affection_for_research | Open Post and Meme Overflow

Well I think you are.

Even with your silly shoes..

I'll take that as a compliment even with the comment about my shoes.

Good.
It was.
Can we go now?
I’m sort of...wanting that kiss now

After confirming that they could try the ley line experiment soon, Gansey checked with schedules to make sure no one would be expecting them, and then consulted his journal for the ideal spot. After documenting weeks' worth of readings on the ley line, he should have a place listed that would allow them to see if the theory worked.

The place he chose didn't have the strongest readings, but it was near Cabeswater and the farm was abandoned. No one would notice a disappearing/reappearing teenager or a bright orange Camaro. After he set the GPS and texted everyone to let them know he was working on research, he grabbed the keys to the Pig, locked up, and headed for the Camaro, expecting Noah to show up when he was ready.

Noah was way too excited but he waited until Gansey was closer to the stronger bits of ley line to finally pop in. He never got to ride in the front seat of the pig; that was Ronan’s spot, and occasional Adam and Blue. But never his. Ever.

Pulling one foot up onto the seat and locking one arm around his knee, the blond ghost looked out the window and for a few long moments just existed in that space, with Gansey and not the rest of the gang. Well, they were the gang, he was like the icing on top that appeared every once in a while. There but never fully there.

He looked over to watch Gansey drive, surprised that the pig was actually working without a hitch (yet), and smiled, “I never get to ride up here. It’s weird, right?”

If Gansey wasn't used to Noah suddenly appearing, he may have driven the Pig into a ditch or oncoming traffic. Instead his hands tightened on the wheel and he let out a slow sigh as his heart rate kicking up for a moment, then settling toward normal.

Automatically, Gansey began to chastise Noah for putting his foot on the seat and then remembered that his friend couldn't harm the upholstery. Ignoring that impulse, he remained silent, letting Noah watch the stretch of farmland pass by. Having Noah in that spot was unusual, his attention drawn to the seat beside him more than normal. He was so used to having Noah in the back, watching him from the rear view mirror that it was like he couldn't quite believe that Noah was in the front.

Gansey shouldn't say that it was weird, but it was true. "It is. I'm sorry that you don't get a chance to sit in the front more often." It was easier for a ghost to squeeze into the backseat of the Camaro than a living teenage boy. Even if Noah was alive, he probably would have ended up in the back since he was smaller than some of the others. "If you took up more space, then you could fight Ronan for that spot."

Noah hummed softly to himself and looked around the front of the car. This was Ronan’s spot. It would always be Ronan’s spot. And he wouldn’t fight him for it. “No. I wouldn’t fight Ronan. Ronan has enough fights in his life to take care of.” In truth, Noah worries a lot about Ronan. The middle Lynch brother was his number one charge and he watched him, and watched out for him as much as Gansey did. Usually, it just took place whenever Ronan was off doing things he shouldn’t. Like meeting up with Kavinsky and racing when he should be doing homework.

He reached a hand out to stick it out the window but it wasn’t the same. He remembered the way wind felt against his skin and in his hair. It was silly things like that you took for granted. Or he did at least.

But on the bright side: if he hadn’t died he never would have found Gansey and the gang. He wouldn’t have found friends that meant something.

He looked over again and dropped his hand into his lap as his foot met the floorboard again, “Maybe if time had been different and I had met you guys before, none of this would have happened, you know?” Watching Gansey, his face softened a little, “I don’t think you would have liked me back then, though. You guys made me better than I was.”

Glancing over at Noah, he was almost surprised that Noah noticed that detail about Ronan. Most people thought that Ronan had instigated the problems in his life and believed that Gansey should stop helping him. Few noticed the details that Gansey did. Of course Noah would see them, he realized. Noah could witness things that the rest of them couldn't, unseen and unhindered by the rules of the world that confined them.

"He does. I think it's getting better, but I'm still worried about what will happen later." Gansey was planning ways to protect his friends, but they weren't in place yet. As long as 'later' didn't happen before the time he anticipated, they should all be safe.

Smiling when he noticed how much Noah was enjoying the drive, he reminded himself to ask Noah to accompany him more often. Noah probably wouldn't mind his aimless trips around Henrietta.

"If time had been different... I'm not certain how much would be different. You'd be alive, but I'd still be searching for Glendower. It wouldn't have stopped Niall's death or Blue being the best table at Starbucks." He shrugged, slowing the Camaro as a deserted driveway came into view. "Adam would have still been stuck in that trailer." His voice picked up a particularly brittle edge as he thought of Adam's parents. "We may have had more time for the search, but the main events would have been the same. You didn't cause any of that."

