for Blue / Ronan

[iwasmore]

Noah existed in the grocery store, which didn't make much sense seeing as he couldn't eat. Sometimes he bought food for the ducks, or a surprise snack for Krem, but beyond that the grocery store was a useless place for him to visit. He felt the pull of a friend nearby, and maybe that had brought him there. He started searching the aisles, but got distracted by a display for Oreos - he missed Oreos - and nearly ran, bodily, right into someone. "Sorry!"

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[iwasmore]

Noah, knowing Blue is thinking about her mother, takes her free hand in his. Instead of teasing her about her tangerines and eggs - because honestly, what sort of meal was that? - he bumped her back.

"Sure I will," he offered. But she wasn't wrong. He did grow up much like Gansey and Ronan, and he had no clue how to actually cook anything. It couldn't be too hard, though, right? People did it every day. He'd just need to look up a recipe. "What meal would you like me to make you? But pick one with vegetables."

[formicine]

Blue links her fingers with his, glad for the offer and that she doesn't really have to say anything.

She smiles a little. "Really?" She raises an eyebrow. She's pretty sure she's never seen Noah cook anything. He doesn't eat, for one thing, and as far as she can tell there's a lot of living on pizza at Monmouth Manufacturing. It's a really cute offer, though, and maybe she's underestimating him. "Fried green tomatoes?" she offers. "That's all vegetable. Or pot pie..." she muses, which is more of its own self-contained meal, but she has no idea how to deal with making crust and making sure the chicken cooks without overdoing the vegetables. At home, Persephone would be responsible for making half the pie crust, and it'd be flaky and amazing, and her chest hurts a little.

"You really don't have to, though," she says. "What have you been up to, aside from tracking us down to mom us?"

[iwasmore]

"But I want to. Come on, let's find the ingredients of whatever it is you want to eat," Noah says, giving Blue's hand a gentle tug, and heading for the produce section. He doesn't exactly like being around food, but he'd do anything to cheer Blue up. And she really does need to get better.

"I...haven't been up to much..." He lies, blushing. He doesn't mean to, and opens his mouth to tell her, but then he isn't sure how.

[formicine]

"Excelsior," she jokes, following him toward the bright colors of produce. She's been buying mostly canned fruits and vegetables, with the exception of the tangerines which suckered her in both for their nice smell and their portable, meal-on-the-go factor. Fresh fruit seems too expensive. She has a job, and some part time dog walking on the side, and the free money from this weird place (which she's making certain not to touch) -- she's okay -- but she's still anxious about money and tends to redo her budget to make sure she's got enough for rent. Splurges are on fabric or things to make her place more of an oasis, not food.

She picks up a tomato, inspecting it without much seriousness, and gives Noah a look as he blushes himself nearly solid. "You are a shitty liar," she informs him. "When did we start keeping secrets from each other?"

The answer is a little bit, we always have, in this group, but Blue and Noah don't, really.

[iwasmore]

It's a double edged sword. On one hand, Blue is the one who he talks to about everything. On the other hand, it's difficult for him because it's Blue. Because he'd liked Blue like that, and they'd kissed, and he honestly couldn't help it, but god some part of him had wanted...

And maybe still does.

Which makes him feel awful, because he loves Krem, and Krem is enough. More than enough. But it somehow hasn't replaced his old feelings, and he still can't shake them.

"We haven't." He sighs. "Though, you never tell me about Gansey," he pointed out. It was probably rude of him to bring up something she hadn't voluntarily shared with him, but he knew and it was kind of silly to pretend otherwise.

"I have a boyfriend."

[formicine]

She can feel her face go hot, and Blue stares fixedly at the tomatoes, contemplating a green one that's gone a little pink around the round sides. "That's because there isn't anything to say about Gansey," she says, and makes a face at the reddish glow to the tomato before putting it back. Her chest feels too full to think about food. "Nothing real, anyway. There -- can't be anything," she admits, which is fairer. For a whole host of reasons, only one of which is that she'd kill him if they kissed.

It feels shitty, though, to say to Noah, because she likes him, in a complicated way, because they have kissed, because she doesn't want anyone to feel bad.

She glances up though, surprised. "Wait, a boyfriend, boyfriend?" It surprises a smile to her face and she swings her basket to bump him. There's a very tiny part of her that feels like she's lost out on something, but much more that's warm and happy that Noah likes someone, that someone likes him. "You never told me you liked anyone. Who? Do I know him?"

[iwasmore]

Noah can only handle one relationship topic at a time, so he doesn't push about Gansey. About how Ronan and Adam are together, about how you can be with someone without kissing them, about how life is short and Gansey's might be even shorter, so why are they wasting their time?

He'll bring it up later. Another less public time.

His smile is a little wobbly. It's strange to want a positive reaction, but at the same time not want the excitement. He's being stupid, though, and he knows he is as soon as he thinks about Krem.

"His name is Cremisius, or Krem for short," he says, pretending to be interested in the Gala apples to hide the way his cheeks go more flesh colored. "Sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I just wasn't sure..." He looks back over at Blue and shrugs a little, smiling. "But he said we're boyfriends. For real."

