hadriel_logs | Step, step right over the line

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Step, step right over the line

Who: Noah and Gansey at first, later Ronan and Adam as well(?)
What: After roughly six months of hiding it from him, Noah's the one to tell Gansey about what he has waiting for him back in Henrietta.
Where: Raven Haus
When: 11/15 Evening
Warnings: Spoilers for The Raven Cycle so far.

Normally when Noah went to Gansey's room after they tucked in to bed he'd wait at least an hour first. Same with Gansey seeking Noah out. There was attempts to spend the nights alone rather than the comfort of company.

Noah couldn't stop thinking about it, though. Ever since he was talking to Bruce about Ronan being homesick. They'd been away from home for about six months now, give or take. Gansey only had... eight. At most. If the Technicians from before were to be believed, he still had all his time waiting for him when they returned to Henrietta, but it still weighted on Noah's mind for the last couple weeks.

Someone had to tell him. Neither Ronan nor Adam were going to.

Giving bad news made him sick inside, but Gansey deserved to know.

It was heavy material to think over when brushing teeth right before bed. Noah used the rest of the time to steel his will about it, not that he had much to be steeled. He couldn't wait, he'd chicken out if he did. Instead of turning the bathroom light off and heading to his room to at least try to sleep alone, he went to Gansey's door instead and knocked on it.

"Gansey? Um, are you still awake?" Noah called. It was probably a stupid question but ... it was possible the insomniac could have fallen right asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow tonight.

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It's an odd question coming from one of his friends. Of course he's still awake, he always tries and fails at falling asleep before he ends up in Noah's bed, unless Noah ends up in his first. It's early for that, a little, but gansey doesn't think much of that part. It's Noah's tone that has him a bit concerned.

"Of course, Noah. Come in." He's not only awake, he's in bed playing with his phone. He closes whatever he was doing and locks it as soon as Noah opens the door, and pulls the corner of his blanket up, inviting the other boy into bed. "You're early tonight. Did something happen?"

"Sort of," Noah answers, shutting the door lightly behind him and approaching the bed. Rather than crawling in to soak up the warmth from the covers and Gansey, he sits on the edge of the mattress after a moment. He doesn't quite look at Gansey, focused instead on a stray thread on one of the sheets that he began to meticulously pick at.

He'd rehearsed at least a dozen different ways to open this conversation throughout the day as he became more and more certain that he was going to do it. Tonight, before he lost his nerve. Now that he was sitting on Gansey's bed and had a moment in private to do it, he suddenly found he could remember none of the ways that had sounded so eloquent in his head hours ago.

That was probably for the best. The perfect thing to say rarely survived the transition between thought and voice.

"... Do you remember, back - back home, when you all were at Blue's home, when her mom was missing, and she was saying that she knew Jesse Dittley was going to die because his name was on a list? And Adam asked to see it, but Blue said her mother had it? Ronan asked if his name was on it."

Noah hadn't been there for it, but he remembered it as easily as if he was. He could remember things that he 'knew' from being a ghost if they had already come to pass for his friends. It was helpful, he was pretty sure he wouldn't know when exactly he was from if he hadn't had his internal timeline sync with theirs. Now, though, he wished he could remember the things that hadn't happened for them yet. It would be helpful now, because he was certain he did know more than this - like remembering fragments of a dream and only knowing that there was much more to it before you woke.

Noah perches on the edge of the bed and Gansey instantly knows that there's Something Up. A chill runs down the back of his neck and he sits up as well, still halfway beneath the blankets, legs folded in front of him. He has to squint a bit to focus on Noah without his contacts in, and his face is still shadowed and blurry.

"I remember." What he doesn't remember is Noah being there, because Noah was never there at Blue's house, but he doesn't say that. Maybe his own memory is faulty, maybe it's a ghost thing, maybe someone told him. It doesn't matter, because that prickle down the back of his neck has turned into a full-fledged block of ice in his stomach.

"She didn't want to tell us who was on the list, I remember that too. Why is this suddenly relevant? Did she lie? Is Ronan the one on the list?"

He's the one who makes the most sense, really. Noah is already dead, Adam is a survivor all the time, but Ronan vacillates between living intensely and having an equally intense death wish.