As the Pig began bumping along the gravel road, weeds scraping lightly over the undercarriage, he shook his head at Noah's comment. "How much of what we wouldn't have liked was because you ran with the wrong crowd?" Gansey didn't want to ruin their time alone by mentioning the name of Noah's murderer. "We may have made you better, but all of you have made me better. I would still be travelling if it weren't for all of you."

Noah noticed everything. He didn’t always understand it all, but he did pick up on things that the others wouldn’t even notice. He knew things he shouldn’t even know. Things he sometimes wished he didn’t know at all. But that was the way it was and he would rather be a secret keeper than cross over into what felt like absolutely nothing. He didn’t want to go to that scary place.

“Ronan will be okay, you know. He will. You know who he really is deep down and the messes he gets into can be cleaned up. He just needs to heal.” Noah shrugged, “You help him but sometimes your help isn’t the kind he needs. Sometimes he has to work through it himself. Or...sometimes...someone else is what he needs.” Even if Ronan didn’t always realize it. They weren’t Noah’s secrets to tell. “You don’t have to fix him, Gansey.”

That was a heavier topic than they needed right then and when Ganseys voice took on that edge to it, Noah wanted to reach over and touch him; to calm him, but he didn’t. He did glance up the driveway once before looking back over, “What if I did? What if my dying was the catalyst that gave you all that fate? What if...” he shook his head and leaned back into the seat. No, that was a pointless topic.

The next topic was sour, too, “I had bad taste in friends back then.” Back then...back then was not now and he hesitated before reachingnover to brush his fingers lightly over the top of Ganseys hand; as solid as he could manage for the time being, “You’re important to all of us. We wouldn’t be us without you.”

"I know he will." Before he had occasionally doubted it, but now that they were through the worst of the sorrow and grief, Gansey knew that Ronan would be all right. "I'm trying to give him the chance to work it out himself or be with that someone else." He couldn't feel hurt or jealous of that truth. Gansey knew his days were numbered. Ronan deserved to be happy, to find someone who would help him find himself. "I'm just making sure that he has what he needs to fix himself."

His chest hurt with the weight of his fate, throat tight with the knowledge that he'd accepted when he was a boy. He'd always known that eventually his second chance would disintegrate, but he hadn't expected to have a timeline for that event.

Shaking off that thought, he made a disbelieving sound as the Pig rocked its way out of a pothole. "You dying did not compel Adam's father to hit him." His voice was almost unrecognizable from the one that Gansey normally used. The polish gone, leaving the anger that he rarely expressed. "Your death didn't compel someone to hire a hit man to kill Niall." Perhaps Noah's death might be connected to the strangeness of the ley line, but those two things couldn't be connected to Noah.

"You had bad taste because we weren't around for you to meet." The words had a trace of his usual charm, his expression a curious mix of the politician's son and the teenager who had fled whenever he'd gotten too close to anyone. When Noah touched his hand cold lines moved along the back of his hand, strange, but not unnerving. It was simply Noah, more solid than expected, but the chill familiar. "We wouldn't be us without you." And Noah was what Gansey should be focusing on, not fate or pasts that couldn't be changed. "Do you feel more you? We're getting close to the spot."

Twisting in the seat to better face Gansey, Noah decoded it was best to drop the other topics of their conversation. Ronan would be fine. He was learning how to do things himself and Gansey helped to guide him as much as he could. Ronan knew his friends would be there if he really needed them but they all needed to let him make those decisions himself.

Noah wasn’t to blame for all of the horrible things in their lives. It part of him would always be scared that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to some of it. He wasn’t good when he was alive and maybe that was his punishment. He shook his head and focused on himself and Gansey for the time being. It was easier to be more...more wherever they were headed.

He poured more of that focus into it and drew in the energy he could grab onto as he hesitated and then laid his hand over Ganseys. It was still cold but as the moments ticked by, he became more solid. Sometimes this was easy. Sometimes it was harder but once he could store it up, he could be himself. A colder more dead version of himself but he was able to curl his fingers around the other boys hand.

“Yeah...sometimes it’s easier to fake it than others....” He half smiled and looked up, “I’m lucky. Not all dead guys can do this...”

Letting out a slow breath, Gansey let go of the frustrations and fears that were his constant companions. Ronan, Adam, Noah, Blue... they'd all be okay when he was gone. He needed to ignore the future and and enjoy the time he had left and help Noah become more 'alive', if such a thing was possible.

