[ He feels real and solid beneath Gansey's hands. But then, it's not the first time he'd felt solid. And he always used to feel real, before he began to seem more shadow than light.
It's the first time he's ever been warm to the touch. Gansey's heart gives a complicated little stutter. This is the boy whose life was taken the day someone decided that Gansey should live instead. For months, ever since he became certain of what had happened, the idea to ask for Noah's life has built in his mind, finally growing enough that he'd spoken it. In speaking it, he'd been certain.
And now there's no need, because Noah is alive, warm and so alive. Gansey barely even thinks about the action of hugging him before he's doing it. He pulls Noah close, and learns things he'd never known before - things like the particular rhythm of Noah's pulse, the smell attached to his hair, the stubble on his chin - for Christ's sake, can everyone but Gansey grow a beard?
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It's the first time he's ever been warm to the touch. Gansey's heart gives a complicated little stutter. This is the boy whose life was taken the day someone decided that Gansey should live instead. For months, ever since he became certain of what had happened, the idea to ask for Noah's life has built in his mind, finally growing enough that he'd spoken it. In speaking it, he'd been certain.
And now there's no need, because Noah is alive, warm and so alive. Gansey barely even thinks about the action of hugging him before he's doing it. He pulls Noah close, and learns things he'd never known before - things like the particular rhythm of Noah's pulse, the smell attached to his hair, the stubble on his chin - for Christ's sake, can everyone but Gansey grow a beard?
His head feels like it's spinning. ]
Jesus, Noah. It's really you, you're really alive.
How?