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

[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.