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

[fictor]

He snorts, dismissing the comment about how he doesn't look good. He knows he looks like death. He has a mirror, that he obviously did not use this morning.

"You and Parrish..." Ronan shakes his head. "I'm dying of boredom. Let's go race in the BMW."

Yeah, he's got the BMW here. No, he probably shouldn't be driving in this condition. No, he doesn't care.

[deathbysk8board]

Noah is far too used to being part of Ronan's recklessness. There's a moment now, though, that he hesitates. He's solid and if he's solid, that means that he can be hurt and that something can happen to him. (He's not known for his courage, after all.)

Then he just nods. All right. "Is that how you'll show me around?"

[fictor]

"Might as well see it from the car," Ronan answers. Honestly, he will understand that. He might not like it or agree with it, but Ronan has always been reckless. He really will miss doing reckless things with Noah though if he decides that he's going to play it safe.

[deathbysk8board]

Noah's been a coward, for as long as Ronan has known him. Perhaps it started with Whelk's hitting him with a skateboard until he was dead. Or perhaps it had been the case before.

Either way, now that Noah has a body, he's kind of keen to keep it.

He climbs into the BMW, though, and fastens his seatbelt, holding on to the handle of the door.

[fictor]

Perhaps, but he'd been a coward that Ronan could talk into doing death defying feats simply because there was no death-defying to it for Noah.

As he should be. Maybe he'll rub off on Ronan.

Ronan pulls away from the curb, hitting the gas as he does so. There's not much traffic in Itinere, which suits Ronan just fine, at least until he's itching to race someone. "So what have you seen in the town so far?"

[deathbysk8board]

"The playground. Some buildings."

Yeah, Noah's not great with specifics. "I'm just been ... trying to figure out where I can go, if I ... " He shrugs again. "If I fade away or anything." His free hand splays. If he just ... goes ghost again.

[fictor]

"I'll drive you out past the edge of town toward where the barns are. See if you disappear." And if he does, Ronan will make a u-turn and figure out where he reappears. "Don't go anywhere no matter what happens. Just keep your ghostly ass right there," he tosses a side glance at Noah when he says it.

[deathbysk8board]

He might not have noticed, looking at the road, how Noah smiled at that, wide and dimpled and very pleased to keep his "ghostly ass" right there.

And when Ronan really guns it as he always has, amidst the roar of the dream engine can be heard laughter.

"Did you dream the Barns here?" Noah asks a little bit later.

[fictor]

Ronan is accustomed to driving this fast and he's driven this road so many times since he discovered the barns here. He catches that smile out of the corner of his eye. It makes him really glad that he said it. Noah doesn't smile often.

Ronan echoes that laughter. Every time he drives this fast he thinks this is what happiness feels like.

"I don't think so," Ronan answers. "I wished for it. Adam says he didn't feel it pull on the ley lines and something this big...he'd have felt it. That happens sometimes. You wish for things. I wished for this," he nods to the BMW.

[deathbysk8board]

"You can wish things into being?" That sounds crazy. Noah looks between Ronan and the road. "Everyone can do this? Or is it a greywaren thing?"

[fictor]

"Everyone as far as I can tell," Ronan answers. "I dream things though. I dream them all the time, but I didn't dream the car and I didn't dream the barns."

It's more than a little unsettling. Ronan knows that even if he is grateful for it.

[deathbysk8board]

And they still appeared. Interesting, at least to Noah. Not that he knows what to wish for. Not that it matters. He keeps a strong grip on the door handle and giggles a little again when Ronan takes a tight turn. "Maybe my Mustang."

[fictor]

And they still appeared. Of course, Ronan had had to find the Barns. He'd been driving the road one night and caught sight of them through the windshield. For a moment, he'd thought he was hallucinating. Ronan can't help but grin at Noah's giggle, at the wish he supposes he might make.

"Fuck yes. Finally I'll have someone to race."

[deathbysk8board]

"Knowing my luck, it wouldn't even run," Noah says with a shrug.

And it would have MURDERED written all over it. "What are you supposed to be showing me?" he asks, looking back out the window.

[fictor]

"Adam will fix it then," Ronan responds glibly. He's got no doubt that if the mustang doesn't run, Adam can fix it.

As for the murdered part, they'll figure out how to sandblast it and paint over it if that's the case, but if it's just in pollen and dust, Ronan will wash it for him.

"Figured I'd take you out to the Barns,' he says as he slows the BMW down and crests a hill. The Barns lay in the valley below.

[deathbysk8board]

"Oh," Noah says both to the idea and the reality laid out in front of them. "Wow."

He holds tight, asking, "and it just showed up here. Just ... all of it? Like this?"

Yeah, he'll definitely wish for his Mustang.