The sensation of cold wrapping around his hand caused him to look away from the rutted driveway to glance at Noah. He wished that he wasn't driving so he could focus on the changes the ley line was creating. Noah's touch had been faint, present more because of the chill than actual weight of a hand against his own. As they moved closer to the coordinates, Gansey could feel Noah become more solid.

It should have been terrifying, that definitive proof that Noah wasn't alive, but instead it was proof of how truly magical the world was. The wonder of it drove away the last, lingering shadows in his expression. His smile turned to delight as Noah became more 'real' than Gansey had felt before.

He wanted to tell Noah that he didn't have to fake things, but he had the feeling that such actions weren't just to spare their feelings. "I'm glad that you're one of the ones who can. Even if we need to visit abandoned farms for it to happen."

Noah hated being dead. He hated feeling like he barely existed. But he was even more terrified of not existing at all. Especially after being with Gansey and the others for what felt like a very, very long time.

The blond ghost was more solid than he had been when he had shares that kiss with Blue back in town, and when he smirked it was more real than it probably had been since he really had been alive. Watching Gansey light up was one of his favorite things; usually it was whenever he had a breakthrough or when he was Jose deep in his journal. But this time it was there in his face, excited and wondrous over the ‘magic’ of it all. These were the things that made people fall in love with Gansey.

If Gansey looked at you the way he looked at clues or magic, you were lucky.

Noah was mostly solid but he was still dead.

Even still, he dropped his eyes to the hand he was holding. He brought over the other hand and sandwiched Ganseys between them; half lacing their fingers just for the sensation more than anything. It felt...nice. Something so simple felt nice. It almost made him sad because he knew it would go away when they went back.

“I’m sorry that I’m cold.” He drew his hands away and folded them in his lap again, “Probably not the most pleasant feeling in the world, right?”

As Noah began moving their hands, he relaxed to make it easier for his friend to manipulate his fingers. He wasn't certain what Noah planned, but he didn't want to do anything that would hinder his efforts. What energy the ley line gave Noah should be used to make him feel more like his living self, not trying to move Gansey's hand.

Excitement whispered along his nerves the way it did when he found some teasing hint that would lead him onto a new pathway for the chase. Noah's smirk, the weight of fingers that hadn't existed before threaded between his own, they were all something new that promised glimpses of mysteries that Gansey always needed to answer. It was exhilarating, a hope that maybe the wish could be used to give Noah another chance with them.

"You shouldn't be sorry for that. It's part of who you are like me needing glasses." Before Noah could completely pull his hands away, Gansey grabbed the nearest one, fingers tangling with Noah's before let go. "Actually, it's rather amazing." As he spoke the old farmhouse came into sight. It looked faded, tired, but solid. Gansey had explored it once when he'd been caught in a thunderstorm that should not have happened. Impossible like most of Henrietta and most of Gansey's friends. "How many people can say they've held hands with a ghost?"

Slowly looking up, Noah eyes the farmhouse and tipped his head as he picked up on the details; the ones he shouldn’t know but did because Gansey did. It was funny, he knew the whole point of coming out here (first to see if it made a difference in his composition and second for a kiss that probably shouldn’t happen), and yet, he was a little shy about the whole thing.

This was Gansey! Leader and Geek Genius!

True, it would ease any curiosity he had when it came to Noah but still!

“I knew you would stop at holding my hand.” Of course he would. After enough time he probably thought about it and thought it would be too weird. “Are we going inside that?” He asked, motioning to the farmhouse itself.

As he shifted the Camaro into park and prayed that it would start later - he really didn't want to explain this to Adam or Ronan - he considered Noah's words in the quiet left by the Pig's silenced engine. Noah must have meant the kiss they discussed before. Sitting back against the warm vinyl of the seat, he considered how best to answer.

"If you're referring to my comment about ghostly contact, at this point, all I've done is hold your hand. I haven't said that I would stop with just that." Gansey had offered a kiss, but he wouldn't push for one. "Whether we kiss depends on both of us, not just me."

The idea of kissing Noah brought with it a tangle of excitement and worry that somehow their friendship would change in painful ways, but he hadn't changed his mind. During his travels, Gansey had kissed - more than just kissed - some of the more alluring people he'd met during the search. That aspect of the promised kiss didn't worry him, even if he did wonder if kissing a ghost would be the same as kissing someone alive. Unintentionally hurting Noah was the more worrying detail of their experiment.