It doesn't occur to Gansey in that moment that it could be him. After the past few weeks, his thoughts just immediately jump to the endangerment of his friends.

"She didn't lie about that. Ronan isn't on the list." Noah clarifies quietly, unsurprised at the conclusion he jumped to. As all their deepest fears were manifesting, Gansey constantly worried about the death of his friends, about their bodies lifeless and empty.

He stops picking at the thread, shifts on the bed to sit on it a little better, legs partially tucked under himself. Noah forces the will to meet Gansey's eyes as he tells him the secret they've all been hiding from him for months now.

"You are."

Edited (ahaha what is tense) 2015-11-16 17:21 (UTC)

At first, he thinks he doesn't hear Noah correctly. He is? He's going to die? Well, of course he's going to die, but he's going to die before the next St. Mark's day? There's a dull roar of blood in his ears and Gansey closes his eyes, running his hands through his hair and making a sound that's somewhere between confusion and disbelief. How can it be him?

But Gansey has always been good at puzzles, and all the pieces start falling into place. Adam's guilt at his death, even more inconsolable than usual. Everyone's new hobby of trying to shield him from...everything. Noah's guilty looks, his talk about time. Because he's going to die. He's going to die and they all knew, they've known for months now, probably. He looks up at Noah, confusion pure on his face.

"Why didn't any of you tell me?"

Noah waits while Gansey works through the news, gives him the time to think it over, to digest it. To peace together the way everyone acted. His eyes track the movement of his hands through his hair while Noah remains still, for once not fidgeting.

Just waiting.

"...Only Adam and Blue knew, back in Henrietta. Blue's mother talked her out of saying anything. Adam thinks he can stop it." Noah sighed, a soft exhale, briefly closing his eyes. "... I don't think he can. I think... back in Henrietta, I knew too. Not because of the list. I knew because... because of how I knew everything." It wasn't knowing, it wasn't seeing the future, it was remembering. The same time used over and over. Didn't Merlin live his life backwards? Adam was the magician, but Noah was the one who was remembering the future back home. "By next St. Mark's day - maybe earlier. Maybe much earlier."

He opens his eyes again, looking out the window then back at Gansey. The hard part.

"I don't think there's a way to stop it, Gansey."

The words are gently said, as much as something like that can be. It's like the diagnosis of a fatal disease, except the fatal disease could be classified simply as being Gansey. It doesn't even occur to him to doubt the truth of the list--they'd seen the truth of that in action.

He was going to die. He wasn't ever going to graduate high school, wasn't going to go to college, wasn't going to have to debate the merits of a career. He'd never get married or have children, never see any of his friends grow into the men they would someday become. Would he even find Glendower, or die in the attempt?

Some part of him feels a sense of terrible relief, and Gansey hates himself a little.

"I'm...I'm going to die. Jesus. And you've all known for months." His eyes narrow. "Is this why you've been acting so guilty?" He's angry. It's not Noah's fault he's going to die, he's just the messenger. But Gansey has no idea where to point his anger about what is, ultimately, just the unfairness of life.

The hundred dollar question, and while Noah had not let himself really think about it, when Gansey points the angry words at him... well.

"Yeah." Noah says quietly, a heavy finality to the one word. He doesn't expect what they have, whatever that is, will last past this hurdle. The secret was a big one, too big maybe. He had never thought it would last, that it was always just a moment before leaving. Can you lose something you were too afraid to hold on to in the first place?

He doesn't know if he should leave Gansey to his thoughts and newly realized mortality or if that would be abandonment, if he should stay and wait to be dismissed. Noah always ends up choosing inaction over action, though. So he stays where he is.

" ... I'm sorry, Gansey."

For the dying. For being the one to give him the news. For waiting so long to do it.

The apology is genuine, but there's defeat in it too. A sense of assumed finality. Of course this has been eating at Noah. He knows what it's like to be dead. But Gansey probably isn't going to be lucky enough to be a ghost. He's been living on borrowed time since he was ten years old.

Time borrowed from Noah. His shoulders slump, anger deflated but still simmering.

"I know. It's not your fault. It's just...I always knew I was going to die, probably younger than most. But not this soon." Is that true, though? There was that dark, looming nothingness of his future after Glendower. Now he would never have to fill it. "Not kept from me by my friends."

