Jude
was born to Anastasia and Lawrence a few months before they had wed the wedding
had occurred because of his birth, essentially what could be considered a
shotgun start of the Hargrave family. He was
Anastasia's greatest joy and
As
a small child Jude was much more open and social, a precocious child that
always liked to learn more and loved to sing with his mother at the piano and
even though there wasn't a bond with his Father he often liked sitting nearby
and listening as his father scratched pen across some parchments. Jude never
minded the odd and often cold looks he'd gotten from his Father the small boy
simply accepted these as quirks of a man that didn't know how to openly love as
his mother did.
He liked Thundercats and Voltron. His favorite cereal was Lucky Charms and he
often colored [i]outside of the lines[/i] because he thought it was prettier that way. Sometimes
he saw things out of the edge of his vision - strange things. Scary things. Shadowy things.
Sometimes he complained to Anastasia while his Lawrence scowled at Jude for
hogging up 'adult time', but his Mother wouldn't let a word be said by Lawrence
as she quietly sang Jude back to sleep or sent him back to play assuring him
that she'd be there the instant anything tried to hurt him and that was enough
for him at the time. Anastasia looked at it as loving her son.
Eventually
the lack of bond with his Father bothered Jude and he did everything he could
to try and tamp down on 'undesired' behavior, he attempted to be more adult and
even carried around his Father's old brief case to try and appeal to the man's
interest but instead he had gotten ignored or pushed aside and it would put a
rift between them and he instead just became closer to his mother. Jude didn't
understand why his Father didn't love him like other fathers loved their
children and often would ask his Mother if there was something wrong with him
that his Father found impossible to love. His Mother would simply shush him and
assure him that the problem didn't lie with Jude but rather within his Father -
his heart had simply been in the freezer too long that was all. Father didn't
have the warm and loving hearts they had.
As
he grew older Jude noted the rift between his parents and even noted how much
they argued over various things but mostly it somehow concerned his upbringing
or the fact that his Father felt that Jude stole too much 'time' away from both
of them and this brought Jude to resent the man a feeling that only grew as
time went on. Holidays became painful and awkward as the family strained under
the yolks of the issues it suffered from and the secrets hidden within it that
not even Jude knew of. Awareness of his family situation was not the only thing
Jude had gained, more and more the shadows seemed to peek and leer around him
catching his attention and sometimes distracting him completely as he tried to
follow them to see where they went and usually it ended up being dead ends.
He attended all the best private schools that his Father's money could pay the
tuition for. At the start Jude was popular and a vibrant youth a joy for the
teachers that taught him but as time went on and the dark corners of his family
showed Jude started to close himself off and become quieter unable to relate
with his fellow students and even being shunned by some of them because of this
no one seeming to care to reach out to him except for the teachers but even
they were pushed away. It was not their concern.
It
would take a while before he would reach out to anyone at all. It just so
happened that it was a girl named Susannah Gamble one fateful day while out in
the park.