"We can, if you want. I think it's centered on the ley line. If it's not, we can wander the fields until we find the right place."

“Let’s go then.” Noah lightly slapped Ganseys hand and left the car. Of course the way he left was questionable and too fast to really track with the eye but he shifted from one foot to the other on the dirt and shoved his hands into his sweatshirt pocket as he waited for Gansey to make his much more human and alive exit.

The farm was rundown but it looked nice and the fields were pretty. Even if the farm wasn’t at the center of the ley line, Noah felt stronger here and that was enough. It took so much energy to exist when you weren’t supposed to and right now he didn’t feel like he was running on a quarter tank. It was like Blue but better. Ronan but better. It made him equal parts excited and sad. Sad because this was just a bandaid to his real problem. It wouldn’t last. But he was going to enjoy it while he had it.

As for the kiss, “I still want it, Gansey. But I won’t be upset if you decide it’s too weird. Besides...wouldn’t want to make you fall in love with someone who has to cross over at some point.” Not that Gansey would, ever, fall for him of all people. Blue had a much better chance at that.

For a moment, Gansey's mind slowed when Noah left the car in a way that was definitely not human. Then reality - or the reality that Gansey was used to - returned and he knew that Noah had simply disappeared from the inside of the Pig to wait for him outside of it.

Getting out of the car, he shoved his keys into his pocket, again hoping that the Pig would cooperate later. As he moved closer to Noah, he realized that his friend was more real than usual. Even when he was around Blue or Ronan, he didn't look this solid. Only in Cabeswater did Noah seem this present. Letting out a relieved sigh, Gansey smiled at Noah, grateful that his choice had worked.

It was a temporary solution, but one that they could give Noah whenever he wished. Briefly, he considered seeing if he could buy the deserted land so that Noah could be here all the time, but he remembered that Noah wanted to be with them even if it meant that he was less himself than he could be in other locations.

"My definition of weird is different than most people's." He lived with a ghost and held hands with one. He'd been attacked by nightmares and drove a dream Camaro. Weird was relative. He almost made a flippant comment about crossing over, but that would hurt them both. "I will be careful not to fall too hard for you if we kiss."

Noah grinned a little and looked back out towards the farmhouse, “I know. I’m irresistible.”

Taking off from the little dirt road and into the grassy area, he watched the weeds and the flowers they wandered past shiver in the breeze. He couldn’t feel it but he remembered what it felt like when the flowers moved like that.

“It’s weird to think that I’d be older than you right now,” he started and glanced over as he pulled his hands out of his pocket to brush his hair back; habit, “So if you want to up the weird...not only would you be falling for a dead guy but you’d be falling for a dead old guy. How’s that?” He chuckled softly and glanced away again, just happy to have company outside of the warehouse. Normally he was alone when he did this sort of thing and usually he didn’t bother trying to have a form.

All of his friends were irresistible and Gansey knew he was a little in love with all of them, even when he knew he shouldn't be. All were impossibilities, but that didn't mean that occasionally Gansey didn't let himself pretend that it wasn't true.

Reaching out, he brushed his fingers along some of the flowers, keeping to the old driveway to stay away from the types of potential dangers that Blue always chastised him for ignoring. Not that the caution mattered. They were too far from help if he did fall prey to one of the disasters that Blue had railed about.

Making a thoughtful sound, Gansey shrugged at the comment about ages. He thought of Noah as the youngest in the group, but he was right. He was the eldest if years since his death were counted. "I never really considered it, even after we knew the truth." That fact didn't matter except when Gansey considered how lonely it must have been for Noah. If he was aware of that time.

"I've had crushes on professors, so it isn't that weird." Attraction had never been traditional for him. At least not when compared to what he'd noticed among his classmates. As he spoke, he couldn't stop himself from noticing how much Noah was acting like he was alive. Gestures that were uncommon in Monmouth and speaking in ways that Gansey could easily imagine as the Noah that had been at Aglionby. "If I didn't know you wanted a kiss, I'd wonder if you were trying to talk me out of it."

“No,” Noah shook his head and looked over as they walked, “Not exactly. I just...I know what I am and I guess, I worry about what it would feel like on your end.” Cold obviously. But would it be gross? Would he even taste like anything? And if he did...what? Not her he was looking for tongue or anything. No, he was but that wasn’t the point.

