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Um, hi everyone, am I- am I doing this right?

[Noah is still learning selfies and how to use the forward facing camera, so he's not exactly centered in the frame, but he's trying, cheek bruised and hair the very definition of bedhead.]

So, did - um. So I woke up okay, uh, and I found this?

[He holds up a book, Oh, The Places You'll Go! by one Dr Seuss.]

I didn't bring this with me. I - um, it's kinda funny, I haven't actually thought about it in... gosh, years? It was one of the books I had as a kid. I dunno, it never meant much before but reading it now...

[He pages through it, pausing at a few places and smiling a little before looking back up to the camera.]

Um, I'm pretty sure none of my friends had it either so... any ideas? Did someone lose a book? Uh, yeah. That's. That's it.

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A Doctor Seuss book? No.

[Ronan watches what Noah is doing without much interest, but he flops himself in the chair all the same.]

Do you think they're trying to say something about your reading skills?

[Noah can at least try to clean his room a little if Ronan is going to hang out. Also leaving these all on counters is just asking for him to knock them over and spill it everywhere.

He digs up his glitter pends to write labels for them while he stashes them though. Date bottled, fruit bottled with.]

Haha, maybe. I said that to Adam, he got a Latin textbook.

Of course he did.

[It figures. Ronan watches Noah write for a few moments, before he laughs softly to himself and leans his head against the back of the chair.]

'What's the use of a book without pictures or conversation?' [And then, more to the point and not quoting funny little books-] I'm sure he's happy with it, though.

He seemed pretty happy with it.

[Which is something that makes Noah smile. Adam isn't exactly a 'hobbies' kind of guy.]

Did you get a book?

You know, I always wondered: what's the point of you asking people questions?

[He seems genuinely curious... as well as dodging the question, though it's not a particularly invasive one. Ronan will probably bring it up later, if he can remember to.]

I thought you could read minds.

[Noah doesn't press, because it isn't something that needs pressing. He also doesn't really look up at the question. Even when he's directly called out, Noah doesn't really admit to things.] I think you guys are just easier to read than you think.

[Ronan gives him a flat stare.]

I'm not easy to read.

[Noah shrugs easily, trying not to look too nervous under Ronan's stare. He's getting used to it, and to being alive and dealing with it.]

Okay. If you say so.

[Ronan is absolutely easy to read - he's always mad.]

[There's a long pause. Ronan stares at him for awhile longer, before finally turning away, a little guilty for trying to intimidate a friend like that.]

...Alice in Wonderland. That's the book that I got.

[Any discomfort is quickly forgotten and forgiven.]

Oh! You like that one, right? Another person here got one too.

[He thinks about holding his tongue again, shrugging with a noncommittal answer- but Noah isn't Kavinsky. There's no point in hiding from him.]

I had it when I was a kid. It was- [Ronan shrugs, resting his chin on his arm balanced over the back of the chair.] -my dad liked it.

[Noah smiles so bright when Ronan confides in him with that information. There's a difference between knowing and being trusted. The second is always much better.]

Do you think that's why you got it? Because it was important to you?

[Noah's smile doesn't really lift his spirits, but Ronan supposes that it's probably a good sign. It's not really easy to talk about, but Noah does good- addressing the parts of the subject that deal more with Ronan than Niall Lynch. Ronan is less likely to immediately shut down the conversation that way.]

I don't know, is Doctor Seuss important to you? Maybe they just gave us all kids books- except for Adam, because he's an old man in a kid body.

You know, it's kinda funny... [Noah shoves a few of the containers into his closet before he gets up and goes over to where the Seuss book is resting on his bed. He flips it open, pages through the little bit of it there is.]

It wasn't. Not when I was little. I never thought about it after I grew up. I wasn't much of a reader except for school.

But ... it is now. Important. I don't know, maybe it's dumb but it makes me feel better.

[He watches as Noah moves around, opens the book, and Ronan tilts his head, staring at the comical pictures upside-down from where he's still sitting on the chair.]

