small space. Finally, Sharpness couldn’t stand it. He had to say something, anything, to break the tension that was strangling him.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, the words feeling clumsy and inadequate in the suffocating pit.
Jude, who had been staring intently at a crack in the icy wall, flinched. He didn’t look at him. “For what? Pushing me into a hole? Or the—uh—other thing?”
Sharpness’s shoulders slumped. “Both. I mean… the other thing. The trap. The… betrayal.” The word tasted like ash in his mouth. “I never…” He struggled to find the right words, the shame of it a bitter taste in his mouth. “I never would have actually taken your Strength, or anything. It was supposed to be a prank. Stupid, I know, but not… not what you thought I was doing. I wouldn’t have stolen your shit and left you for dead.”
Jude’s gaze dropped, his fingers picking at a loose thread on his coat. “At the time,” he said quietly, his voice slacking its usual easy confidence, “I thought you did. I thought you chose… whatever that was… over me.” The rabbit’s gaze dropped, like he hadn’t fully meant to speak those words aloud.
The thought that Sharpness might have killed Jude and left him believing that, alone and betrayed, settled deep in Sharpness’s gut like a block of ice. It was a chilling, unbearable idea. He met Jude’s eyes, his own gaze fierce and unwavering. “I’d never betray you like that, Jude,” he said, the admission quiet but absolute. “Not for anything.”
The honesty in his voice seemed to break through the last of Jude’s defenses. The hostility in his shoulders softened, and he looked away, toward the circle of grey sky above them. “It was… quiet,” he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. “Without you around. The server felt too quiet.”
Sharpness felt a knot in his chest loosen. “I missed you,” he confessed, the words feeling both terrifying and liberating. “Not just the… the rivalry. I missed you. The noise, a-and the chaos, I guess. I just… missed you.”
The confession hung in the air between them, raw and undeniable.
Jude stared at him for a long moment, his searchlight gaze seeming to look right through him. He looked utterly lost, his usual sarcastic armor completely stripped away. “I don’t… I don’t know what to do with that,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I don’t know how to… not fight with you.”
“Me neither,” Sharpness admitted, his own voice rough.
Jude’s shoulders slumped, the last of his tension draining away. He looked exhausted, defeated, and strangely vulnerable. "Maybe, we'll just... have to try, then," he suggested, more shy than Sharpness had ever heard him. Slowly, hesitantly, he shifted closer. He moved like a man approaching a wild animal, giving Sharpness every opportunity to move away.
He didn’t.
Jude crawled back into Sharpness’s lap. He ducked his head, tucking it under Sharpness’s chin, snuggling closer than ever before. His forehead rested against the cold, exposed skin of Sharpness’s throat, his dark hair tickling his jaw.
Sharpness’s breath hitched. He was no longer shivering, the shared warmth having chased the last of the chill from his bones, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, his body acted on an instinct stronger than any pride. Slowly, he lifted an arm and wrapped it around Jude’s waist, his hand splaying across the small of his back. He pulled him closer, until there was no space left between them, a solid, grounding weight.
They stayed like that for a long time, a silent, tangled embrace in the heart of the mountain, the storm’s fury fading above them into a gentle, mournful moan.
Eventually, Jude stirred, pulling back just enough to look up. The low murmurs of the wind above them had faded into nothingness. The storm was ending.
“It’s over,” he breathed, his voice quiet but clear.
A rush of new energy overcame him.
Jude was on his feet in an instant. Just as quickly, he began to dig at the softened wall of snow, his hands working with a frantic, burrowing efficiency.
Sharpness stood and joined him, widening the tunnel that Jude was scraping toward the surface, working together with frantic, purposeful activity.
A few minutes later, a sliver of pale, watery daylight broke through the snow above them. Jude gave a final, triumphant heave and burst out of the tunnel, emerging onto the mountain ridge like a groundhog from its burrow. He immediately turned, leaning back over the edge, his face framed by the bright, open air. He held out a hand.
“Come on, Blondie. Don’t get lazy now.”
Sharpness reached up and took it. Jude’s grip was firm, his fingers calloused and warm. He hauled him up with surprising strength, and as Sharpness stumbled onto the solid ground of the ridge, Jude didn’t let go.
Their hands remained clasped between them.
Sharpness looked down, first at their joined hands, then down at Jude’s face. Jude was staring back at him, his expression a mixture of stubborn determination and naked hope.
A deep, furious blush crept up Sharpness’s face, but he didn’t let go. Instead, slowly, deliberately, he shifted his grip, lacing their fingers together.
Jude’s breath hitched, a soft, audible sound in the still air. He squeezed his hand, a wordless, solid confirmation.
For a moment, they just stood there, breathing in the cold, clean air, their hands entwined. The world was transformed, the mountain draped in a thick, pristine blanket of white under a pale, clearing sky. The wind was gone. The anger was gone. The silence was gone.
“So,” Jude said, his voice barely a whisper, a small, hesitant smile finally touching his lips. “Now what?”
Sharpness looked from their joined hands to Jude’s eyes, and the last of the ice in his heart melted away. He squeezed his hand back. “Now,” he said, his own voice soft but sure, “we go home.”