(no subject)

[iwasmore]

Noah couldn't stop looking at his hands. He couldn't stop looking at his feet peeking out of the legs of Krem's sweatpants. He couldn't stop looking in the mirror. Not because he was being vain, but because he could look in a mirror. He didn't see his true self looking back, it wasn't creepy or anything. It was just his face. He was still a ghost, his essence was inside the body Dorian and Adam had helped make, but he looked like him from seven years ago; real and whole.

He wanted to tell everyone, but he was reluctant to leave Krem's side for even a moment after his return from that other Darrow. It had been so hard without him for the week until he came back, wondering if he would come back at all. He had gone from person to person, just so he wouldn't be sitting and watching the apartment door. So he knew it wasn't a time to be left alone. And Krem wasn't talking about what had happened, in the end, which probably meant it was extra terrible.

But Krem was cooking, now, and Noah wasn't being very helpful. He asked Krem if he would be alright if he went out for a little bit, and Krem said of course. Still, no matter the reassurances, he would be brief. Plus, he had barely seen Blue since her return.

So he went to Blue first, and then the rest.

Comments

[formicine]

Blue hasn't talked to many people since she killed the last of her shadow monsters yesterday at dawn; a few, but she got to her own apartment with the idea of showering and fresh clothes and ended up crying in the shower as caked blood came off angry slashes that did not disappear with the silent, creepy Darrow she'd left behind.

She'd only made it to a sports bra and shorts before she was shivering, so now she's wrapped in the crochet blanket she'd found at a thrift store, staring at nothing. That's where she is when she hears the questioning knock on her door, and she looks up sharply.

"Hello?"

[iwasmore]

Noah had cheated a little, and appeared in the lobby of Blue's apartment. But he used the elevator and knocked on her door and everything, just like a real person. He wasn't entirely human, but he was a lot more human than before, and he figured he should try to act like it.

"It's Noah!" he called, and waited patiently outside.

[formicine]

"Oh --" she gets up, making a curious face. "Hang on just a second!" Blue casts around and finally pulls on a tank top, resettling the blanket around her shoulders.

"Since when do you knock on the door," she asks with a smile, as she opens it, and then looks at Noah. There's something distinctly different about him.

"You're wearing different clothes," she says out loud, confused. This close to getting back from the other Darrow, the tiny off-ness of the normal routine startles her, a little, and she furrows her brow, stepping in.

[iwasmore]

Noah beamed, and he couldn't help it, he followed Blue inside and then cradled her face between his warm hands and kissed her right smack on the lips.

"Since Dorian and Adam fixed me!" he said, his enthusiasm barely having a moment to breathe as he continued. He plucked at the white undershirt he was wearing. "I can get totally naked now! And eat cake!"

He hadn't actually had cake, yet, but he was planning on rectifying that as soon as possible. Something chocolate with too much frosting.

[formicine]

She laughs as he kisses her, all enthusiasm, and then realizes his hands, his lips are warm, the kiss both familiar and somehow entirely new, and she pulls back in instinctive caution.

Noah's already explaining, plucking at his clothes. "They brought you back to life?" she asks tentatively, and reaches to poke her fingers into his tummy, as though that will prove anything. He's not just more solid, not just solid-looking, he's flushed: out of breath and happy and absolutely the embodiment of the exuberant teenager she's friends with, and she wonders how they managed to ever trick themselves that Noah wasn't a ghost.

"Cake sounds really good," she muses after a stunned moment and gives him a little smile. "How long has it been since you had cake?"

[iwasmore]

Noah let out a startled laugh and squirmed away, her touch tickled. He caught her hand with his, and spread her palm flat, face up, pressing his other palm gently to his to match. He wanted her to feel how warm he was now, how solid.

"No, I don't think that's possible," he said, but it didn't seem to bother him because he was still smiling. "Basically they did this Harry Potter horcrux thing, so now my essence - that's seriously what Dorian called it - isn't dependent on the ley line or Cabeswater anymore. It's like he sort of gave me a new body, but it's not really a body. But close!"

"Seven years? I can't even remember the last cake I ate. You don't think about that kind of thing when you're alive," he said. It had probably been for his birthday. Or maybe Cassie's.

[formicine]

She's going to have to remember that weak spot, Blue thinks, smiling at his startle. She watches their hands, a little solemn and respectful in the face of such a major change, and slowly stretches her fingertips to press back against his and feel the warm pulse underneath.

She'd never thought they'd be able to bring Noah back, or to anything even more solid than he was. Not without Glendower, or maybe some major antics on Cabeswater's behalf, anyway. "That's amazing."

There's something a little selfish that needles at her, wonders if without him being drawn to her energy she'll be as important to him. She pushes it away. It's hard to feel like much after so much time in that place, but she can tell she's being insecure in exactly the way she hates when her friends do it.

"It looks like a body," Blue says instead with a little amused raise of her eyebrow. "Should I ask what the difference is?"

"We should definitely have cake, then," she says decisively, but she tugs him toward her to lean on. "Mm, you're really warm." She's not sure it's so much that he's any warmer than he should be, but she's felt cold and tired ever since she got back.

[iwasmore]

Mm, you're really warm. He knows she doesn't mean it that way, he knows he shouldn't take it like anything other than an innocent observation, because that's all it is. But he still blushes.

"Geez, Blue, you can't just ask someone about the differences in their body," Noah teases, poking at her belly this time with a grin, cheeks still pink. But she's right, it does look like a body. It feels like one too, and it can do just about anything a real body can. Except die, unless something happens to the horcrux.

[formicine]

He goes a little pink, or more obviously so than she's used to, anyway, and Blue flushes just slightly at having maybe made an implication she didn't mean to make. She caps off the hug and tucks her hands into her pockets awkwardly. Blue's not a good person to be blushing over.

She does laugh softly at the poke to her tummy. "Hey, you're the one who said it wasn't really."

Blue hums softly in thought. "I feel like we should go try all kinds of food now. Or...buy you a bunch of clothes."

[iwasmore]

"I know, I know," Noah says, a little awkward now himself. He runs his hand through his hair and rubs the back of his neck. "I'm still not really flesh and blood and bones, I'm just a better and stronger copy. So I'm not human, I just look more like one."

"We will, I promise," he says, though he's reluctant to leave Krem for that long just yet. "Cremisius is back, and uh, he had a hard time, I think..." He frowns, and lightly touches Blue's wrist, since she's hidden her hands in her pockets. "What about you? You're here alone? Are you okay?"

[formicine]

Blue is pretty sure she's the cause of his nervousness, and she hates that too; right now she feels a little bit ruinous no matter what she does. "Well, you do look like one," she says. "No more disappearing, then?" She gives him a small, hopeful smile and holds onto the idea.

She nods; she and Krem had talked late at night while he had the watch, and while he hadn't been completely forthcoming then, either, she had gotten an ever so slightly clearer, or at least more horrifying category of ideas of what he was dealing with. "I got that idea," she says quietly, stomach turning over a little at the idea. "You should be there --"

Blue looks up at his light touch. "Yeah, I'm..." She looks up at him. "Uh. Not really?" She tries to smile through it like it's a joke. "I don't know."