[formicine]

"Cremisius," she says carefully. It sounds like a Roman soldier. "How did you two meet?"

If Noah had pushed about Gansey, Blue's not even sure what she'd say. It's mostly Gansey's idea that they not say anything to the others, though she's reluctantly agreed long enough for it to feel like her own. Ronan and Adam aren't calling themselves anything, but they obviously are, and there's a restless, urgent part of her that wants to push Gansey about it, wants to unsettle his careful planning.

But maybe things are better left unsaid. Neither Ronan nor Adam are cool and unvolatile, and she feels like she has only a tentative grip on everyone.

Even Noah, it seems like. She's truly happy for him, knows she is from the way she feels when he goes a little pinker looking at the apples. It just also makes her feel a little -- something. Left behind. Wistful. But Noah deserves -- more. To get more. To be more. To not be the person people kiss because they can, she thinks shamefully at herself, regardless of whose idea it was.

Then she frowns, thinking about that. "Wait, so. Have you always liked guys?" That sounds awful. "I mean --" She blushes under her freckles. "Let's forget I said that."

[iwasmore]

Noah can't help but smile when Blue says Cremisius' name, and quickly puts some bananas in the basket to hide his bashfulness. They aren't part of the recipe, but she should make sure to get some potassium.

"I met him when I first got here. We just ran into each other. He was actually really freaked out. Spirits are different where he's from. They're like, demons, or something." He still isn't entirely sure how it works. He moves on to the broccoli. "Then we met again at the cat cafe, and he ended up adopting Prunam-- the ghost cat, remember? I, uh...didn't tell anyone, though. So shh." He puts his finger to his lips with a smile. He feels kind of guilty about just taking a cat, but no one else seemed to be able to see her but him, Krem, and Nuriko, and he thought Prunam deserved a home.

He smirks at her question. "It's okay if you assumed, since you and I..." He shrugs, because he remembers it's not supposed to be a big deal. Even if it still kind of is, to him. But he doesn't want to make things weird between them, so he pokes her side, tickles it. "I've always liked guys, too. Both. I just like...people."

[formicine]

She makes the broccoli into a little forest, a miniature Cabeswater with little paths through it, organizing them upright as he talks, and thinking about demons and ghosts. She hasn't met anything she'd call a demon - isn't sure if she'd say they exist, although the dragons and night terrors pulled from Kavinsky's and Ronan's dreams are close enough to her. Blue laughs when Noah gets to the ghost cat. "Your secret's safe with me," she says exaggeratedly with a hand beside her mouth. "That's kind of nice, anyway," Blue rationalizes. "She can't have been getting much attention at Le Chat. I mean, I'm sure she was okay not getting fed, but she deserves someone to take care of her."

Blue's still embarrassed by having asked, by it having mattered to her. It felt enough like a slight concession to her fucked up kiss curse without thinking he wasn't actually interested at all. She would have said yes, if he had asked, if he were alive, whatever the ifs are in this situation, and it's slightly disconcerting to think it might have been an insincere comment aimed at making her feel better about the last kiss she'll likely ever get. She doesn't want Noah to feel like she's judging, though.

He tickles her side then, though, and things feel okay. "Hey!" She dodges inside his reach and ruffles up his hair, leaning. "I think I might like girls too," she admits conspiratorially, "but just not as much. Or I haven't met enough interesting girls." And living with a whole pack of them tends to make men a rarer creature. The most interesting girl she's met in the last year is Helen, and she's not about to develop a crush on BOTH Ganseys. "That makes me sound like an asshole, I guess."

[iwasmore]

Noah adds some beans to the broccoli diorama, tall bean people. He adds a few cherry tomato people as well. They're probably going to get kicked out, but the grocery store is pretty empty at this time of day. "She seems to like it there, she gets lots of attention. Plus, she's a ghost, so I guess she could leave at any time if she wanted..."

Noah doesn't think anything of her comment other than curiosity, maybe surprise at his interest in her. It's not like they've had a discussion about their sexual orientations. Noah doesn't even know what he'd call himself. Bi, maybe. It's not much of a concern, considering he never expected it to come up after death.

"Really?" Noah asks, hushed and surprised himself. It's not something he's picked up off of Blue, but then he hasn't been around her and other girls. "Are there any you like here?" It's teasingly said, but wondering, too. He knows about Gansey, but sometimes people can be in love with a person and still notice others.

[formicine]

She grins when he adds people to the diorama and reaches to cluster them: two tall beans for Ronan and Adam, a slightly less ripe bean for Noah next to a cherry tomato for Blue, another big green bean for Gansey on the other side.

She grabs a tangerine out of her basket and sets it down outside the edge of the forest. "The Pig," she says with a tiny grin.

"I think so," she says, self conscious now that they're talking about it. "I mean, not that I've actually tested the theory, but I've thought about it." She's pretty sure from experience that such things don't need to be enacted practically to be real. "This place is full of really gorgeous people," she points out. "I'm not blind just because I haven't met a lot of them."

