truthplot pre-play

[iwasmore]

Dawn is breaking, golden light peaking in through the windows, so Noah drags himself up and pads out of his bedroom, barefoot and sleep-rumpled. He knows even before leaving his room that the others are still asleep, he usually wakes up first if no one's got an early work shift and this morning is no exception. Blue stayed over last night, which means everyone is here, so even though Noah's appetite still isn't back to normal he decides it's a good morning to make pancakes.

He gathers all the ingredients, and just as he has a few pancakes cooking up to fill the room with that nice aroma, he knocks on both doors. "Hey! Wake up! Breakfast!" he calls, obnoxious and loud. "If you don't get your butts out of bed Cinnamon's gonna get your share!"

Comments

[incognoscibilis]

Adam groans and peels out of the shower. "Say that again?" he asks without any sarcasm. There's a bathroom right next to the kitchen but even with Noah shouting, it's hard to make out what he's saying. Still damp from his shower, Adam pulls on his boxers and jeans but leaves his shirt hanging on the peg. It's Saturday, so he has time to be leisurely.

"Smells good," he says, pouring himself coffee. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees lettering but assumes it's Noah's shirt.

[thedreamthief]

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Chainsaw perched on his good shoulder, Ronan pads his way toward the kitchen, glancing at Noah only briefly before he grabs himself a plate. Chainsaw lets out a sharp noise and flaps off his shoulder, her wing nearly smacking him right in the face as she flies off to land on the back of one of the kitchen chairs.

"Parrish, come eat some fucking pancakes!" he shouts, already sliding his plate up to Noah how's busy turning one of the pancakes in the skillet.

He rests back against the counter as he waits, still blinking the sleep from his eyes and barely hiding an appreciative grin when Adam walks in wearing only a pair of jeans.

Glancing over at Noah then, he asks, "Did you wake up Blue?"

[iwasmore]

Noah's about to shout back to Adam to clarify, but Ronan takes care of it for him - in a much less polite way as per usual. He smiles in greeting to both of them and tosses a few blackberries to Chainsaw. "'Morning."

"Yeah, just short of banging pots and pans," he says, sweeping a few pancakes onto Ronan's plate. "Syrup's on the counter, and there's fruit. And whipped cream in the fridge if you wanna get real indulgent."

[formicine]

"I'm awake," Blue calls, padding out of her bedroom in bare feet and a huge t-shirt over boyshorts; combing bedhead into more intentional spikes with her fingers. She tries to sound grumpy, but the truth is, the cacophony is really sort of wonderful, the smell of pancakes inviting and the laughter making her feel warm.

She rubs her eyes. "I gotta start waking up earlier. Not like I'm allowed to walk out of the shower like that," she points out, grinning a little at Adam.

[incognoscibilis]

It's one thing to have Ronan looking at him like that but two pairs of eyes and Adam's self-conscious. "Jeez," he says. "I'm not a prostitute, you guys." Enough time has passed, he's figured, that the only reprimand he'll get from Blue is a pancake thrown at his head. Assuming Blue will even give up a pancake.

"I'm going to get a shirt," he says, turning back towards the bathroom.

[thedreamthief]

Adam's cheeks are pink and Ronan doesn't know if it's from the shower or from the stares he's getting, but his grin only widens. Stealing a blackberry for himself, he lets out a quick grunt of protest and pushes from the counter, reaching for Adam has he turns away.

Then stops short.

"Dude, what the fuck's on your back?"

[iwasmore]

Noah greets Blue with a hug, patting her messy bed-head. He keeps an arm around her for a moment while he follows her gaze to Adam. "You won't hear any complaints from me," he teases with a playful smile, and darts back to the stove before she can hit him.

He picks the skillet back up and he's still smiling when he looks up at Ronan's comment. His gaze goes to Adam, and Ronan's right, there is writing on his back, like a tattoo. I convinced myself I deserved it.

Noah nearly drops the skillet, managing to burn his finger trying to save it. He tosses the thing onto the stove with a clatter and a surprised, "Ow! Geez!" Noah shakes out his hand like that's going to help anything, irritated that he can get burnt as a ghost.

"I can't believe you got a tattoo, Adam," he says, distracted by turning the pain off in his hand.

[formicine]

Blue tosses a blackberry at Adam for that joke and swats belatedly at Noah, but her rolled eyed smirk fades entirely as Adam turns around. As Ronan stops in his tracks.

