affection_for_research | Open Post and Meme Overflow

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...”

As he continued to try to understand the connection between them and what Noah may have saw, he realized that his friend was worried that he was going to freak out. "I wouldn't think that you did it intentionally." But if they were linked then it might be impossible for Noah to not be nearby, no matter what Gansey was doing at that time. "I just wasn't sure if you had a choice." Where did Noah go when he wasn't with Gansey? He wanted to ask but ti seemed tactless and frightening to do so.

"Do you wake us up when we're having nightmares?" He knew that Ronan still had them. One of them almost killing him proved that, but as he slowly thought back on the past few months, there had been fewer bad dreams. He'd assumed that the ones about the hornets were less frequent because of emotional distance, but the ones related to what he'd heard on the tape... "It must be boring watching us sleep."

Brushing his thumb along Noah's hand, Gansey managed to stifle some of his embarrassment over his past attempts at dating. "It's too bad that you couldn't have commented on some of those crushes. It might have saved me some heartbreak."

Noah was always worried. Frankly, he was terrified about a lot of things. He was scared of that place he sometimes went to when he wasn’t with the gang. The emptiness that it claimed and the hole it kept digging into his head. It was like it wanted him to lose himself. Noah didn’t want that. He wanted this. He wanted the remnants of a life with Gansey and Ronan, Adam and even Blue. Losing them and disappearing were his worst fears. Those were even worse than actually dying.

Choice. “If I’m strong enough I have the choice to be where I want to be how I want to be. But...if I’m not I just go to this...place.” His own personal nightmare.

As for their nightmares and the topic of boring activities, Noah tipped his head back and snorted a laugh, “You two are never boring when you sleep. I try sometimes to wake up Ronan but it’s hard because I don’t want to wake him up at a dangerous point. You, I can wake up and not worry that you’ll bring some monster into Monmouth.” He glanced down at Ganseys thumb brushing against his hand and turned it so that their fingers were laced better, “I don’t like you having the hornet nightmare. I can tell when it’s coming.”

This being more solid thing was kind of nice. He almost forgot for a few minutes hat he wasn’t the dead kid in Ganseys group, “You’re lucky I couldn’t or else you’d never have been able to date...” That was not a ghost confession of a long time secret crush. It was not.

Thinking about how lonely it must be for Noah even with their connection hurt. Until he'd learned how to be solid enough for Gansey and Ronan to notice, he had spent years invisible, unheard. He wasn't sure what place Noah meant, but it must not be pleasant. Not the afterlife since he came back to them when he regained his strength. Someplace that Noah avoided when he could be with them.

"I've tried to wake him. Before I knew how dangerous that could be. It's almost impossible." They'd all been lucky that Gansey had rarely managed that task. Who knows what they might have had appear in the middle of Monmouth if Ronan woke at the wrong time? Smiling when Noah found a better grip on his hand, Gansey realized that he'd grown used to the cold. On the ley line, it didn't feel like Noah was drawing all the warmth out of him. It was like a constant breeze on his skin instead of being caught in the snow. "I'm not surprised. I've had it so often..."

Thinking of the nightmare and Noah's strange, heartbreaking existence, he stepped closer, pulling Noah into a hug. For a moment, he almost shivered, surprised by the cold despite expecting it, but then it became something easily accepted. "Thank you for waking me up when the nightmares get bad." He laughed softly at the idea of Noah deciding that he shouldn't date. "There wasn't a single one that you found tolerable?"

It had been lonely but more than that, it had been confusing and scary. After some time, though, he was able to move past those things as much as he could. His focus on Gansey and Ronan has helped. Watching them go through things and grow. Those things made it easier to not be so sad.

Gansey pulled him —literally pulled him, that’s how solid he had become — into a hug and for a moment Noah didn’t dare move. He was cold! But...Gansey didn’t seem to mind and Noah hesitated and then leaned into that hug, curling his arms better around the other teens back and relaxing into the human warmth of him. Would he melt, he wondered. No that was just silly.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured against the others shoulder, eyes heavy with some odd sentimental pleasure. These were the moments he didn’t want to fade away. Other memories could go but these, where he felt...something more than a void, these weren’t allowed to drift away.