But it's not Noah's fault. Gansey reaches out and touches his hand. It's the most he can do right now, but it's something. He can understand why Noah wouldn't tell him that Gansey was running out of both of their time.

Noah turns his hand over when Gansey touches it to loosely hold on to Gansey's with his own.

It's terrible, and there's nothing for it. Nothing but to wait it out, effectively. Noah doesn't have the knowledge he had back home, he doesn't know if Gansey finds Glendower, if Noah can console him in the end of his quest before his demise. He would hope that a world so unjust as to give people Richard Campell Gansey III and then to take him away so young would at least be merciful enough to let Gansey have that before he's gone. If he's gone.

Noah could be wrong about stopping it, but he doesn't think he is.

"I'm sorry," Noah says again, quietly. For everything.

Gansey wishes there was a word for being equal parts angry and sad and just the tiniest, worst bit relieved. He wants to be more angry, but it's hard when Noah's hand holding his, loose and unsure, is still a source of comfort, someone reaching out to him so that he's not alone. That is what Noah has become: a source of comfort, even in death.

"I suppose I don't have to worry about what comes after Glendower, now." It's just confirmation bias in hindsight, but Gansey's feelings that his life was barreling on without his control, that his friends would be able to manage in his absence, seem entirely justified now. It's pointless to struggle. There's nothing to struggle against.

"How long has Ronan known?"

Noah feels sick having to tell Gansey this, that everyone except him knew, but he did ask, and this needs to get out in the open. Once it finally is, it can't hurt any of them anymore. One less secret to stumble over and cut themselves on. As long as Gansey doesn't pull away he will keep his hand where it is.

"Since the train. I'm not sure when exactly but before... before the water."

Before Gansey died for the second time in his life, but the first time they were away from home.

Abruptly, Gansey wishes he hadn't asked. It would've been easier if it was just Adam, who thinks he knows better than everyone else at least as often as Gansey does. Ronan has lied by omission plenty of times, tried (and probably succeeded) to hide things from Gansey. None of them are things like this. Is keeping his own death from him a betrayal? It certainly feels like one, though it was probably meant as a mercy.

"And they both want to go home so badly." His voice is brittle, cruel, and he regrets the words as soon as he says them, but he doesn't take them back. Of course they do. There's more to life than Richard Gansey, but it's hard not to feel betrayed by the fact that they're depending on him to get them home when they know it's a death sentence for him and Noah both.

It's in Gansey's rights to be upset, but it still seems so unnecessarily cruel to put it that way.

"They think they can stop it." Noah says with a little shrug, a soft sigh. "They think they can keep you safe."

They can't, though. Not from everything. 'Safe as life' as Gansey was prone to saying. Noah doesn't address his own return to death should they return to Henrietta. That ship has sailed, there's nothing to be done about it now.

"Safe as life." As though Noah had summoned the words. He sighs. "You don't have to apologize for them, Noah." Another humorless little laugh escapes him. "I can't really blame them for wanting to believe that everything isn't completely fucked." Because that's how Gansey is too, and he knows it. Denial is the only way to keep the darkness in his head from taking over, sometimes. Gansey has known from very young that something is going to get him, that death comes without warning and doesn't care about fairness.

Except he's still angry, logical or not. They should have told him. They shouldn't have let him promise he'd find a way to get them home when he's not going to live to see the next summer.

He finally thinks to squeeze Noah's hand, hard, brings pale knuckles up to his tight-pressed lips, though he doesn't quite kiss them.

"Thank you for telling me."

Noah nods, stiffly, looking away. He tries to think of something, anything to say, but as always the right words feel just beyond his reach. Maybe there are no right words for this, though. He's not sure how doctors can do it, day in and day out, tell people that they're going to die.

Noah has to wonder if he would have liked to know his own time was limited. Is it better to see it coming or not?

"You're welcome, I guess." It's seems like an awful thing to say about delivering bad news, but it's one less secret they need to worry about. "...I can give you some time, if you need. You know, uh, alone time. To - think or whatever."

He's going to be in so much trouble for this.

"I do need to think." While he's not in the most snuggly mood, being left by his lonesome with his negative thoughts rarely helps Gansey. He settles down onto his back again, nudging the blanket aside for Noah. "I don't really want to talk about it."

