robobees | contact ★ hadriel.

oh. jesus i thought you were gonna say you were missing some fingers or something.
i remember your sister saying something like ... you were a firecracker.
i can't see you as an asshole.

[There's a lot Noah could say here really regarding his asshole tendencies, the first and foremost was that he was best friends with Barrington Whelk of all people. He had to at least be a little bit of an asshole. Any protests regarding that get a little derailed, though.]

you talked to my sister?

( that may be true, but no one could have been as much of an asshole as whelk, even though henry hadn't been around for that initial debacle.

and he has no. idea. the depth of that situation. )

not personally.
but she spoke about you at the last ravens day before we all graduated.
it was kind of dedicated to you. sort of.

[Noah doesn't reply to Henry's text - his own have been rerouting on their own lately and seeing how Adam and Ronan are struggling with their phones reformatting to boot Noah doesn't want to risk this to a faulty device.

Instead he just finds Henry in person.]

How was she?

( no matter that he doesn't reply; noah finds him easily enough, and the look on the other boy's face gives rise to the idea that it might be better that they have this conversation in person, anyway.

things like this, they never translate all that well through text. )

Nostalgic. ( he remembers the speech, even if she hadn't been any great orator. there are things to be said about having to address the memory of one's deceased sibling, and she'd done it well enough. ) I think it was hard for her, talking about you, but she did well. ( a beat. )

She misses you.

[Noah listens intently to what Henry is saying. What he's not saying. His eyes go downcast at the end. Surely he imagined, but... it's another thing to hear it told.

Another thing to be part of a linear timeline, to not be overwhelmed with your own personal quest, to have time to consider the people left behind who you never got to say goodbye to and never will.]

... Do you ... [No, stop, deep breath, start again.]

... What was her name? I ... I can't remember my sister's names.

( time has never been anything but linear for henry; how could it be anything else, when he himself was just as finite as the rest of humanity? to be apart from it, to be both displaced from time itself and lost within it, that's something else entirely. something that might take longer than he has on this earth to fully comprehend. wrap his head around.

henry breathes out a small noise, something both contemplative and ... careful, in a sense, because there's a part of him that realizes how delicate of a situation this is.how thin, frail it might end up. his lips purse, his brows furrow, and though he can't ever say he forgets a name, a face - skills like that, they come in handy - he wouldn't have dared forget a face like that, now that he sees the same features in the boy in front of him now, so familiar, if paled in comparison. )

Adele, I believe it was. Pretty name. It looked like it fit her.

( just like noah fit him. )

Adele.

[Noah repeats the name carefully. He's not sure what he's expecting to get out of it - some rush of memory flooding in, some lost piece forming the big picture that lets you see the whole puzzle, just... something more.

There's none of that, though. It isn't fair to say Noah looks disappointed, not exactly. This is still more than he had before, it still means something, but the loss and sadness from that loss is starkly prevalent now, at the forefront of his mind. Some of the sorrow he carried with him as a lost soul shining through.

Is it even really possible to get through the stages of grief over a loss when what you lost was yourself?

Adele. There's no sudden rush of memory, no unlocking of the name of his other sister, the given name of his parents, nothing like that. But it does feel right to say, to think, and without any other context needed he feels he knows which sister it was as well. Some of that is from Henry, from Henry thinking of her. What little she exists in Noah's spotty memory is a frozen snapshot of a little girl, it's hard to meet that up with the young woman who spoke at Aglionby that Henry saw.

It's something. It's so much more than he had before.]

... Thank you.

( it sounds, painfully, like he's testing the name out; testing how it feels on the back of his tongue, like it's been so long since it's been allowed there that it feels almost foreign, just short of familiar, and that's something that instills a feeling of … longing in his own heart. like something is being kept just out of his reach, an ache rising from the reach that falls just a bit too short, and that. that hurts.

and then there's the look that flickers across his face, like a ghost, a shadow, and that longing strikes even deeper. strums a chord of loss in him so deeply that it might as well be something of his own that has been taken away from him, been denied him, for how vividly he feels it.

he wishes there could have been more with the realization. with the reaffirmation of a memory that he'd lost, because he deserves it, the culmination of everything that had been taken away from him when his life had been cut short.

( ah, henry, how so deep when you're still sober? )

he swallows around the silence in his throat, and gives a slow shrug. ) We've all got a right to remember things. ( given almost as an afterthought, barely a whisper, though he doesn't know when his voice had gotten so small. so somber. )

And they remember you. It's why Raven Day still exists. Because of you.

[Noah doesn't mean to make Henry sad, for the other to feel so much empathy for him that Noah's own sadness bleeds out and into him.