“No. They were either too greedy, too corrupt, too handsy or too stupid for you. You have bad taste in significant others, you know? You’re so smart everywhere else...” The blond ghost laughed softly and leaned back a little. There were a few that were okay but most of them were just Gansey trying to find what he needed.

As he wrapped his arms around Noah, he wasn't quite sure what to expect. Cold, of course, but he hadn't quite been certain that his friend would stay solid. The ley line gave Noah energy, but Gansey didn't know if touching someone for a long period of time than the casual contact they were used to would take energy away. Maybe Noah would gather energy from Gansey and the ley line instead of the contact making it more difficult to interact with the world.

One hand strayed to back of Noah's neck, fingers gently brushing over blond hair. Gansey promised himself that they'd come to this spot more often so that Noah could be more real, have more contact with the world. Eventually, he might tell Ronan about this so that he could meet this more vivid Noah, but for now it would be the two of them.

"I didn't always mind too handsy." But the ones who had been corrupt and greedy had been painful experiences. They were part of the reason why he'd been more cautious of romantic relationship when he'd started Aglionby. "My taste has improved since those infatuations, but my timing hasn't."

It felt silly but Noah found himself almost nuzzling against Ganseys shoulder. His would fade again soon. He knew it. And he would mourn the loss of his friends warmth, his solid human, alive stature. He would miss the closeness, the normal ness of it all.

His fingers curled into the back of Ganseys shirt but he began to slowly lean out of the hug, “Yeah...your timing sucks.” He chuckled softly almost sadness ringing his voice, “We’re all pretty bad at this timing thing.”

Slowly stepping away he averted his eyes and glanced over at the farmhouse, “Ronan would like it out here. Probably remind him of home.” Ronan could come next time if Gansey wanted. Noah wouldn’t mind sharing. But when he looked back over he smiled softly and took a half step in again, “So...should we hold hands and skip around in the flowers or we can pretend for five minutes that I’m not the shy dead guy with bad timing and you're not worried the pig won’t start up by the time we go home?”

What would it be like not to have this kind of contact? Gansey could barely imagine it. He rarely thought about how much he touched the others but there was always contact between them. Hugs shared with Blue and fist bumps with Adam. Wrestling with Ronan when he tried to teach Gansey how to fight. Bumping shoulders and hands brushing while they divided up food at Nino's.

Noah had none of that unless they were on the ley line or in Cabeswater and even then most of the gang didn't touch Noah. Brushing Noah's hair away from his face, Gansey tried to ignore the sadness in his friend's voice. "Someday, we'll get it right."

Looking at the weathered house, he could see a few similarities. It had the same wild feel of the Barns beneath the remains of the old farmstead. "It probably would. The energy's similar." It wasn't the same, of course. Now that he knew more about the Barns, Gansey understood the strange, heart aching beauty of Ronan's home. "It reminded me of the Barns the first time I was here."

Laughing at Noah's suggestions, he closed the distance between them. "We could do both." Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to Noah's unmarred cheek. Cool. Not uncomfortable. Not as strange as Gansey feared. "This is your afternoon, Noah. You get to choose what we do here."

It was true that the rest of the gang had way more touching moments, literally, but Noah got to see things. He heard things. At the end of the day Noah really was a keeper of all things; secrets, moments, looks, thoughts that are never voiced, emotions that are never expressed. He knew when Ronan was in his own head, he knew when he was seconds away from blowing up. He knew when Adam was on the verge of pushing Gansey away, Ronan away because he could do things himself. He didn’t need any help.

He knew when Blue was watching Gansey; wondering why she liked him and hated him all at the same time. He knew when Gansey was thinking about Glendower, or his journal or the Pig.

Noah knew all of the things.

Gansey brushed his hair out of his face and Noah just watched, studying his friend without peeking into the recesses of his soul or wherever it was he found these things. Gansey was handsome, boyishly so, and yes he wore weird shoes and preppy clothes when really a pair of sweatpants and a shirt that had been worn for a few days probably fit him better. Everyone just saw rich kid, owner of a warehouse, Ronans keeper. He was more than that. He always had been more than that and he would eventually be even MORE than he was before.