I convinced myself I deserved it. It's neat, legible; it doesn't look like sharpie or feel like it's referring to anything at all playful. It feels --

It feels like she's going to be sick, is what it feels like. What the hell...

"It's not a tattoo," she says, almost inaudibly. She reaches for Noah, partly to see what happened and partly to have contact with someone. Maybe Krem would get his pain tattooed onto his skin to heal it, but Adam wouldn't want to remember it like that. "It's --" She looks around, her feeling of dread growing by the minute. Of suspicion and unease with this place. "Do we all have something on us?"

[incognoscibilis]

He laughs when the blackberry flies at him but it all dies quickly in his throat when they're all suddenly staring at him.

"A tattoo?" he repeats, confused. "I didn't get a tattoo." Had Ronan dreamed something onto him like they'd talked about before? It doesn't seem like the kind of thing Ronan would do now with all his finite control and deference to Adam's needs.

He can tell by their faces that whatever they see on his back is pretty bad and Adam turns slowly back to face him. "What's happened?"

[thedreamthief]

Noah drops the skillet onto the stove, a loud clang that catches Ronan's attention. Looking up, he notices a similar marking on Noah's shirt, a single sentence emblazoned across his back.

Blue's right. It isn't a tattoo.

"Noah, too," Ronan says, looking to Adam again. He isn't sure what to make of Noah's, what it's supposed to mean. Or maybe he does. Maybe he just doesn't want to think about it right now. His fingers itch to reach for Adam, but he holds back, one hand curling into a fist at his side. He almost wishes he hadn't pointed it out, that no one had noticed at all. The words on Adam's back aren't for anyone else to see.

[iwasmore]

Noah holds Blue's hand when she reaches for him, dread forming a small pit in his stomach.

"How do you know?" he says to Ronan, unconsciously making sure his back is now facing away from everyone. "I'm wearing a shirt." He reaches behind himself anyway, touching what he can reach with his free hand; the top of his spine, his shoulder blade, before dropping his arm. He wouldn't be able to feel words anyway.

Blue asks if they all have something, and he'd make a joke about stripping down, but not with what Adam's back says. He looks around. No one else is telling Adam, no one wants to be the one to hurt him. Noah doesn't blame them.

"It says, I convinced myself I deserved it," Noah says quietly.

[formicine]

Hearing Noah say it out loud is both relieving and horrible. Blue squeezes his hand, a little, but he's already turning toward them: turning his back away.

"Adam," she starts, wanting to forstall how he must feel, but what can she say? She wants to reach for Adam; she wants to decry it: she can't. Nothing she can say can make that better.

Hell, Blue doesn't even know if it's true, because it's so clearly Darrow. Except that she does; she knows it's true, because she knows Adam.

What does her back say?

"This is bullshit," she announces, abruptly unhungry.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam swallows tightly and doesn't look at any of them, jaw clenching visibly as he searches for some kind of calm. There's no denying the truth of what it says because isn't that just typical? Isn't that just the kind of syndicated cable movie truth about someone like him? It's a truth no one acknowledges, even Adam himself, because he hates himself for the delusion and the weakness.

Or maybe it's not delusion. Maybe it's just true. Hadn't his mother calmly, gently told him that it was a little bit his fault? Hadn't he altered his life to make sure he didn't earn his father's wrath?

It's such an ugly truth. It's another part of the rags to riches story that he'll edit out once he's gotten to the riches because there's no room for victims in the biography of a self-made man.

He's not a victim.

"I'm going to put a shirt on," he says, voice slow and so painfully Virginia.

[thedreamthief]

The tension is suffocating, each of them staring at Adam and Adam refusing to look any of them in the eye. Even Ronan. Maybe especially Ronan.

When Adam turns to head out of the kitchen, Ronan doesn't reach for him. He stares at the words like he might be able to wash them away, erase them from Adam's skin, dissolve them from the very root. His heart is hammering under his chest, the nails of his right hand cutting into the meat of his palm.

"Noah, turn around," Ronan says, once Adam's left. His voice is quiet, utterly calm, and his gaze is locked on Noah.

He knows what he saw, however briefly. And Adam shouldn't be the only one who has to go through this.