Gansey isn't angry with Noah, not exactly. Of the three of them, he can best understand Noah's reasons for not telling him. Noah knows what it's like to die horribly, and Gansey can't help but think that's somehow what's in store for him. Noah is the one who's always afraid to upset the balance between the four of them, because he's always been able to disappear when things got too pointed.

"But I don't really want to be alone."

"Okay," Noah says softly, and while he does hesitate for a few moments he eventually crawls under the blankets as well. He doesn't go in for an embrace, just a companionable sharing of blankets and mattress. Gansey needs time, and Noah can't assume anything is the same until Gansey has that time to figure out what he wants and is okay with again. He stifles a yawn as the nervousness he built up over the day finally begins to fade a bit.

"You can wake me if you change your mind about the talking. I don't mind."

"I know. I will if I do." After that, Gansey quietly stares at the ceiling for a long time, just listening to the rhythm of Noah's breathing. He might not be very happy with the other boy--with any of his friends--but it's still a comforting sound. Noah is alive. Gansey himself is still alive. There's a silent 'for now' on the end of both statements, but they're alive. It's not really Noah that Gansey needs to talk to, though. It's Ronan, it's Adam. And he's not entirely sure he wants to have this conversation, even though he also wants to stomp downstairs and demand answers. Is it better to wait until morning? This is hardly breakfast conversation. He's not his father. So, why didn't either of you bother to tell me that I'm not going to live to see graduation? is not a question to be asked over frosted flakes.

"Do you think I'll become a ghost too?" The words are soft, and after such a long silence, it wouldn't be surprising if Noah has fallen asleep.

Edited 2015-11-24 17:48 (UTC)

Noah's breathing had mostly gotten the slow and even of sleep, laying on his stomach, snuggled into the blankets and pillows. Now that he can sleep he prefers surrounding himself with soft comforts to do so.

Still, he wakes fairly easily at Gansey's softly spoken words.

"Mmm? ... Maybe."

The 'maybe' sounds a lot like a 'no'.

"Hmm." Gansey doesn't speak anymore. He's silent and still until Noah's breathing evens into sleep, and for a little while after that. He should let it go until morning, but the longer he lies there, the more he finds that he just can't. His mind has gripped onto this idea and, like a loose tooth, he can't stop poking at it. He has to know. He needs to understand, or it will just get bigger and bigger in his mind until it all comes toppling down.

He needs to talk to Adam.

With commendable stealth, Gansey slips out of bed, which works because his is not more or less a marshmallow, and pads down the stairs. Knuckles rap softly on Adam's door.

"Parrish? Are you up? I need to talk to you."

It's not so late, and Adam no longer has to grasp whatever tiny bit of sleep he can manage to fit in around his many obligations. He sleeps a little more like a normal person these days, instead of snatching hours of deep, unmoving sleep whenever he can. All that means, right now, it that he is still up.

He comes to the door, opens it. He has no doubt that Ronan is still awake in the room next door, and he doesn't know how personal this visit is - or what it's for - so he keeps his voice soft, just in case.

"Yeah. What's going on?"

For a long moment, Gansey is quiet, staring at Adam. Emotions flicker briefly over his face, too quick to really read. He's angry, deep down hurt, agitated. It makes his words come out taut as the set of his shoulders.

"Why didn't you tell me I was the one on Blue's list?"

Adam isn't sure what he was expecting. Something to do with Ronan, maybe, or something about Cabeswater, or - well, it could have been a lot of things. But he wasn't expecting this, of all things, and he stiffens, spine straightening and whatever sleepiness that had been creeping up on him gone in an instant.

He could ask who told Gansey but - well, it could have been Ronan, but he doubts it. And Noah has already shown that he knows things he shouldn't and he isn't always good at keeping those things to himself.

Instead, he's silent for a moment before answering.

"There was no point in you knowing. I'm going to keep it from happening."

Gansey shakes his head. Of course that's what Adam would say: exactly what Noah said he'd say.

"How, Adam? We've seen the list in action. How do you stop death?" It's a plea as much as it is an accusation. He wants to know what the hell Adam's thinking. There's no rising panic or anger in his tone, only a terrible sort of chill that covers all his emotions. "What makes you so sure I can be saved?"

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