“I don’t like thinking about it...but I hope I see you again when I can’t be here anymore...” he murmured and then blinked in surprise when Gansey kissed his cheek; the good cheek. Luckily, he didn’t flinch or make a face, or anything that would make Noah just disappear right then and there.

Noah swallowed softly and eventually gave a sigh, “Okay. If its my choice then lets just do this so if it sucks, we can agree to pretend it never happened, and if it doesn’t suck, then I can spend the rest of my day thinking of ways I’d love to brag about it but never will because I don’t want you to be known as the guy who kissed a ghost. Ronan would never let you live that down. And I’d end up tossed out the window again for violating his best friend.”

"I don't like thinking about it either." He didn't want to consider Noah being gone. His memories were sometimes hazy when he tried to think too hard about Noah, but he knew that he'd grieve when his friend finally decided to move on. Noah might not be as constant in the group as the others, at least in ways that Gansey was easily aware of, but he couldn't imagine Noah not being with them. "Whatever happens after, I'll find you again." Malory said that he had a gift for finding things. Why wouldn't he be able to find Noah when they were in the same place?

Fighting back a smile at Noah's look of surprise, Gansey kept touching soft, blond hair. Unable to stop, unable to take away such a small gesture that the rest of them would take for granted. Even with Blue's curse, he could still occasionally risk touching her. Even when he was cautious of what boundaries Adam may have related to physical contact, there were so many little things that they took for granted. And Ronan... They'd always been in each other's space. But Noah couldn't have that except during moments like this one, when the ley line's energy surged beneath their feet and Cabeswater hidden but still present.

Giving Noah a mock offended look, his hand stilled, resting on the back of his neck. "'Let's just do this.' That doesn't sound reassuring. Was there something you saw when I was with my exes that made you think, 'Kissing Gansey would be awful?'" He knew that Noah had said it because he was nervous. Gansey felt something similar, having no real reference of how kissing between someone living and another who was a ghost would feel. "Ronan would not throw you out the window for compromising my virtue. He's never beat up anyone I kissed." At least Gansey assumed that Ronan never had. If it happened, it was when Gansey wasn't around.

A strange sense of comfort washed over him at the sound of those words. Of course Gansey would find him. He knew how scared Noah was to go—and he would make it a mission to find him at the right time to make everything okay again. Ronan may appeal to Noah’s past self; the trouble making, fun one that he used to be. But Gansey was the closeness he always wanted; the warmth and affection, the grounding. Ironic, but Gansey was literally the grounding for Noah. Gansey was what kept him there for some big purpose no one really knew about yet.

Malory was a wise, strange old man. But Gansey would find him. That mattered.

Noah took his turn to look offended. How dare he assume!

“I definitely don’t think it will be ‘awful’. I just mean....lets do this and get it over with so we’re not both just thinking about it and dancing around it—by the way...not the best dancer. You got better as you got older but...” he made a little motion with his hand that said Gansey was a so-so dancer. Just to put that out there. But he did laugh because of course, “Ronans never beat up anyone you’ve kissed cause he’d rarely seen anyone you’ve kissed.” He pressed a hand to Gansey chest and put on a little mock-reassurance, “Its okay to be in love with your journal. I saw an episode on tv where a man married his car.”

Gansey didn't bother trying to deny that they were dancing around the issue or that dancing was not one of his finer skills. If he put more effort into it, maybe he would get better, but then he would have no excuse not to dance at his mother's parties. Everyone knew Gansey would probably step on his partner's feet so he was rarely asked. "Most of the people I've kissed are a safe distance from Ronan," he admitted. Most were in other time zones or other countries. There were a few from the rowing team, but that had been drunken foolishness, nothing serious that was laughed off soon afterward.

No matter what Noah said, this wouldn't be easily forgotten or laughed about later. "Maybe I'd marry the Camaro instead of my journal... or would that be too much like being in love with yourself?" It was a silly direction for conversation, something Gansey rarely allowed himself to indulge in. He was supposed to be the serious one in the group while the others acted out or simply acted their age.