[iwasmore]

"Why don't you go comfort him?" Noah bites back in a hushed whisper, clinging to Blue's hand. He hates the look in Adam's eyes. He hates that this place has hurt Adam, and he doesn't understand why Ronan has to look at him the way he is right now, like he's part of it.

Because if he is, there are too many things it could say and he's scared of what those things could be.

But he glances at Blue and he knows he can't hide from it forever. If Adam has to suffer he shouldn't be alone.

"Fine." He gives in and turns around, thinking, please not about Whelk. Please not about Krem. Please not about Whelk...

[formicine]

Blue knows why Ronan doesn't go; if it were her, if it were anything like that, she wouldn't want someone to come rescue her. And she's pretty sure, no matter which of them says that it's not his fault, or whatever it is they want to say, it's going to feel like rescuing to Adam.

It still twists in her stomach. She still wants to say it.

Ronan's voice is deadly, though, as though this is somehow Noah's fault for being marked as well. She can't help but turn in curiosity as Noah turns around, even though he shouldn't be made to.

"I'm the voice Gansey heard," she reads, slowly, out loud, and snaps her eyes up to Noah, heart hammering in her throat. Besides her own on the tape, there's really only one voice she can think of that Gansey heard in any meaningful way. Maybe it's something she doesn't know, but, the fact that Gansey never mentioned anything like it to her makes her think it's not. And that -- does that mean -- what does that mean? "Spoilers," she says, quietly, just to Noah, and looks at Ronan, questioning. Does that mean Glendower's not real? That this whole thing has been a wild goose chase? Or that Noah himself has something to do with Glendower? And if he was dying, like they thought, how could Noah --

"We have to do this too, if we're going to get to see theirs," she says, hating the way this makes her wonder things she's not saying. "If we're going to be honest, let's just be honest. Nothing between us." She gestures at Ronan. "Ronan, turn around." She's pretty sure, actually, that Ronan doesn't have anything on his back. She doesn't know if she does, but there are so many things it could be --

[ooc: her back says "a little in love with all of them". Adam can spot it first as he's coming back in, or not, whatever.]

[incognoscibilis]

Adam slowly counts to sixty in the bathroom, shirt clutched in his hands. That boy doesn't live here. The scared boy in the trailer park has been subsumed by Adam Parrish, magician. The scared boy has no place here. It's what he tells himself between seconds until it's really a minute and a half before he emerges again.

Blue has letters on her back too and Adam pauses, knowing that he's too caught in the act of reading them to hide it from the others.

"Blue," he says, voice low.

[thedreamthief]

Noah doesn't argue even as he frowns at Ronan, his pale eyes dark and defensive. Blue puts voice to the words and Ronan feels something go cold under his skin. There are two instances he can think of immediately and one of them he can rule out right away.

The other...

He's still staring at Noah when Blue speaks again, but he ignores her, his eyes trained on Noah, mind whirling. "What the fuck does that mean?" he says, not moving an inch. He's aware of Adam's return, in that way that he's always aware of Adam and it's only when Adam speaks that Ronan tears his gaze away from Noah to the sight of Blue's back.

"Jesus fucking Christ, I hate this place," he snaps then, rubbing the heel of his one good hand against his eye.

[iwasmore]

Blue reads what's on his back, and Noah's forehead tips forward with a dull thunk against the fridge. "Shit," he whispers, eyes closing for a moment. It's not personally devastating like he expected it to be after hearing Adam's, but it's not something he ever thought he'd have to explain. If he even can.

Spoilers, Blue murmurs, recalling their conversation in the graveyard, and that pulls a soundless laugh from him.

Blue turns and Adam returns and Ronan is Ronan, but no one's read Blue's message aloud. Noah straightens, leans back to see it and reads it to himself. Impulsively he puts an arm around her, draws her close, and kisses her hair. "Me too," he says, of Blue's back.

[formicine]

The way Adam says her name sends a shiver through Blue, like it might be a warning to her about what she's about to do or it might just be startled, moved.

She turns toward him, letting Ronan and Noah see her back, her eyes questioning and searching, a little, to see how he's doing himself. She thinks of them alone in the other city, in the store. Whatever this is, doing this to them, they can handle it together. Right?

Ronan swears when he sees it, and Noah tugs her close without warning, and the whole thing is too much suddenly. Even though neither of those things are, by themselves, unusual, it's a reaction to something she had no choice over and it prickles at her.

