Jude wasn't about to let her joking beneath his skin. Most people underestimated his intelligence, but he was good natured enough to let it slide. If they wanted to think that he was a monkey who didn't know how to use his thumbs, then that was fine. People responded to different situations in different ways, and he thought perhaps this was just how Leah handled being freaked out by some strange guy. Joking. Ribbing. Whatever, he was fine with that being her way.
"Paranoia could also get me eaten," Jude responded quickly. "Not everyone was born ready to be Clint Eastwood, 'kay?" He'd been taken advantage of before, sure-- but he'd also handled the bad situations that followed. For every time he'd been taken advantage of, there was at least one time when he'd gotten a whiff of danger while it was still half a mile downwind. Leah, being a beautiful and presumably solitary woman, might have had more of a reason to be paranoid than a man of Jude's size and stature. He understood: the world was a scary place for Jude now, but for women like Leah, he guessed it'd always held some sort of unspoken reason to distrust strangers.
"Plan B--" Jude snorted, unable to justify the noise of a laugh. "--I don't think I've ever had a successful Plan B in my life. If Plan A gets fucked, that's generally the last song, you know?"
Leah was definitely not Miss Optimistic. Jude assumed that was her choice not to believe him. He had some faith that a human call for help still meant something. After all, they were out here looking for a kid that may or may not have already died, weren't they? Human life generally still meant something.
Whether or not she saw it, he nodded deferentially to her selection of Jackass. "Fair enough."
"Engineer, actually. Buildings tend to be the same. Especially the old ones." he said, easing up the ladder. It didn't seem to favor him nearly as much as it did Leah, which wasn't fair because he was way more congenial than she was. "We're on the same side here," he murmured to it, once he was forced to pause. "You have a Plan B in case I fall and break my neck, right?"
Climbing didn't take much more than a handful of adrenaline surging seconds. In the long run the flash of nervous energy would be beneficial. When he reached the landing, he beamed. "Just like a treehouse."
Jude nodded and eased around the stairs she pointed out with a quick, but quiet, thanks. The closer they got to the entry window, the more he wanted to talk, but the less he could. His demeanor didn't change, so much as it stretched into something more calm. He was content following her up the steps, seesawing his weight against hers.