A small part of him is still selfishly glad for it though. To be noticed, to be cared about. It always means so much to Noah. He can't be saved, so the desire for saving and empathy for his loss is everything to him. Him and Henry are still new to each other, and while Noah has his own cheating reasons for having that instant closeness it's a bit unexpected to see it go both ways.

It's no surprise why Gansey and Blue care for Henry. Noah feels confidant that Adam and Ronan will be won over and endeared to him as well.

Carefully, Noah makes his way over to sit down next to Henry, hands fidgeting with the hem of his tee shirt before folding in his lap to keep them from moving, from fussing.]

...Will you ... could you tell me about it? If you have the time. I don't think I saw it since the beginning. I was always ... somewhere else.

[He's always somewhere else, back in Henrietta, even when he's right there with his friends.]

( it's okay, noah. henry has never been so well-known for his empathy, has never shown that he's capable of as much – but there it is, in the flicker of his expression, there and gone again as quickly as it had come. what remains in its place is something a bit more somber, something determined to not let itself fall again. he'd given the other boy something he'd desperately needed, and in doing so had torn open something that had long since been sealed shut, and somehow been left to leak itself dry in the interim.

the memories are gone, just as the one they'd belonged to is convinced that he's little more than a shadow of what he had been when he was alive – and there's nothing fair about it, nothing that fits into the category of such a thing, and where there had been a brief glimmer of sadness before, there lingers the edge of anger. at the unfairness of it all, even though he's only just met this boy.

( because no one deserves this, to forget the things that had once meant the world to them, to have their own life taken away from them and tossed into the trash, like it had meant nothing in the first place. every life is precious, no matter how damaged, how battered and torn and broken. )

if all noah wants is to be cared about, he has it. by the ones he'd spent far more time with than himself, but there's still a thread of something growing within him, weaving itself into something more tangible.

the question brings him back to himself – though he hadn't realized that he'd briefly been somewhere else, himself – and a surprised sort of thing shifts in the line of his mouth, the draw of his brows. somehow, he hadn't expected noah to want to hear about it. and why not? it had been his idea, in the first place. why wouldn't he want to hear about it, seven years after it had first been put into production? )

I've always got the time, whether I have to make it myself or take it from somewhere else. ( that familiar smile is back again, the definition of henry cheng, and he reaches to clap a hand on noah's shoulder. ) Do you remember what your kids' ravens looked like when they first made them? How ugly were they? ( he teases, the edges of his eyes crinkling with mirth. ) Sad to say, they haven't really gotten much better – but the boys, oh how they try.

Edited (wording?? is hard??) 2016-07-28 07:38 (UTC)

[Noah has to smile at the quip, even if it isn't the careless grin from before and instead something more somber, something colored with that well of deep sadness within. The touch is grounding and welcoming. Even being alive, being real again for… goodness, has it been a year now? If not then almost. Noah still sometimes feels like he could lose himself to time at any moment. Nostalgia is a frightening feeling when you literally have played jump rope with time.

The memories closer to his death are a little easier to hold onto, save for the ones on the day of. The actual act of dying. It's still a mess of feathers, of colors, all making it hard to tell what was dream that inspired it and what was the actual Raven Day.]

Oh, they were awful, I'm sure. Aglionby doesn't really have arts and crafts. They should though, it's good for the soul.

I think Whelk thought the whole thing was stupid.

[Shows what he knew, really. Raven Day went on longer than Whelk did. He was never good with the simple pleasures, which were mild and ambitionless Czerny’s specialty.]

( he couldn't possibly think to know what it's like – to have been ethereal for so long, and to find oneself here and be gifted with a corporeal form. to have all of the important memories, and the things attached to them taken away, to not be able to recall the simplest things that were once at the tips of one's fingers –

he can't fathom it. can't wrap his mind around it. and that noah understands all of that more intimately than he should have any right to, it boggles the mind, and simultaneously he finds himself both curious of it and … not appalled by it, but there's a word that he's thinking of that he can't quite grasp, the nature of which means something along the lines of sympathetic. in a sense. because while noah might have offered up the notion that he'd been something of an asshole when he was alive, henry still can't believe it. )

Did he? Well, serves him right, now, wouldn't it? ( it feels like it's already been so long since the man died, some distant sort of memory that he hadn't been in the front row for, something that had been in the background before he'd been brought into the fold of gansey's group. and speaking of – )

Our gentleman king nearly lost himself this last time. ( his mouth turns down just the slightest bit, and he tilts his head to the side. ) Passed out, or came close to it, I think. Thankfully, Yours Truly was there to save the day.