She extricates herself from Noah's grip with a little apologetic look, glancing back at Adam and over her shoulder at Ronan bewildered. "What?"

[incognoscibilis]

"A little in love with all of them," Adam reads. He doesn't quite look Blue in the eye, nor does he find any reason to question what she says. Of them all, hers is the simplest and truest fact and it's true of all of them too.

They're family now and more besides, even if it comes out in different ways.

Except now he doesn't know who to reach for first. They all stand there, quietly devastated, surrounded by the remnants of what should have been a good day.

It's almost a relief when Copper charges in, tail wagging, and steals three pancakes from off the table in one bite.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan doesn't know what any of this is supposed to fucking mean. Where are these things coming from and why? What the fuck are they supposed to prove? Are they secrets? Lies? Truths? Some fuckin' key or clue to some shitty-ass puzzle they're supposed to figure out?

He glares at Blue's back until she turns around and remembers Valentine's Day, remembers her embarrassment immediately afterward. Hers doesn't seem like a truth unless Ronan isn't included in the them. And maybe he's not. But the words catch on him, his eyes darting to Noah.

A wave of guilt crashes against the accusation under his skin.

"What fucking voice, Noah?" he asks, ignoring Copper, ignoring what might be written across his own back, ignoring the scrawl across Adam's that he's positive is true. He's not going to draw attention to that one; he's sure none of them will, not unless it's something Adam actually wants to address.

Right now, Ronan really wants to know what the fuck he's missing.

[iwasmore]

Well, at least someone's eating Noah's pancakes.

Noah returns Blue's apologetic look. He hadn't meant to overwhelm her, it was just so nice seeing something sweet. A confirmation that someone loves him. He knows they love each other in a special beyond-friendship way, the four of them bound together by shared, unusual circumstances, but...

It's just nice to see, especially after what Adam's been strapped with.

He frets a little, though, when Ronan asks him to explain what's on his back. He nervously plays with the hem of his shirt.

"Not until you show us yours," he says to Ronan. "Like Blue said; honesty. Nothing kept from each other.

[formicine]

Blue wishes, sometimes, that her cares were like Copper's. One of the cats at the cafe, Bay's(-now-Noah's) rats. Food, affection. And maybe they are.

She snaps to Copper, quietly, and wiggles her fingers as the dog, now looking a little shamefaced, comes over, tail thumping everyone in her way.

"Let's get it out of the way," she agrees, frustrated, if not surprised, with Ronan being on the defensive at everything. Like this is anyone's fault.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam, because he's already ripped one bandage off, supposes that whatever it is on Ronan's back will be the gentlest coming from him and he slips around without fanfare or manipulation so that he can see Ronan's back.

"I..." he starts and the truth is too strange to be believed. "I dreamed Cabeswater. It says 'I dreamed Cabeswater.'"

And then he remembers all of Ronan's old fears about Cabeswater manipulating Adam to make Ronan happy and the terribly clarity of it is like cold water.

[thedreamthief]

Ronan nearly tries to dodge Adam's hold. He doesn't know what's there, doesn't know if there's anything at all, but considering the range of things from Adam's to Blue's, Ronan feels a brief flash of panic for what could be on his. Fuck knows, Ronan Lynch has secrets.

But it's Adam so his only argument is a briefly raised elbow and a scowl.

He goes immediately still when Adam reads the words. It's not the worst secret he has and part of Ronan wonders if it counts at all given how often he's doubted it himself even when it felt true.

His shoulders hunch as he glances at Noah, then Blue. Then back to Adam who's staring at him, wide-eyed.

"I don't remember doing it," he confesses, watching Adam carefully. "And I don't think-- The one here feels different."

Somehow, it feels like an excuse.

[iwasmore]

Noah already knows about Cabeswater, and he's slightly relieved that Ronan's message isn't something damaging. He isn't sure what exactly could be on Ronan's back that could hurt him, or them, but this at least won't.

"The one here is different," Noah verifies. There are reasons why, and they could figure out the logistics on their own, but all Noah needs is to feel it. "It's just easier to call it Cabeswater."

[formicine]

Blue furrows her brow. It's not frustrated, or upset, so much as startled. She knows, now, that Ronan has the ability to summon completely independent life. It's equal parts beautiful and terrifying, and confusing enough that she sort of puts it from her mind most of the time.