You know, it's kind of a thing that parents get that book for kids when they graduate.

[Noah never got that. It makes sense why it would mean so much to him.]

It is, isn't it?

I don't think it's the kind of thing my parents would have done.

[His parents weren't really the Doctor Seuss type, Noah's pretty sure, from his vague memories of them.]

But it is a book that like... it's for kids but I feel like it means more when you're older and you have a chance to know, y'know?

[Ronan is quiet, thinking that over for a moment.]

Does it upset you? That back home, you won't have that?

Edited 2015-11-30 05:09 (UTC)

What, a life?

[It's the kind of hit Noah takes before Ronan can properly swing it. If he says it himself, brings it up, acknowledges at the forefront first... it doesn't hurt as bad.

He closes the book, sets it on a shelf.]

What kind of life would I even be able to have? Noah Czerny is dead and buried. If I show up like this - if I were still alive I'd be in my mid-twenties. Pretty clearly not that.

[Ronan rubs awkwardly at the back of his neck at the way Noah handles his question, though he's thankful that he at least doesn't have to clarify what he means. It's not the sort of thing that anyone really discusses with Noah, and even though Ronan knows why that is, he wonders sometimes if they're not all still in some strange form of denial.

When they get home, Noah will be dead again. Fading again. That's what he has to look forward to.]

At least if you were in your twenties, you could legally buy alcohol.

[As if that's actually the point at all.]

With a dead person's ID?

[Noah knows what Ronan means, what he means to mean, but he can't resist the phrasing of it.

Noah Czerny lost any future he might have had seven years ago when it was taken from him and given it to Richard Campell Gansey III instead. It isn't that he doesn't mind, it's just that, well.

If someone had to have it, the world needed Gansey more. Who would have saved Adam from the world and Ronan from himself if Gansey wasn't there? One life for three. Noah didn't have a choice, but if he did then he'd make that deal, every time.

Especially these three lives.]

I try not to think about it. I mostly fail at that, but - it isn't worth getting upset over. It can't be changed, being sad and afraid won't stop it.

[It's true, and none of them think about it much, especially not when Noah is here and... whole. It's not hard to see that he's falling apart at home, coming undone as Cabeswater unfurls into each of them.

Ronan thinks that he'd be afraid, if it were him. Knowing that the end is coming, and not being sure what it means.]

'Death is swallowed up in victory,' [he recites quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.]

Maybe it'll be a relief.

[Noah shrugs a bit.

It's a terrifying thing, dying not just once but then having to do it a second time, the slow but unstoppable unwinding, the decay into nothingness or - or being absorbed entirely into Cabeswater until there's nothing of 'Noah' that remains except an after image.

Maybe that's what he is now. Maybe the majority of 'Noah' went on to something better, some afterlife where the soul is eternal, and this part is just what was left behind and held onto by Cabeswater. It doesn't really matter. He's still dying, a slow death he can see coming and can't do anything to stop.

He doesn't think about it, as much as he can. It's too frightening. Considering the fear he has to live with (or pointedly not live with) maybe Noah's cowardice is understandable, just a bit.]

I'll miss getting wasted.

[Ronan frowns, pressing the pad of his thumb against his lip for a moment- the movement a mirror of one of Gansey's own nervous habits, but Ronan doesn't really even realize that he's doing it.]

I don't know, there's that whole 'water to wine' thing. Bet they have a lot of booze in- [a pause, and Ronan shifts in his seat, a little uncomfortable. The word Heaven sounds so trite, like it's lost meaning. Noah attends church with him, sure, but it's difficult to know where the companionship ends and the faith begins. So, he amends, quickly-] -in whatever's there, after.

[Noah notices even if Ronan doesn't, eyes tracking the movement, a mirror of Gansey's. It makes sense. They're like brothers, traits picked up from close contact even if there's no shared genetics involved.]

Oh, well if I've got divine keggers I guess it's fine then.

I hate it when I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

[Ronan stands then, shoving his hands in his pockets.]

I should get going anyway. I just wanted to drop in.

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