Open | Action: When the ghost becomes a boy

[deathbysk8board]

It isn't so much that Noah walks through a door. After all, he's more spirit than boy, more energy than being. But somehow, when he finds himself on a near a copse of trees, he seems to have a body. He can't tell if he's cold or not - he never felt cold, after all, even when he was dead and people said he was cold.

But this isn't Cabeswater. This isn't anywhere he's been. He doesn't know where he is and he doesn't know where his friends are.

And ... well, the things he doesn't know outnumber the things he does know and he's scared (which ... probably isn't a surprise). He wrings his hands together, turning a slow circle and he moves to where he's standing on a sidewalk.

"H-hello?" he manages. Can anyone even hear him without Blue's energy? Will Ronan and the others find him? The smudgy boy looks around, wide-eyed, his faded Aglionby sweater hanging loosely on him.

Comments

[adamparrish]

Itinere, it seemed, really had it out for Adam Parrish this month. Not only had Blue and then Gansey arrived, but now Noah was here too. It isn't that Adam isn't so very glad that they're here, because he is. Their little makeshift group is back together. The problem is that a lot has happened between him and Ronan, a lot that Adam is still so very unsure about and still trying to come to terms with for both himself and them as a couple.

Now where does this leave him? Can he still be with Ronan with everyone else here? He doesn't know if Ronan will even want him now that everyone is here to see it, to judge and mock. Adam shouldn't expect judging and mocking from them, but a large part of why it had taken so long for him and Ronan was because of Adam, not knowing if he even liked boys, knowing what his dad would call him if he knew he had kissed a boy. His dad's voice is always in his ear.

The door Noah walked into had been Parrish's Garage. And there Adam sits on the floor tinkering on some motorcycle parts and now looking up to him, wide eyed. "Noah."

[deathbysk8board]

Turning toward the familiar voice, Noah lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding (can he hold breathe? He has no idea. That requires lungs.)

"Hi, Adam."

A pause.

"Where are we? Is this the garage you work out?" After all, Adam has a lot of jobs.

[adamparrish]

Noah barely even looks shaken by the displacement, which Adam supposes seems just right. Maybe he's just displaced by nature of being Noah just like Adam is invisible by nature of being Adam. There were some things that are so intrinsic to who they are that they carries over into everything. Even walking through a door and being in a whole different world.

"This is where I work." He says dryly with a nod. The garage isn't much, but Adam fixes all kinds of things here. He might not be so good with people, but with things, well... he's the magician.

The fact that Noah is a special case doesn't escape Adam's thoughts. He knows that being here might be different for Noah than it is for anything. Luckily, the ley line is still here. Luckily, Adam can still feel Cabeswater. "Do you know where you are?"

[deathbysk8board]

There's a small pause as Noah contemplates the question and he finally shakes his head. He assumes Henrietta, because, after all, where else could they be?

"Can you see me?" he asks. All of him, he means? Or is he just a figment? "Is Blue here?" Or Ronan, or Gansey?

[adamparrish]

"I can see you." Adam nods, not even being caught off guard a little bit by the question because it's Noah. He thinks he would need that reassurance too if Adam were him. For the most part, as far as Adam is concerned for himself, he just likes to go unnoticed.

He sets aside what he's working on and pulls a handkerchief out of his back pocket to try to wipe away some of the grease and dirt from his hands, arms and face. "Everyone's here now. Gansey, Blue, you... Ronan." He explains.

For a moment he pauses, just wiping grime from his skin (mostly), before continuing. "This isn't Henrietta. It's a place called Itinere. We've all walked through a door into this place. Like you did."

[deathbysk8board]

But -

Noah's brows drew together in questioning points. "How can I be here?" he asks. Away from the ley line? Away from where he's buried? "Is it because of Blue?" And Blue's energy?

For the record, Noah has always seem Adam, especially when he sacrificed himself for Cabeswater. They may not be the closest, but Noah tends to notice things that other people didn't, ghost or not.

[adamparrish]

"The ley lines are here too." Adam spends hours out in the forests repairing them where they need to be repaired, trying to keep up with Ronan's dreaming so that he doesn't lose his mind again as he had when Kavinsky had been abusing the privilege. Now that he understood the connection there, he tries not to let it happen to him again.

In truth, as Adam had discovered shortly before coming to Itinere, the ley lines, and Cabeswater, were not just in Henrietta. They were everywhere.

"This place. My theory is that it's a pocket dimension. People here are from different times and places." It's the most intellectual and logical explanation he can come up with. "It gives us what we need." Even Cabeswater and ley lines.

[makeslouder]

She misses Henrietta. She misses 300 Fox Way and all of its many inhabitants and visitors. She still worries about her mother and where she might be. But not everything about Itinere is bad. Blue Sargent has finally gotten a wish granted: she gets to live in Monmouth. She has her own room and has already begun to decorate it with a similar tree and leaf montage as her room back home.

It's on her way back to Monmouth after shopping for more supplies that she notices the smudgy boy. Blue might not be psychic, not like the rest of her family, but there are some things she just expects. Noah had been the only member of their group (makeshift family?) not yet here. Now, the group is complete.

"Noah," she greets, walking forward. "Did you just get here?"

[deathbysk8board]

"Blue?"

Noah breathes out with a small smile and walks closer, almost automatically reaching up to touch the wayward tufts of her hair.

But he stops with a realization. "Can you see me?"

[makeslouder]

She doesn't shy away when Noah reaches out to pet her hair. It it had been anyone else, she wouldn't have allowed it. But it's Noah. And some rules are worth breaking. Like hanging out with Raven boys.

