itinere | OPEN: That's what friends are for [nightmare event]

Entry tags:

OPEN: That's what friends are for [nightmare event]

[warnings for violence and murder as Noah relives his death over and over again]

Even Noah has noticed that Whelk is getting a little obsessed. This whole thing with Glendower and all that? Noah doesn't really understand it that much, but it's not too bad. It's just ... well, it's a little much, you know? And sometimes, there's a look in Whelk's eye that makes Noah nervous; it's there and gone, not really lingering? But still, Noah sees it. But Whelk is his best friend. It's nothing probably.

But here they are again, back out at the creepy woods. "What are we looking for again?" Noah asks, climbing out of his car (sweet car, right? Cherry car) and leaving the keys in it.

"We'll know it when we see it," Whelk says, coming around the back of the car; Noah can only see him a little bit then only hear him.

"You say that - "

The pain is blinding, hit right when Noah turned to look at Whelk, right across the face, right into what feels like his brain. He goes down in a heap, his limbs not working too well, then he just starts to twitch. Even as he's lying there, he sees his best friend loom over him, the look on his face practically unrecognizable. "A sacrifice," he says with a shrug of his shoulders. "That's all you are." Then he's gone and Noah can feel his limbs moving, can feel things slowing all over again. Then he's dead.

It really sucks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One of those times that Noah feels blunt force trauma to his head, the one wielding the weapon is one Adam Parrish. Adam has been walking around in dreamland as well. A few times he's ended up standing over Gansey's body with blood on his hands. That terror still plagues him even if he thinks his sacrifice to Cabeswater has changed that outcome. Or at least he hopes it's true.

This dream is different though. He's still in Cabeswater, but he has something in his hands... a skateboard. And now on the ground before him is Noah. "Oh no..." He says quickly, dropping the skateboard to the ground and falling to his knees. "No..."

He shakes his head quickly as Noah lays there bleeding out. Oh his eye looks bad. Really bad. "I didn't do it. I didn't do this." He didn't, did he?

But he still feels the indention the skateboard had made in his palms. The force of the impact still reverberates in the bones of his arms. His muscles still feel the exertion of the hit. He did do this. But how? Why? "I don't understand." He shakes his head again, trying to get Noah up with an arm beneath his shoulders. "Noah... we have to get you to a hospital. Come on."

Everything hurts. Noah is having trouble putting thoughts together. Only one eye opens as he recognizes the voice.

No, Adam didn't do this; Noah knows that much. He just can't seem to get the words out; his tongue feels too thick and he has trouble putting thoughts together, too. He even tries to shake his head, but that just makes his whole body jerk more than it already is.

He's dying. But Noah doesn't want Adam to think he did it, because he didn't.

Adam did do this. He felt the skateboard in his hands. He felt the impact of wood on skin and skull. He'd felt the crack of skull that should have been hard and solid. He did this. The prophecy might have been null and void. He had hoped it was. But no, now he knows it's just been twisted into this monstrosity. He is no good. He is a broken and ugly thing just like he's always been told.

The proof was in that prophecy he'd seen in Cabeswter. The proof is here now on the ground in front of him. Adam is trying so hard to lift him up but Noah is already dead weight even when in the process of dying.

"Please, get up. Please." He whispers. "Come on, Noah. You have to get up." But Noah isn't getting up and Adam can't move him. He looks down at him and screams angrily. "Get up!" Anger is easier than whatever the hell else is happening inside of him. "I didn't do this! Get up!" Yes, he did this. He did this. He did this.

It's strange that Noah's limbs don't seem to want to behave. He can't seem to make them work. He can feel everything, though, the way Adam tries to lift him, the way his body seems to almost shake (or is that Noah? Who knows?).

When Adam yells, Noah seems to twitch more, his body seeming to respond to Adam's tone.

How long has it been? Two minutes? Then there's only five to go.