When he finished speaking, he leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Noah's lips. A test, really, to see how they'd both react. To see if either one of them would panic or the weight of knowing that the teenager he was kissing wasn't exactly real, at least not in the same way that Gansey was, would be too much. "Now we've done it."

Anything Noah would have said was silenced when Gansey surprised him by leaning in and stealing a kiss. If that was a test it was more of a pop quiz that left Noah a little dazed. He didn’t say anything for a long moment, just pondering the feel of warm, soft lips against how own. It was so different than with Blue. A shock to the system that made him completely bypass the next thing Gansey said in favor of reaching up to cup his face.

He pulled him down the little ways and kissed him again, lingering and just...enjoying the press of someone else. But then he remembered the cold and broke away from it, dropping his hands back down to hover at his sides, “Much better than the last time...”

If he closed his eyes, he could imagine that he'd been kissing Noah when he was alive. Maybe after they had spent a fall afternoon tracing the ley lines. Chilled from the brisk weather, lips cooler than normal, but a sensation that was completely normal. With the two of them on such a powerful spot, Gansey could barely notice that Noah was a ghost. Or his mind refused to let himself see one of his closest friends as something that should be frightening.

An autumn afternoon or early winter. That context made it easier to forget when he felt Noah's fingers against his skin. This wasn't the disaster that Noah worried about. This was kissing someone he was a little in love with, just he was in love with the others. Noah was just more impossible.

Gansey made a quiet sound of protest when Noah moved away but didn't draw him back to him. "The last one with me or...?" He'd never asked about Noah's past, but now he couldn't stop himself from being gently curious. At the funeral there hadn't been anyone that had seemed liked they'd dated Noah. Had there been someone that none of them knew about?

Oh, no. Noah wasn’t really the type to date. Not because he didn’t want to (maybe he didn’t at the time) but because despite his excitable nature, he was not the hot guy at school. He was a little awkward and didn’t care about a lot of things; impressing girls was one of them. Or boys. Not that he realized that until after he was already dead. It took Gansey and Ronan of all people to make him second guess himself.

Maybe he wasn’t pursuing girls when he was alive because he just didn’t like them? Maybe that’s why the kiss with Blue had been terrible? It could have been a lot of different factors, but what the seven year gone ghost did know was that kissing Gansey was nothing like kissing Blue. Gansey made his faux fingers want to reach out again and do it one more time. Gansey made his body stay in place; not too far, not too close, and his eyes wandered along his friends face. So handsome. So wouldn’t have given him the time of day had time been different after all.

“No....you’re perfect.” He replied offhandedly and reached out a little, hesitant, and tapped the other teens metal clasp on his belt, “Blue was terrible. Highly don’t recommend. Two out of ten.”

"I'm not perfect." The thought was slightly horrifying. Too much the Richard Gansey III persona that he fought so often and felt like he slowly was inching towards becoming. He knew that Noah didn't know how scared he was of becoming like that, if he even had the time to become like that, but it still wasn't a description that Gansey wanted associated with him.

Ganse was still getting used to Noah being so close, that he was allowed to kiss him, and the idea that Noah might be interested in something more than kissing, no matter how impossible that might be. Then he realized what Noah had said. "Blue?" For a moment, his thoughts seemed to twist in ways that Gansey didn't understand. A jealousy that felt more like curiosity, surprise, sadness for them both when he quickly realized why Blue might kiss Noah. "I didn't know that the two of you were..." Involved? Dating? Had it been a casual experiment?

“Not perfect-perfect. Like a Richard kind of perfect. Not a Gansey kind.” Noah tipped his head, “Handsome, tiny town building, Camaro obsessed Richard perfect.”

He rocked a little on his heels and studied Ganseys face. His friends were an open book. Sometimes he didn’t mean to read the pages, but he never regret it either. He knew their hopes, their fears. And he moved his hands to hook his fingers through his friends beltloops to keep his attention.

