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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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?"

"The list isn't set in stone. None of this is, none of this - magic stuff ever has been. There's a way, and I'll find it."

He's trying to keep his voice quiet, under control, but the stress is testing it, his words insistent. He doesn't look away from Gansey.

"I'm sure because the alternative is unacceptable."

He can't help it, he scoffs. "Adam, I've died twice already. How many things have happened to us that are utterly unacceptable? And yet here we are, safe as life." A hand makes a grand, sweeping gesture around them, as if to acknowledge the real meaning of his words. Safe as all this, a cave far from home where monsters occasionally try to eat them and so do their nightmares.

"The unacceptable happens every day. Why should I be any different? How can you cheat death when you don't know how it's coming? And why wouldn't you tell me? Maybe I could, I don't know, assist in this plan to keep me alive?"

"You have enough to worry over already, Gansey. And look at you, already assuming it's going to happen. Giving up. This is why I didn't tell you."

There are, of course, things Adam isn't telling him even now. But they're things Adam hasn't told anyone, and he isn't going to start now, not with Gansey, not when Gansey is already upset with him.

"There's a way out. There's a way to keep it from happening. Why become Cabeswater's magician, if not for that?" He shakes his head. "What do you think I need this power for?"

"I'm not giving up, I'm being reasonable. Tell me one time that Jane's mother or Persephone or Calla was ever wrong, one time Cabeswater was wrong." He sounds overly patient now, as though he's explaining something terribly obvious. "And you became Cabeswater's magician because you wanted something that was all yours on your own terms. You went off on your own then, too." He shakes his head. "Except everyone knew about me except me."

He sighs, running hands through his hair, mussing it up. Frustration leaks through and his voice rises in volume, if not in pitch or tone. "There are probably ten thousand things you're hiding from me and mostly I can live with that. If anyone knows how to live by selective truths...but this? How would you feel if I kept your death from you? Or Ronan's?"

It's no stretch of the imagination to think that Ronan would still be awake. He sleeps a little more regularly than he might have once, but that doesn't mean that he gets nearly as much as he should. And of course, being right next door to Adam, it's difficult to not hear the voices growing slowly more heated as the argument progresses.

He stares at the ceiling, tries to block it out- whatever it is, it's Gansey and Adam's shit, and in Henrietta they fought frequently enough to where this isn't an unusual enough of an occurrence to require an intervention. Not that Ronan would really be qualified to intervene anyway, and his method of doing so usually involves doing something so reprehensible that both of their anger turns on him instead.

But then he hears his name, hears Gansey be angry instead of trying to reason, and that's enough to hitch him up out of bed- more annoyed than anything for now, as he doesn't generally enjoy being used as ammunition against someone for- whatever it is they're yelling about.

So, he opens his door and of course, there they are. Ronan has perfected the look of irritable boredom and that's what he projects now, as he leans out in the crack between the door and the frame, resting his weight heavily on the doorknob.

"What the fuck is this about? Chainsaw is sleeping, man."

He is not particularly surprised when Ronan opens the door. They weren't being all that quiet, and Ronan sleeps rarely enough that it's fair to assume he'll be awake at any given time. It was only a matter of time before he heard something that would make him want to get involved, given what they're talking - arguing - about.

Adam presses his lips into a thin line, breathes for a moment, steadies himself. He does not expect Ronan to take his side, but at this point there's no reason not to be honest about the issue at hand.

"Gansey is upset I didn't tell him he was going to die." His voice gets more clipped. "Because he's not, because I'm going to stop it, regardless of what Blue's relatives say."

Ronan comes out of his room and Gansey gives him the briefest of glances. There's something hurt in his expression, just in that moment. "I think I have a right to know that there's a prophesy that says I'm going to die before I get to graduate high school regardless of whether you think you can stop it, Parrish."

This time his look at Ronan is less brief, more pained. "And you knew too. You knew and neither of you said a damned thing. There's a lot of things I'll tolerate not being told, but this is my life, or lack thereof. Did it ever occur to either of you that I might want a say in it?"

Ronan blinks at the response from both of them and is quiet for a moment, before he drags a hand over his face with a low groan and opens his door a little more fully, before focusing on the two of them.

"Jesus, Gansey."

This isn't what he was expecting it to be about. And it's heavy the weight of Gansey's death and the responsibility that he'd let slip through his fingers. They didn't say anything- and Ronan had felt guilty for it, but he'd pushed that away because he thought it was better not to, that it would just make everything worse to think about it, especially when Adam was hellbent on saving him, especially when Ronan himself wouldn't let him die. But how exactly does he explain that?