When Adam just looks at him with that glassy-eyed expression that only speaks towards death, Adam can barely stand it. He can barely stand that his hands did this to Noah. He can barely stand it that he hadn't seen it coming. He should never have thought the prophecy null and void. He should never have thought that he could bring about anything good.

His own eyes turn white, completely white, no pupil, no iris. His fingers dig into the earth at his knees, clawing into the dirt. "Cabeswater! I sacrificed myself to you. Take me. Me for him. My life for his. Take me!"

A breeze floats through the trees, seeming to whisper against their skin. When Adam speaks again, it's in Latin, a language only he and Ronan are fluent in, a language Cabeswater seems to understand even better than English. ""Animam meam pono pro his. Accipe me. Cabeswater eripe me, non illum."" Vines start to wind their way from the ground up his arms and feet and legs.

No, Adam, no.

Noah watches all of this, hears all of this and he can't do anything about it. He can't stop it, not for another five minutes (four and a half? He's not sure). Adam needs to live. Noah is dead, already, after all. Adam is alive. Adam is loved.

Noah is Noah.

He shakes his head as best he can. No. Stop.

Adam does not need to live. He has very little to live for, especially with this being his fault. He dealt that blow. That blood on Nah's face is on his hands. No one would ever forgive him for that. Not Gansey. Not Blue. Not even Ronan. Who else matters? No one. He'll never be able to look any of them in the eye again. They'll never look at him the same either.

"Accipe me. Tuus sum ego. Accipe me. Non eum." The vines take him over, skin growing hard with wood and stone. Eyes still blank. Cabeswater is so willing to do what he says when his emotions are so raw.

"Accipe me. Accipe me. Noli accipere coniugem ..." His lips can no longer move, frozen in place.

A growl comes out of Noah's throat, somehow. Adam!

Noah feels his entire body jerk and give a mighty heave; he can't control where it goes, but he tries to draw attention away from Adam. To get Adam to come to his senses!

Except that everything hurts. Noah feels a tear leak from the corner of his eye. It seems he can't even do this.

Adam is frozen in time, a part of the forest. His choice. His sacrifice. But for what? Noah is still dying. Nothing has changed. Things are just as they were. Noah will be a ghost. Adam will be a horrible excuse for a human being, a killer, and perhaps, ironically, also a ghost. Only he won't be in Monmouth. He'll be lost in Cabeswater.

Useless. Worthless. Good for nothing piece of shit.

A slight breeze, barely anything really, wafts through the space and Cabeswater takes the last of what was Adam. The visage of him seems to crumble away piece by piece, sawdust and leaves on the wind. Stone crumbles into a heap at Noah's side. Adam Parrish is a memory and nothing more.

Jill has been dream hopping from one horrific thing to the next all night. So while she's thankful that she hasn't been the star of any of those nightmares she doesn't blink twice at suddenly being in a forest. It's weird... and a little bit creepy. But also, the forest is kind of beautiful. It feels alive, as if it's its own entity, mystical and magical. She likes it.

When she spots the two boys ahead, she doesn't say anything initially. Calling out to strangers is not something she's known to do. Jill isn't that sociable a person. When she notices that one of those boys is Noah, she thinks about calling out to him then.

That's when it happens. Noah gets hit by what looks like a skateboard. And hard. It's bloody and horrible. Jill is not unaccustomed to this kind of violence. And she's learned to stand up for herself (for the most part) and especially for others when it happens.

"Hey!" She runs in and grabs the skateboard before Noah's attacker has a moment to think twice or react. She lifts the skateboard up and brings it in sideways to slam the edge against the boy's jugular, lifts it again to slam the flat against the back of his head. And again, until he falls to the ground too and croaks out that she's a crazy bitch.

"Yeah, I'm kind of a crazy bitch." She agrees, not thinking twice of bringing the skateboard down onto his face in almost the exact same place he had hit Noah. The impact isn't quite so hard, because she isn't a big guy. She's a girl, a tiny girl. But it does the trick and knocks him unconscious.

