4/6

[iwasmore]

After the spell, when Noah began sleeping and eating meals and feeling like a real human, he'd gotten a calendar. He used to cross off days with a delight most normal people wouldn't take in something so mundane. He'd left the calendar at Krem's when they broke up, though, and ever since then he just hasn't paid much attention to what day it is. But he has to, now, to keep track of when he needs to be at Un Chat Gris in Blue's stead. He was gone for nearly two weeks, he owes it to her. No, he would have done it either way. She needs a break, and she needs time to process Gansey leaving.

So when his birthday rolls around, he knows. He doesn't feel like a party. He doesn't feel like anything, he just knows he doesn't want to be alone. Blue isn't at Hywel and he doesn't want to bother her with something trivial, so Noah respects her desire for privacy and decides to disrespect Ronan and Adam's instead. He appears where they are, in bed, and sighs up at the ceiling.

"Hi."

Comments

[thedreamthief]

"You've always been older, shithead," Ronan says though, again, his words lack any real heat.

He reaches over to Noah without a word then, easily slinging him into a brief headlock and ruffling his hair before shoving him aside. Copper wags her tail at the commotion and lets out a quick, admonishing bark.

"Why the fuck would anyone want to pretend they're in Saskatchewan?" he says, reaching down then to ruffle the top of Copper's head, a wordless apology. "Pretty sure you can drink here at nineteen. Also, you're a fuckin' ghost - you can do whatever you want."

[incognoscibilis]

"I don't think anyone much cares here, anyway," Adam said. It was easy for him to say that when he didn't go to bars, when he refused to drink. If they went to a bar, he'd be waiting with Coppe outside.

Copper perked at the attention and Adam kept his eye on her, smiling and feeling a little easier as the conversation drifted away.

[iwasmore]

"Darn it, Ronan," Noah complains, squirming away from him and scrubbing a hand through his hair to try and fix it. One headlock is enough, and he switches spots with Adam, putting Adam in the middle of them and looking around him to give Ronan the stink eye.

"I've never been to Saskatchewan," he explains, his voice full of melancholy. He glances at Adam out of the corner of his eye, and adds, "Drinking is boring anyway. We could do paintball. Ooh, or laser tag."

[thedreamthief]

Ronan only grins as Noah scrambles out from beneath his arm to change places with Adam and takes the opportunity for his arm to lightly brush Adam's, just a single point of contact, not for any real reason.

"Laser tag," Ronan agrees, thinking of the bruises that paint ball could leave behind, their marks on Adam's skin. "Should we invite Sargent?"

[incognoscibilis]

"I haven't done laser tag since I was little," he says. So little he can't remember how he'd been allowed to go or why, just that he had. Carefully, he hooks a pinky finger around Ronan's.

Glancing between the two of them, he nods. "I think she'd like it."

[iwasmore]

"Duh," Noah says, giving Ronan an insulted look. Why would that even be a question? He can't imagine why Blue wouldn't like laser tag, but also it's Adam's birthday and they should have a proper party for it.

He does smile, though, when he sees their sweet almost-hand holding. He tries not to be too obvious about it, and hides his face against Adam's shoulder for a moment until he can get his face into a more normal expression.

"Gelato for my birthday," he says a moment later, watching Copper's happy tail lazily wagging. "Laser tag for Adam's...black light bowling for Ronan's, and...I don't know, a fracking protest for Blue's?"

[thedreamthief]

The touch of Adam's finger against his own is strangely shocking. While their relationship is far from a secret, neither of them are particularly big on public displays of affection. They've never kissed outside of the confines of Hywel or Cabeswater, never so much as held hands. The easy, gentle hook of Adam's pinky feels like some kind of confirmation.

Ronan curls his own to keep Adam there, squeezing faintly. He doesn't miss the way Noah's trying to hide a smile against Adam's shoulder, but he only arches an eyebrow.

"Bowling?" he remarks, brow furrowing in confused amusement. It's not a bad idea, though. It'll be too cold for much else. "Is there actually fracking here? What the fuck."

[incognoscibilis]

"Brownies," Adam says, vaguely uncertain of how he knows that. Blue must have mentioned it once but they'd all been so fraught around her birthday. "Protests and brownies for Blue."

When Ronan doesn't pull away, Adam shifts to braid their fingers together and than puts an arm around Noah's shoulders, just because.

Gansey's absence is still palpable but the three of them, like this, links in a chain. It's a start.

[iwasmore]

"I'm not even sure what fracking is, actually," Noah admits, only knows that he remembers Blue ranting about it once. Something about it hurting the environment. Digging, or drilling in the water maybe. He likes it when Ronan says what the fuck.

When Adam puts his arm around him, Noah smiles in surprise and leans right in, a feeling of warmth blooming in his chest.

"You guys are so much better than the friends I had when I was alive," he says with a contented sigh.

[thedreamthief]

Adam's fingers thread easily with Ronan's and he feels it all the way up his arm, a slow, spreading heat. It makes his skin burn, makes him hold on tighter with a glance over to Noah busy curling under Adam's arm.

"Were they all like that fuckbucket, Whelk?" Ronan asks with no small snarl.

Even saying the name makes Ronan's blood curdle. It shouldn't matter, he knows. Whelk's dead, his corpse buried in an entirely different dimension and Noah is safe with them here.

But he knows better than to trust anything about this place, too. There's no reason to believe anything here will last.

[incognoscibilis]

Almost in the same breath that Ronan says it, Adam also points out, "It's really not that hard to do better if that's your basis for comparison." There are many people for whom Adam Parrish has many unkind thoughts and Barrington Whelk had been one of them. He'd also been a shit Latin teacher as if he wanted to add insult to the injury of being a murderer.

"Come on," he says, squeezing Ronan's hand. "Gelato."

[iwasmore]

"Well they didn't try to murder me," Noah says dryly, reaching around Adam's back to lightly shove Ronan's shoulder.

"I had other friends, I swear. I wasn't comparing you guys to...him." There is no comparison when it comes to Whelk. But Noah had friends on the swim team, and skateboarding friends, and stoner friends. He did okay at Aglionby. He'd been closest with Whelk, but not nearly as much as he is with Ronan, Adam, Blue, and Gansey.

The gelato parlor is right up ahead of them, and Noah quickens his steps, dragging Adam with his arm still around him.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam doesn't bother saying that Noah's other friends in life can't really overshadow the low, low bar that Barrington Whelk had set. It's not his place to say that, for all Ronan feels free in that. It's like saying his father had set a low bar for Adam's other family members.

"Come on, let's get something to eat, huh?"