[While Noah can't remember a lot of his human life, the little contextual clues leave him fairly certain of his former demeanor. Friendship with Whelk, for one. The main one. Sure they weren't close enough to die for one another, but they were close enough that a casual observer would equate them to Ronan and Gansey’s closeness now. No one stays buddy-buddy with someone like that and remains innocent, even if they were nowhere near as awful. Czerny was also callous enough to lightly ask Whelk if he was white trash on the morning he lost everything.

Ergo, asshole. Probably. Not terrible, maybe, not someone who deserved to die, but not kind. Not someone who would be good enough to be friends with Gansey and would the others.

Not someone who could have done what Gansey did.]

Thank you for looking out for him.

[Noah couldn't then. Piper, the demon, trying to hold together while finding his way back to Gansey’s beginning to complete the cycle, to start the cycle.]

It wasn't safe, all that. I think Gansey would say ‘safe as life’ though.

( it goes without saying that friendships like that of dick gansey and ronan lynch operate within different parameters from every other he's come across in his short life; innocence quickly finds itself misplaced, and there are things that come to pass that either strengthen the bond or serve to fray it, and that noah had been friends with the likes of a man like barrington whelk shows a sneak-peek of his character, something that those that know him now would find a little hard to believe.

maybe. or maybe they wouldn't – but it all boils down to no, it isn't something that justifies his death, because nothing will ever justify that. but. everyone has a little bit of asshole in them. sometimes it just takes different forms.

he waves a hand dismissively. ) All in a day's work, you know. At the right place at the right time with a much-needed cup of water. ( like he hadn't been watching gansey intently in the first place, not only because his mother had instructed him to do so, but because there has always been some deep-seated fascination that he still hasn't been able to put his finger on, but that's neither here nor there.

he gives a small laugh, at that, though. ) Sounds like him, doesn't it?

[Noah's smile becomes easier as he listens to Henry, not quite crowding into the other boy's space but feeling comfortable with it none the less. Noah's always been that way since he's been alive again, though. Now that he doesn't have to worry about things like a lack of body heat being noticed or upsetting.]

Mmm. Gansey usually does the saving. Must have been a better opportunity than the petition signing to get into his good graces though. [That comes with a bit of a cheeky grin.]

( henry can sense the way the other relaxes, and it's comforting to him in its own right, enough that his own stance loosens just enough to be more than just the nonchalant, friendly thing that he usually boasts.

this is for noah. and with each subsequent little thing that he learns about him, the more he feels like there's a budding friendship in the works. to say he's pleased, grateful for that would be putting it about as mildly as the taco bell sauce.

and he smirks right back. ) We've shared some secrets, lately. Found some mutual ground, some that doesn't involve politics.

( that cheeky grin is met with a little bit of a wink. secrets are secrets, after all~ )

Oh, I know.

[The playfulness is doing a lot to cheer Noah up, to lift his spirits. Not that he was upset before exactly - he was so grateful at what Henry could tell him, but the happiness of that knowledge being given to him once more was paired with nostalgia, with the ache of loss.

The friendly teasing, the joking around, Noah might even laugh again.]

I'm very good with secrets.

[No you aren't Noah you're good with secrets when it suits you to be good with them, when someone needs to know something you rat them out in an instant you lying liar.]

Are you?

( it's enough to bring his attention back around, fully, head tilted to the side in that way of his, an act which remains playful and easy, still just as teasing as before but with a hint of something a bit deeper, more sincere. genuinely interested in the way of keeping secrets where others are concerned, because everyone keeps them differently, he's found. in ways that don't quite fit the mold.

wherever this conversation leads them, at the very least, it's lifting noah's spirits, and that's more than he can say for anything else. he's getting more and more comfortable with him, around him, and that's something that he can't say he gets much of. )

Keeping them, telling them, or somewhere in between?

[Noah is deeply pleased to find friendship with Henry to be such an easy thing. Again, he's reminded of Blue. Like they had always been lifelong friends and it was just a matter of finally getting around to meeting.

Of course, Noah cheats a bit, he can't help it, but Henry at least seems willing to take the leap of faith with him. It's nice. So many people are guarded, and it isn't that Henry isn't, but there's still a sense of trust there.]

Yes.

[Because of course with either/or, Noah answers with a 'yes'.]

It depends on the secret. But if it's no one else's business, I'm good at keeping them.

contact ★ hadriel.

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(Woo phone tag)

woo! you're better than me, i can't write that much in my phone browser. ;;

I cheat and write in Google docs. Don't have to worry about a crash losing everything...

maybe i'll try that the next time i'm really thirsty to do a tag while i'm not on my laptop aslkh

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