No one makes her heart race like any of her raven boys do, though, not even on the level of friends. Maybe she's not giving them a chance; that'd be fair to say. She does need to talk to more people, more often. But she doesn't want to date someone just to say she is. She wants to be wrapped up, be crazy, long for things.

Then again, it hurts to feel that much all the time.

[iwasmore]

Noah snorts, smiling at the rotund Pig. "It's like Cinderella's carriage. Which one of us is the princess, though?" He tries to figure out what the other vegetables are, and why one is a cherry tomato, but doesn't ask.

"Yeah, I noticed that. I was just thinking to myself how different Darrow's populous is from Henrietta." But a lot of things were different, of course. Including the ratio of people who could see him versus those who couldn't. Back in Henrietta it had been like .5 out of a hundred. Here it was more like eighty percent at least. Or, whatever. Maths.

"Well, I'm just sorry I can't change myself into a girl for you to test this theory," he teases, and goes to grab a bag of green beans, leaving their vegetable arrangement behind.

"What do you think that's called, though? Bisexual?"

[formicine]

She laughs. "Well, you're the one who hands out tiaras, so I guess I'm the princess and you're the fairy godmother." She spins around pretending to have a magic dress. "I'm not marrying someone I meet once for an hour, though."

Blue laughs. "That's definitely true. In a lot of ways, really." For one thing, she's met actual vampires here, and a couple of people who she's pretty sure are not from this century.

She raises an eyebrow at his back at that, and picks out a couple of actual green tomatoes to stick in her basket before following him.

"What, liking men and women? Yeah," she says, unphased. In Henrietta, though, while there are as varied opinions on sexuality as there are people, she's pretty sure her peers associate bisexuality with girls getting drunk and making out for the approval of Aglionby boys. Stupid. Stupid to think, and stupid to do.

"Or pansexual," she adds. "Since there are people who aren't either."

[iwasmore]

"Aw, but it was love at first sight. I thought it was romantic," Noah says, giggling at Blue's spinning. He doesn't mind being the fairy godmother. It probably involves glitter, and he's all about that.

"Pansexual? I don't get it," he says, stopping his perusal of the fruit section to look at her. He was genuinely confused. How could you be neither?

[formicine]

"Okay, it's a little romantic," she says, concedingly. "But I mean. Basically we're saying it's a good idea to marry someone because they're hot." She's been told she had a true love since she was a toddler, but though she assumes at this point that must be true, she can't say it makes much sense practically. And she hadn't even really liked Gansey when she first met him.

She grins. "Pan, like all. Not like kitchen utensils. Like..." She stops to think. "Pan-Asian. Or...pantheism." She leans her hip against the shelf. "Sexually attracted to all genders. Some people like the word better than bisexual because there are people who aren't men or women." She doesn't know how to explain that. They just are. "I mean, they might biologically be look like one or another, but that's not who they are inside."

[iwasmore]

"Marriage is extreme," Noah agrees. It was just a cartoon, though. "But I don't think having strong feelings for someone has to take a long time. Sometimes it just happens."

Sometimes you acclimate yourself into a friendship with someone who lived because you died, and someone who's extremely rough around the edges, and you love them in no time at all. Sometimes you meet a boy who lives with abuse and works himself to the bone to rise above it, and it takes no time at all to love him. Sometimes you meet a girl who lives in a house full of psychics with energy so strong you don't dare go near them, but whose energy is just as strong in a different way, and you love her immediately. Sometimes you meet a boy who's scared of you, and fall in love with him somewhere between adopting a dead cat and shotgunning elfroot. Cinderella had one dance. Sometimes it's enough.

Noah's eyebrows shoot up at Blue's explanation. He leans forward, into her space. "You mean like transgender?"

[formicine]

She smiles thoughtfully, and thinks about how quickly she'd found herself entirely wrapped up, life lit up by her raven boys -- obsessed, Orla had said dismissively, and it isn't untrue, in some ways -- and glances at Noah.

She hadn't known him more than a handful of weeks when she'd been determinedly moving his body back to the leyline so he could be himself again. She hasn't known any of them a whole year, yet, but she can't imagine her life without them.

"It's true," she says, and picks up an orange. "Lots of things just happen, I guess."

Blue laughs at Noah's expression and the way he leans forward, giving him a bemused look. "Yeah," she says, "Like that." She tilts her head, curious about why he's so interested. "I mean, there are a lot of transgender people who are men or women. Some just aren't. I guess it's all tied up together, though. I mean, it all goes back to the idea that your body parts and you are different things."

Somehow that seems like it makes more sense, saying to Noah.

[iwasmore]

"Hmmm." Noah thinks about that, and how it applies to Krem. Krem hasn't gone too in depth with Noah, really, about his experience being transgender. He's mentioned a few things, and Noah thinks he has a fair enough idea of it, but he's sure there's so much more to learn. He doesn't want to push Krem to talk about it until he wants or needs to, though.

"I guess that's me. Pansexual," he says, trying the word out. It still sounds odd to him, but he supposes he'll get used to it.