"I can even feel your hand on my head."

[deathbysk8board]

A smile tugs at the corner of Noah's mouth as he pets at those wayward tufts. "What do you suppose it means?" he asks. "That you can feel me?"

Is it simply, he's wondering, because she's Blue and she amplifies things? Or is it something else? Seeing as he doesn't know this place.

[makeslouder]

She doesn't know. Some times she can feel it more prominently than others when Noah uses her energy to support his form. Right now, everything feels normal. Or as normal as her life usually gets.

"That you're very solid right now?" It could be because of her. Maybe it's Itinere's own magic? "Whatever the reason, I'm glad. I like you better like this, Noah."

[deathbysk8board]

He pats himself - he can't help it. "I do too," he admits, his smile a little crooked, still a little unsure.

How Noah can be real is a mystery. His bones were buried, after all. "Where should we go?" he asks. "Where are the others?"

[fictor]

Guess who's sick as a dog? Yeah, that would be Ronan. Guess who isn't staying put in the apartment like he should be? Yeah, that's Ronan again. He's convinced that boredom is going to kill him long before this virus. He might be right. In any case, he's out walking along the sidewalk looking like something Death scraped off his shoe. He's got several days stubble on his jaw and he probably looks like someone that women should hide their babies and purses from. He's huddled in a zip up hoodie, hood pulled up, Chainsaw on his shoulder. It's not so much the sight of Noah that stops Ronan in his tracks (because he feels too damn bad to pay much attention to that); it's the sound of Noah's voice that makes him look.

And when he sees him that's an actual smile cracking Ronan's face. It looks wrong on Ronan's face, but right now he's far too grateful to care about wrong. He'd thought Gansey and Blue were sick hallucinations, but as they've been proven real he's more inclined to believe Noah's real too.

"About damn time you showed up," he tells Noah as he comes closer to him.

[deathbysk8board]

"Am I late?" Noah asks. He doesn't know where he is or how he got here. Turning, he looks at Ronan and states the obvious. "You're sick." His nose wrinkles, though it isn't as if he can catch anything, right? Dead, ghost. "You should be resting. Hello, Chainsaw." He isn't sure the bird has ever actually liked him. But she screamed regardless. Pretty much all the time. "Where are we?"

[fictor]

"By a few damn months," Ronan growls. It wouldn't have nearly so much ire behind it if he didn't feel so poorly. "Did you sense that with your dead kid sense?" he asks in a dry voice. He's going to ignore the prodding to rest. Chainsaw knows there's something different about Noah, even if she doesn't know what it is. She sort of caws/screams at him and presses herself closer to Ronan's head.

"Itinere. It's this fucked up place that sometimes doesn't suck out loud."

[deathbysk8board]

Giving the bird a vague scowl, Noah moves a little in counter, keeping Ronan (or his head) between himself and Chainsaw. "I don't know what you mean," he says a moment later with a sigh. "I saw you just yesterday."

Though Ronan might not have seen him, seeing as Noah wasn't very there.

[fictor]

"It's sort of like Cabeswater bullshit," Ronan answers. It's his explanation for timeline shenanigans.

If Ronan were prone to giving hugs (he's not), he would give Noah a hug right now. "Have you seen Parrish?"

[deathbysk8board]

"I - yes." Noah nods. "I walked into his garage." From the doorway he doesn't remember going through. "He told me to come see you. He seemed ... upset."

But then, Adam did seem upset most of the time, really, about one thing or another.

[therealgansey]

Gansey is still fairly new to Itinere and he's got a great deal to study about it. In fact, he's decided to let that consume him rather than the fact that they're no longer in his beloved Henrietta or in Cabeswater, that he no longer has his quest for Glendower, at least until they get back to Henrietta. He'd found his journal on his desk in Monmouth looking exactly as his journal ought to and always has. He's got it in hand as he walks, jotting notes along the pages, a mint leaf in his mouth. When he hears Noah's voice, he doesn't even look up. He's absorbed in his work and it's normal to hear Noah, isn't it?

"Blue is still back at Monmouth, I believe."

He does stop before he runs into Noah and looks up, a smile curving his lips. "Hello, Noah." As if he just remembered that Noah hadn't been here a moment ago (because he did).

[deathbysk8board]

"Hello, Gansey."

There's a relief at seeing Gansey. Gansey knows what's going on, after all. He might not always listen very well and says stupid stuff some times, but, well, since he found Noah's body, it kind of feels like they're bound together (even more than they already were, he means).

Noah tugs at the hem of his sweater, back to not knowing what to do with his hands. "I guess you can see me?" Does that mean he's more himself?

[therealgansey]

Actually, Gansey has no idea what's going on, but he is trying to figure it out and he will pretend he knows what's going on. Noah is his friend, or he was before he found Noah's body (and figured out that Noah died in his place). Now, they are still friends, but Noah is right: they are bound together.

He nods at Noah's question. "I can see you." He closes up his journal and tucks it beneath his arm. "Did you just arrive?"

[deathbysk8board]

"I guess so." If by "arrived," Gansey means that Noah had found himself here, on the other side of a door that he doesn't remember going through.

"I feel different," he adds, hands fluttering and landing on himself before moving again, like birds who don't know where to land.

[therealgansey]

Gansey frowns a little at Noah's words. It worries him when Noah feels 'different'. What if this place can't sustain him and he fades away? They don't have his body here to bury on a ley line.

"Different how, Noah?"

[deathbysk8board]

Shrugging, Noah looks down at himself, at his hands patting his chest, his belly. "I - I don't know. Solid."

He looks up at Gansey, brows drawn in a question. "I don't understand."