She turns to Noah. "You okay?" He doesn't look okay.

His body jerking and twitching beyond his control, Noah blinks one eye at her.

What is Jill doing here? She shouldn't be here. She shouldn't see this.

But he can't help how he's moving or how he looks. "J-J - " he manages.

Jill has seen death before. Sometimes when her mom or dad would take her with them to get a fix somewhere, to buy drugs on a street corner or in some run down house where that sort of transaction took place, she's seen things. It's never pretty. It's not always loud either. But strangely, and this might be Jill's twisted point of view, sometimes it's so damn poetic that it can seem peripherally beautiful.

Lie the calm in the eye of the storm. Like a landslide when looked at from afar. Like the deepest parts of the ocean where things are so still and quiet and dark until there's a flash of brilliant light from some alien like creature. Jill is more transfixed than she should be. She should do something.

Instead she gets down on her knees beside him and reaches out to dip her fingers in the blood at the side of his face. "Is this how it happened?"

His breathing coming out hitched and staggered like a breeze caught in between tall buildings. He can feel her touch eve as he still looks at her. He pulls another breath in and it hurts; his chest feels like a balloon that won't inflate. He's getting dizzy.

Still, even with all of that, he can nod. Yes. This is how he dies.

Her fingertips, where they have touched Noah's face, come back bloody. His face is smeared where she's touched. Her blood smeared fingertips touch his lips, knowing he's having trouble speaking. A slight shake of her head combined with that touch to his lips, shows that he doesn't have to speak. She gets it. The nod is enough. This is how Noah died.

Jill leans down to kiss his lips, the kiss sweet and gentle. Barely there but still something real even in this nightmare-ish dreamscape. When she pulls back, she looks into his eyes and waits, just being there with him through this. Her hand carefully pushes back through his hair.

"We're not really here, you know." She says. "I can't save you. But we're not really here. You're alive. You have friends who are way better than that guy." She gestures to the unconscious guy on the ground. "You're better than him."

Another breath hitches and Noah can feel a tear escape from his good eye and drizzle down his cheekbone to drop into his ear.

It's weird to know that: to know that he's not really dying and yet it feels so real.

Is he better than Whelk, though?

Something gets caught in his throat and a cough rattles his whole body and he can't do a thing about it; he's sorry, Jill, for coughing at you, but he can't control his arms. Adam and Ronan and Gansey and Blue. He can see their faces so clearly. And Jill is so pretty here; he can't even look away.

Jill knows evil. She knows people who need a fix whether it's another hit of heroine or a fix of power. There really isn't much difference. Addiction is addiction no matter what you're addicted to. Addiction makes you do things you wouldn't normally do, especially if you're already predisposed to being low of character.

Noah is definitely better than whoever that dude is over there, still passed out and bleeding. Maybe Jill is the one with questionable character. He could be dead from her blow. She doesn't really care. All she cares about is Noah.

This is his dream. He controls it. She'll let him play it out how he needs to. The only thing she can do here is be with Noah while he passes, that's what she does. She smooths his hair back and hums some dark, haunting tune to him, never looking away so that he doesn't think she's unable to sit here with him no matter the circumstances.

In that moment, staring up at her, Noah feels himself fall in love just a little bit. Somehow, in this dream, he can feel himself go still, no longer twitching, no longer jerking and being embarrassing. He isn't sure if his face is still caved in (probably). He just listens to her sing and feels something he isn't sure he entirely recognizes, but he has a hunch.

It's peace.

Jill won't change what she's doing. She'll sit here and hold his hand, brush his hair back with her other hand and continue to hum. The song almost sounds like a lullaby, but the tenor of it is dark and haunting, a little bit sad. It won't be anything Noah has heard before. Jill makes it up as she goes.