But then he shook his head quickly, “Oh! No. No, no, nothing like that. It was sort of a mutual experiment. Didn’t go well.” He felt the jealousy and all of the other stuff rush over him, and Noah took a step away and turned to continue up the path, “Sorry. I know. I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”

It had been so long since anyone had called him Richard that it took a moment for Gansey to realize what Noah meant. Not Gansey III or just Gansey. Someone else that Gansey wasn't quite sure existed. There were certain aspects of the description that he wanted to protest, but he was sure that Noah would argue that he was incorrect. It wasn't worth the effort to try to change his mind when they were enjoying the day together.

Smiling when Noah shifted his hands from belt to belt loops, Gansey was about to pull him closer when his friend stepped away. He stood in the middle of the deserted driveway, staring, not sure what to say or what had caused the change. "Oh." There should be something logical to say, but nothing that Noah said about his experiment with Blue made sense. "Why shouldn't you have done it?"

“Because! Because...part of you likes her and...I overstepped. Sort of. I mean, yeah, but...it didn’t mean anything.” Noah shrugged a little and half hugged himself, “Sometimes I wish I didn’t...know things.”

Noah knee too much. He never said much, but he knew it. He kept the secrets safe. He did what he could and that was that. He felt that Gansey was going to grab him and stopped, and he wished he hadn’t moved away. He wanted that warmth again but did he deserve it? Probably not.

“You deserve better.” Not a girl who hated everything he stood for or complained about the way he spoke. He deserved more than the fate that Blue could give him.

"Part of me likes all of them." Ronan, Adam, Noah, Blue... they all held part of his heart. Not just as his closest friends but romantically as well. It was probably wrong. People weren't supposed to fall in love with so many people and remain in love with them.

He wanted to ask how much Noah knew, but that felt invasive, insensitive to a state of being that Noah couldn't control. He'd said that he'd seen things unintentionally because of the nature of what had happened to them both. If he'd eavesdropped on Gansey and the others, it hadn't been done out of spite.

"I don't really deserve anything." He wasn't a genius like Adam or creative like Ronan. He didn't have Blue's abilities or her passion to change the world. He had a minor talent and a gift for being a Gansey. None of those things really meant that he deserved the privileges he had or that he deserved to live instead of Noah. "I don't really deserve any of you."

Noah slouched a little at Ganseys response. They were all sort of in love weren’t they? Different but the same.

“You deserve more than you think.” Was all he said on the topic and shrugged lightly, “Anyway...kissing you was better than kissing Blue. Blue wouldn’t even be my friend if it weren’t for you.” Which could be taken two ways. Either she just wouldn’t have been his friend when he was alive. Or she wouldn’t have been his friend if it weren’t for Gansey bringing her around.

He reached a hand out again for Ganseys, “Let’s walk a little before we have to go back.”

There were so many things he wanted to say. All the thoughts that he carefully kept hidden, the ones he'd never discussed because most people would think that he was mad. Hearing voices as he died? Believing that he was chosen for a mythical quest? He'd be locked up if anyone except his friends knew the details. Even without that particular aspect of his death, he still didn't understand why he was allowed to live and Noah had been forced to die.

"You know how she feels about Raven Boys." Although why she was interested in him still eluded him. He was the worst type of Raven Boy. Generations of wealth, culture, and privilege who wore shoes that she despised almost as much as Aglionby students. "I would have been your friend, before."

Taking Noah's hand, he started walking again, wishing for things he knew that both of them couldn't have. "We don't have to go back right away. No one will miss us for awhile."

If Noah could have actually warmed, he would have when Gansey admitted he would have been his friend. He curled his fingers around Ganseys and have their arms a light half swing before glancing up to watch the side of his face, “I’m better now because of you. You would have been friends with me now.”

It felt nice to be normal for a while, though, he had to admit. He was still cold but he could touch one of his friends and pretend for a while that he wasn’t some ghost that should be moving on. He stepped closer as they walked, “Tell me if the cold starts to bother you...can’t have you turning into an ice cube when you have to drive us home.” Us. That was funny. He stepped over a weed growing in the road and looked out over the sunset.

“Can this be our secret?” He asked suddenly and glanced over again, “Someplace just for us?”

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