Chainsaw croons in his room and Ronan shuts the door behind him, muffling her raspy voice.

"A say in what? What the fuck are you gonna do about it other than freak out until it happens- " A quick pause, and he glances toward Adam before amending, "-if it happens? Blue's known for longer than any of us and she didn't say a damn thing either."

"Ronan didn't know until we got here." He needs to correct that, to make it clear. Ronan didn't know before, it wasn't some kind of - conspiracy where everyone in the world knew except Gansey. Only maybe it was, because all of Blue's family knew, Blue knew, maybe Noah knew, and none of them were going to tell Gansey. None of them would have told Adam, either, except that he didn't need them to. He'd guessed.

"What does it help, you knowing? You tie yourself in knots over it, worry over every little thing? Blue was already doing that, at home. I was doing that." He still is, to some extent, except Adam doesn't quite think this place - or Harborview - counts. It's home that counts. If Gansey dies, really dies, that's where it will happen.

"You're not a martyr, Gansey, you don't need to know about your death so you can accept it or whatever, because it isn't going to happen."

All he can do is look between the two of them, stunned. "You don't get it at all, do you? I saw what me dying did to you, I'm already worried over every damn little thing. This is almost a relief, knowing why it bothered you so much when you knew full well I'd be coming back just fine." He gestures at Adam. "And it's fine for you and Jane to keep it all to yourselves and freak out behind my back? I already know her part in it. She kisses me, I probably die. Doesn't that seem easy to prevent? But apparently it isn't." Unfortunately for the other two, now he's picking up some steam. "And if Jane knew, if you knew, that means her whole family knows. Hell, maybe Mr. Gray knows too, why not? Everyone but Gansey knows that Gansey's going to die. Except Ronan, who only found out here and still didn't say anything. God."

Gansey turns away from both of them, hugging his arms tight around himself. "Don't tell me what I do or don't need to know about myself, Adam. Maybe I fundamentally don't understand where you've been, but you have no idea about me either." His voice doesn't get any louder, only faster, the words snapping from his mouth. "You refuse help from me at every turn because then I'd own you and then you decide you get to keep this from me, so you can own my fate? You don't know what it's like to lie there and know you're dying, to feel your heart stop in your chest. Every day I live knowing that could happen again just because of some stupid little insect. Every time we ever went outside, every time I heard something buzzing against the window.I've been living on borrowed time since I was ten years old. His!" A strong, blunt finger jabs up toward the ceiling, where Noah is still upstairs asleep. "And you think you get to make that choice for me?"

Ronan listens to Gansey's tirade- part of it anyway, because he spends the rest of it watching the both of them, the curve of Gansey's back, the hollow tilt of his shoulders, the look in Adam's eye when Gansey throws his own words back at him.

His jaw tightens then and he shakes his head, stepping forward, not quite between Gansey and Adam, but definitely closer to Gansey than Adam is. He doesn't like turning on Gansey- it feels wrong to him somehow, and he knows that Adam isn't innocent in this either. None of them are, and he hates this, hates all of this, hates how wrong they all are to even be in this situation in the first place.

"Knock it off, Gansey. You're panicking."

Which is easy enough to see. Gansey is easy to read when he winds himself up like this, frantic and angry and scared. It's fair. Everything he's saying is fair, but it also- isn't, and it frustrates Ronan that he can't explain it the way he wants to, make Gansey see things the way that he does.

Because he has faith that if anyone can save Gansey, it will be Adam- who has promised and tried and taken abuse from Ronan for not saying anything, Adam who would give anything, even his future, his own chance at Glendower's blessing, if it means keeping Gansey safe.

"If Parrish says he can stop it, then he can. We believe in you, alright? Return the fucking favor."

He's surprised when Ronan steps forward, expecting him to - he's not sure. Stay out of it, stay neutral, or get angry maybe. But Ronan's always been angry when others are calm, calm when they're angry. It's infuriating, except when it's oddly helpful. Like now. Ronan's faith in him is, maybe, less surprising, but it's still enough to steady Adam, a little.

Gansey might not believe in him, but at least someone does. Adam doesn't need anyone to believe in him, not when he knows what he has to do and he's ready to do whatever it takes to achieve it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't help.

"I don't want to own anything, Gansey. That's not what I'm trying to do - that's not why I didn't tell you. It's not some kind of stupid power game." He's frustrated, upset, his accent slipping, but he tries to even it out. This isn't the time to sound like some dumb inbred hick. "Or are you saying that you want to die, that you don't want me to stop it? Because that would be the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm going to stop it, whether you think it's impossible or not."

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