When he life finally leaves his eyes, she'll still sit there with him, close his eyes, lean down to press a kiss to his brow in spite of the blood there. Then the dream begins to fade away and she's back in her own consciousness.

She's not certain why she's been going from dream to dream. If this is what Ronan experiences on a regular basis, she's not sure how he deals with it. The dreams have all been horrific and she's not certain if they're nightmares or memories that have been plaguing all of Itinere. Not that her own dreams have been anything wonderful lately.

Right now, she'd give anything to go back to those nightmares. Blue Sargent had never really had anything significantly tragic happen in her life. All of her nightmares had been figments of her imagination. But she knows this is real. She's never seen it like this, with Whelk present and in the woods, but she's watched Noah play out his death before. She's been to these woods, found the car and the body.

All she can do is stand there with tears filling her eyes and her hands covering her mouth in horror. Blue should be used to this scene by now. Noah's ghastly replaying of his death. But seeing it in its full context, it's different. Knowing that Noah's alive here in Itinere?

"Oh Noah," she finally murmurs, swallowing hard. "Noah."

The one eye that still works rolls in Blue's direction.

Why does Blue have to see this? Noah has acted it out, sure; it'd been perversely satisfying to do that from time to time before. But not since he's been alive. And he doesn't want to hurt Blue. He doesn't want to make her worry.

Except he can't seem to help it. His body is moving; jerking and heaving, and he can't control it. He can't do anything, it seems, except die.

She swallows hard when she notices the eye roll in her direction. Somehow it makes the whole scene more terrifying than it already is. This is Noah, she tells herself. Noah. He's acted this out a million times before in front of the rest of them when he had been a ghost. She's been in this glade before. She and Gansey had found his body.

It's Noah and it's a dream and since it's not Ronan's dream, it can't hurt her. Even if she could, it would be worth the risk, wouldn't it? Because he's one of her boys. Because she can't just stand here and watch.

She feels as if she's moving through quicksand. It's hard to lift that first foot from the ground and push herself forward. It's hard to keep moving. Blue knows the outcome of this dream. Nothing she does now will change what's already happened. He doesn't have to be alone this time though. She keeps moving forward until she finally falls on her knees besides his body. Blue bites her lip as she does her best to pull him in his arms and choke down the sob that threatens to break at the sight of blood.

"I'm here, Noah," she whispers. "You're not alone."

He's probably getting blood on her. That's horrible and Noah doesn't want to do that. Of course, he can't do anything about it. But here he is.

Blue smells good, too, and he pull in a jerky breath, the sound coming out soggy and strange. "B-B - " he tries again to no avail. Leave him to it, right? They know how this ends.

It's just blood. It'll wash out. That's what you're supposed to say, isn't it? It'll wash out and anyway, she doesn't like this sweatshirt all that much to begin with. Do bloodstains even transfer in a dream? Does any of that really matter? No. Not in comparison to Noah. The comparison doesn't even come close.

"You don't have to say anything," she whispers reassuringly, a couple of tears falling on to her cheek. She strokes his hair gently. The gash on his face is horrible. Everything about watching Noah relive his death is horrible. "It'll be over soon. And then we'll go on like we always do. Maybe you can teach me that game of throwing things out the window."

Lucy is there to see it happen the first time. It takes the breath out of her and brings tears to her eyes. "Ohgodohgodohgodohgod." The words flow over her lips in a waterfall. She's not even sure what she's saying. She's not even sure what's happening. She can't breath though and her chest feels like it's exploding. It's probably a full minute before she rushes to Noah's side, sitting down to cradle his head in her lap. Her hands smooth his hair and tears trickle down her cheeks.

"Noah. It's Lucy. I'm here, Baby."

One minute down, six minutes to go. Noah feels like he can feel every second ticking by in the way his heart thuds, seeming to work so very hard. He blinks myopically up at Lucy who is too pretty and too alive to see such a thing as this.