But Cabeswater -- Cabeswater is something else. It's not life, it's lives, and time. Her brain is having trouble wrapping around it entirely.

"Your handwriting," she says, abruptly, rubbing her neck. "On the rock, do you remember? I thought some sort of time -- stuff." She wiggles her hands. "But it's not. You dreamed it that way."

[incognoscibilis]

"It does," Adam agrees. That still doesn't change the revelation of their Cabeswater, the one who'd taken Adam as its hands and eyes. He served Darrow's Cabeswater in the same way but this...Feeling suddenly heavy, Adam dropped himself into a chair at the table and poured a cup of black coffee.

"Time. Magic. It's all..." Not quite circular. Adam makes a loop in the air, the symbol for infinity, for the Magician. The Lemniscate. Infinitely and eternally twisting and flowing.

He's going to need a painkiller chaser after breakfast to deal with the encroaching headache.

"Noah, you still haven't told us what yours means." Even though he has a guess.

[thedreamthief]

There's a certainty in Noah's words that gives Ronan pause and his eyes narrow as he realizes Noah still hasn't explained his own secret, that he's being fucking cagey as shit about it.

He glances at Blue briefly and nods. "I didn't get it when we first found it," he explains. "Had a weird fucking feeling the whole time, but I chalked it up to that time is circular bullshit. Wouldn't let myself believe otherwise. I mean, fuck. Dreaming a goddamn cow is one thing, but a whole fucking sentient forest?"

It's not accurate though. He hadn't really pulled Cabeswater from nothing. It's always been. Ronan just... formed it. Even now, he's not really sure how.

Adam drops heavy into a chair and Ronan frowns at him, anxious suddenly as he crosses one arm over his chest and juts his chin at Noah. "Yeah," he says, turning his attention to Noah. "Fuckin' spill."

[iwasmore]

Everyone is looking at him, and Noah doesn't know what to say. This is something only he knows, something he's purposefully kept to himself, something they could never possibly know back home, an experience that seems impossible to explain. So he doesn't try.

"I told Gansey about Glendower," he says, glancing at each of them, from one familiar face to the next, his voice made quiet from the memory of it. Gansey's small body, twitching and dying on the forest floor. He'd watched both of Gansey's deaths again and again with the goal of returning to the first until his words stuck. The words that would set everything into motion that needed to happen. "You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live with you should not."

[formicine]

Blue's been pacing a little as they talk, and she leans on the back of Adam's chair when he sits, moving her hands to rest on his shoulders. It's not a lot of contact, something he can shrug off if he wants to, but she feels like it's needed. She doesn't think anything she says will fix what's on his back -- someone can't just be told not to think that way -- but he's among the them she loves and she can't just not.

She doesn't know what to say, just raises an eyebrow at Ronan's rhetorical question. It's -- ridiculous. Like they're friends with a lanky, angry, car-racing god.

Blue raises her eyes to Noah. His words take on a mythical quality, and she can hear them in Gansey's voice, explaining. "Is it -- true?" she finds herself asking, very small. When she speaks again, it's a little more demanding. "All of what we've done, all of -- Gansey. Was it true?" It's not that she doesn't trust Noah, but everything she thinks she knows feels like it's disintegrating.

She's never felt more completely small and mortal, in this room with a Greywaren, a magician, the time-traveling spirit who might be the reason they're all friends. And her. The best table at Starbucks.

[incognoscibilis]

Adam doesn't think about it; he leans his head back toward Blue, the back of his skull resting against her loose shirt, not actually touching her body.

They're a room full of miracles and eldritch horrors, young gods gathering for pancakes.

Everything he's known about the world for the past year has suddenly fallen into a funhouse, everything twisted and inverted, rerouted and reshaped. Noah was the one who started Gansey's obsession with Glendower. Ronan dreamed Cabeswater into being.

God. No wonder Cabeswater's Latin grammar is so atrocious.

"When did you know?" He poses the question to both of them.

[thedreamthief]

A shiver runs down Ronan's spine when Noah says those words. He can't count how many times Gansey's told him the story, uttered those same words, remembered in his brush with death. His brush with Noah.

So what the fuck does it mean?

Blue's the first to speak and Ronan's gaze drags to her, notes the way Adam leans back into the billow of her shirt. His jaw clenches and his skin prickles, but not out of jealousy. Part of him isn't sure he wants Noah to answer the question, but then Adam asks his own.

He's looking from Noah to Ronan and back and Ronan shoulders hunch as he steps back to lean against the counter, looking from Adam and then to Blue with a shrug. "Always," he says, something like guilt twisting inside him. "I mean-- I recognized it that first time. It just took a lot longer to believe it."

[iwasmore]

Noah is looking across the kitchen at Blue from where he remains in front of the fridge, the door of it cool against his back. He hears her thoughts and he misses most of what the others say.

"I couldn't have done it without you," Noah says without preamble in protest to how Blue thinks she's lesser than. Like her energy isn't important, like she's just some girl. "You stalled me decaying until the timing was just right. Fox Way kept me solid. They wanted to send me to rest, but I needed more time and you told them no." He conjures memories, the jumble of them, trying to untangle and straighten them into something that makes sense to the others, that fits an explanation they'll understand. He doesn't worry about saying too much. His pale blue eyes never leave Blue's. When has she ever been anything less than extraordinary?

"Calla touched me and knew, Jimi held me. They let me stay. Because of you. Because you saw me as a friend and not just a dead thing. I had to get the timing right," he says, but he thinks he's repeating himself now and so the words slowly trail off.

He finally looks away, blinks, glances at the others. "Everything happened all at once and sometimes over and over."

[formicine]

Blue presses her face against Adam's hair, not a kiss so much as a little familiar contact (oh god, does this thing on her back mean she really can't kiss anybody?) and sighs a little at the tension in the room. Adam's hair ruffles at it.

She's not sure who he's asking, but when Ronan answers she sort of assumes it's him. His shoulders are hunched, defensive. Blue's a little annoyed at him, his immediate reaction, but she still wants to reach out. Knowing Ronan it wouldn't be very welcome. Not immediately, not from her.

She still doesn't know what that means, and it's twisting inside of her. Cabeswater is a dream; Gansey's revival is made by Noah. Is any of them real at all?

Then he's talking, eyes fixed on her, and she looks up at Noah, surprised. She listens, confused and caught. Not all of it makes sense to her, but she finds her eyes filling with tears anyway. The idea of Noah decaying, being sent to rest, it clenches like a cold fist in her -- and thinking of herself back home with Calla and Jimi and if Noah's telling the truth, her mother -- and that, whatever reason he had for telling Gansey, she had helped --

"Oh," she says softly, overwhelmed.

"I don't understand all of this, but that's not new," she adds, a little more wry and herself.

[incognoscibilis]

Infinity, Adam thinks again. The loop that has no beginning or end. Noah made Gansey and Gansey found Ronan and Adam and they found Blue and Blue powered them all and Blue needed them, needed Gansey to live, and everything they knew of Gansey was made from Noah's dying, eternal command.

"It's a good thing you made pancakes, Noah," he says, unable to process the depth, the complexity of it all. "Since everything is circular."

It's a bad joke. Stupid, inappropriate, but he likes to believe it's the kind of thing Gansey would say right now. Gansey, master at tension-breaking. Adam, who lives in tension.

[thedreamthief]

Noah's eyes lock on Blue for a moment and he speaks only to her. Ronan can't help but wonder what he'd heard, what Blue had thought in the few seconds before Noah opened his mouth.

Not that it matters. What matters is what he says, the images that twist to life in Ronan's mind of Noah decaying and suffering and holding on because of fucking timing whatever the hell that even means. He reaches out instinctively, his good hand to the nape of Noah's neck, feeling skin and muscle beneath his fingertips.

It stops him from wanting to throw his fist into the wall instead.

He glances over at the sound of Adam's voice, notes the way Blue's leaning forward, her chin gently rested on Adam's head. His frowns and, despite himself, snorts a half-laugh. It's not an Adam thing to say and they all know it. But it's not like any of them can ever forget the giant, ever-present Gansey-shaped hole.

"We could've had fucking bagels instead," he says, giving the back of Noah's neck a light squeeze before pulling him closer against his side.

[iwasmore]

Noah smiles faintly at Adam, though part of him still seems vaguely not entirely there, not entirely in the present. The way he'd get more often as a ghost, not so much after the spell that's kept him here.

"Copper's the only one who ate any," he says sadly, and gratefully leaves his post in front of the refrigerator at the touch of Ronan's hand, leaning instead against his side. He doesn't like to think about Gansey's death. Both of them.