Hedging closer to Gansey he stepped over a rock and ended up back on the road with him instead of the field. “Yes you have. Lots of crushes that never made sense to me but it was sort of cute watching you nav—-“ oh crap. Oh crap. It wasn’t like he had been spying on Gansey but, the guy was sort of his anchor in the world and he was with him a lot more than the teenager realized. Noah hesitantly glanced over again, “I only saw a little...”

There. That would fix it. No questions were needed. Just an innocent ghost being a peeping Tom on a boy he didn’t know at the time and he lacked the social skills to be polite and not sort of exist and watch the show.

“It was before I knew how to do this...” he motioned to himself. The fullness.

"I'm not sure what it'll be like for me, but have you considered that it might be weird for you? I'm warm. That's not something you're used to." Noah touched them, but not in any way that was as intimate as a kiss. That sensation might be just as strange to him as it might be to Gansey. He paused a beat then added, "And you don't know what types of things happen at my mother's parties. That changes my perceptions of what kisses may be like." Kissing Noah, no matter how cold it might be, couldn't be as unnerving as some of advances that he'd unsuccessfully eluded.

As Noah moved closer, Gansey caught his hand, goosebumps creeping up his arm before the warmth of the day banished them. Looking over at Noah, he tried to figure out how he'd know about Gansey's crushes. The obvious ones, he had to know about. Gansey had almost admitted to them before, but he rarely talked about the others. "I did not have that many!" Perhaps more than he should have considering he was traveling alone and, as Adam regularly pointed out, he wasn't suspicious by nature.

"My calls with my exes?" That would give Noah some idea of Gansey's previous crushes. "Or did you see the emails on my laptop?" Those sources might make it seem like he'd had lots. Or Noah may have seen some of his silliness during his first few weeks at Aglionby. "Whatever you saw before you could be more you, is forgiven. I know you wouldn't have intentionally invade my privacy."

Noah pursed his lips for a long time and eventually his tongue snaked out to lick the corner as if he were debating something really important. He squeezed Ganseys hand and looked away for a brief moment before looking back over, pausing to shake his hair out of his eyes in the process.

“Don’t be weird, okay?” He began. Good job, kid. Way to make it sound like nothing. “I was sort of around a while before you noticed me. I had to learn how to appear to you but I’ve be around you for a long time. I don’t know why. I just...you were there one day and I couldn’t leave you. It was like...magnets? Sort of?”

Definitely something. He watched Gansey grow up from small and geeky hot to just geeky hot. “I tried to not be nosy but you were so different from the kids I knew.” Smart. Funny. But not so cool that he was annoying.

Gansey had a difficult time not staring at Noah. This had to be the closest version to the teen that Noah had been before his death than the other versions that he'd seen. He wondered if they would have gravitated toward each other in a similar manner as the same way he had with Ronan and Adam. He thought that they would, especially when Noah seemed to be one of the few people who wasn't afraid of Ronan's temper.

Giving Noah a questioning look, he was about to ask what would qualify as weird when Noah began his explanation. As understanding took hold, he wasn't sure how he should react to the idea of Noah always being with him. The logical response would be anger or alarm. Briefly he wondered how much Noah had seen, but he also considered how much worse it would have been for Noah to be tied to the spot of his murder until the ley line had awakened.

"Matchy matchy," he muttered, thinking of Adam's comment weeks ago. "Like drew like. We both died on the ley line so we became connected." Gansey's concentration faltered for a moment. "Since the hornets nest?" If that was true, Noah had seen years' worth of his life and... Even years of Gansey family training and sharing a locker room with the rowing team couldn't quite keep him from flushing slightly as he considered what Noah had seen. "Uh - so you know about my crushes and my exes."

Noah watched Gansey take in that information. He could almost literally see the wheels turning in his friends head and if he could fully blush like a normal person, he would have been so embarrassed but he didn’t want to hide something like that from Gansey if he didn’t have to. He had lots of opportunities before but it always felt strange to bring up when there were others around.

Ganseys blush made the ghost stop walking and hold his hands up a little in some weird show of ‘Wait!’ Before he shook his head, “I am not that ghost, okay? I never, ever, everrrrrrrr peeped on you or anyone else when you were naked. I never stuck around for intimate things. None of my business. I did watch you sleep though. Not in a stalker way but more...because of the nightmares. I hate seeing you and Ronan have nightmares...” it breaks his heart to see the pain and fear on their faces. Well, if he had a heart.

He paused and then nodded again with a little shrug, “I know enough...this thing didn’t come with a filter...”

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