He wants to tell her not to cry. He wants to tell her that it's okay. He's done this a few times, already - he's relived it a few times. It's just that this time feels so real. Whelk has already gone off somewhere and all there is is Lucy.

Technically, it's not the worst thing that she's seen. She lived in the City for years and it hadn't been kind to her. This place is much nicer in comparison.

Her hands smooth across his brow, brush his hair back, flutter down his cheeks and his neck, avoiding the head wound that she knows he's not going to recover from. It wouldn't matter if he did tell her not to cry; it doesn't matter how many times he relieves it, it's horrible and she hates that this happened at all. She's just going to continue to cry, thank you very much. She'll save the worst of the tears for six minutes and ten seconds from now. For the moment, she's going to continue to ramble to him. "If Jill were here, she'd probably sing to you, but you got stuck with me and you really don't want to hear me sing; it's headache inducing." She winces at her words. "I mean...normally. Anytime."

The laugh that Noah tries to make comes out clogged and broken sounding, more a cough than a laugh. He has no idea really if Lucy can sing or not, but Jill has a really pretty voice.

Would Noah's life have been different if he had known Lucy and Jill when he knew Whelk? Would they have been able to see Whelk for what he turned out to be? (Which is, for the record, a really shitty guy.)

Noah likes to think so, even as his eyelid flutters at her touch; she doesn't even need to touch him and she does, and it's so soft and gentle and it makes him feel terrible since he can't control the way his body moves now, even if he wanted to. He wants to apologize to Lucy, for making her see this. It's not fair and not nice and definitely not decorous, which would be what his mother would remind him of.

"Shhhh, you don't have to talk. You should probably have figured out that I talk enough for at least two people. Maybe three," she tells him, trying to smile despite the tears that are still racing down her cheeks.

Sadly, Lucy's judgement isn't always good. She tends to see the best in people even when there's not a lot of good to be found. Jill is better at mistrusting and making people prove themselves. Though, if she's still around when Noah goes through this again, she'll prove just what an excellent weapon a four inch high heel can be and she won't hesitate.

She knows she doesn't need to touch him. She's trying not to focus too much on the way Noah jerks and twitches. She'll only cry more if she does. Instead she focuses on the side of Noah's face that isn't ruined. "You know, after this, I might make you take me on a proper date. Or maybe you can just come over and watch movies with Jill and I." Because she's hoping that he comes back from this. After all, he's dead anyway, isn't he?

That's what Noah figures. That this is just ... it's just a dream or something. It's not like he could really, really die from this.

Right?

Oh, God, he hopes he's right.

Because a movie, or a date? That sounds ... it sounds really, really, good. "D-d- "

He wants to say something. To say yes to the date. Yes, to the movie. Yes to Jill and Lucy. Yes, yes, yes.

His body gives a big seizure which jerks him nearly sideways. Sorry about that, Lucy. It's going to get worse before it gets better.

They have to be right. Noah can't die this way again just to be dead.

He tries to speak again and Lucy leans over to press a kiss to his unruined cheek. When his body starts to seize again, she leans over him, pressing her elbows into his shoulders, her arms along his chest. Her hair falls in a curtain over him. There'll probably be blood in it, but she can wash that out. For a moment, she can't speak. Sobs catch her breath and her cheek is wet against his. "I'd make fried chicken," she eventually manages to say, the words mangled by emotion and tears.

That seems like such a strange thing to say. It's almost funny.

Noah still doesn't eat much; he still doesn't much like food, but if Lucy will make fried chicken, Noah will eat it.

He'd tell her that if he could.

But he can smell her and feel her hair against his neck and this is one of those moments when he really wants to be alive. (A lot of the time, he's ambivalent about that, really. It's been with Lucy and Jill that Noah has felt that wanting-to-be-alive urge most keenly.)

And with that, in this very-real-feeling dream world, he feels himself go still, feels his breathing ease.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OPEN: That's what friends are for [nightmare event]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject