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“Jesus, how long have you been standing there?”
Noah merely smiles and raises his eyebrows in a silent question which Ronan answers with a jerk of his head, granting permission to enter his bedroom. Maybe he should feel more guilty about being so possessive about his room and his things now that he knows Noah is dead and is the least likely person to have any ulterior motives for being in his stuff, but old habits die hard. Even the fact that everyone knows about his being able to bring things out of his dreams hasn’t made him more easy going about it.
Before, it had been a matter of protecting himself from questions like “what’s this, where did you get it” that would be difficult to answer - now it’s just a diversion from those same questions because they would be incessant.
Noah slips silently over the threshold and sits at the foot of the bed, making a dip in the mattress enough that Ronan forgets he’s technically a ghost.
“What are you doing?” Noah shuffles up closer and looks at the box in Ronan’s hands. It’s the puzzle box he pulled from his dreams weeks ago, the one that’s still as confusing as it is useful. He’s idly turning the dials on the side to whatever word enters his mind, hoping that something will be familiar in the unknown language on one side that Blue already suspects him of understanding.
He shows Noah this with a one shouldered shrug then drops it dejectedly on the bed, abruptly bored with it now that he has company.
Monmouth has been empty all afternoon, Gansey with Adam, and Blue at work (not that Ronan gives much of a fuck where she is at any given time). He’d checked for Noah at first but his appearance has been so unreliable of late that it seemed pointless to wait for him. He doesn’t want to let on how pleased he is now that Noah is here but he can’t help the uneven smile from curving his mouth nor settling into his too casual sprawl, reclining like a prince with his ankles in Noah’s lap.
“Fuck all. Wanna toss more stuff outta the window?”
“Not a chance,” Noah smiles, leaning solid but strangely weightless arms atop Ronan’s shins. “You won’t get me again that easy.” The smile lingers and the lower half of Ronan’s legs feel warm which is his first sign that his imagination is overacting. Noah is always a shade too chilly, if anything.
Ronan remembers learning this a long time ago but never registering it as anything unusual. He has always been tactile, quick and comfortable with draping himself wherever he fancies whether it be across a sofa or a person, and Noah hadn’t escaped this at the start. Hadn’t protested either, which in hindsight might have been polite considering he knew he’d been dead the whole time. Ronan considers giving Noah a reprimand for this but now doesn’t seem like the right time because Noah’s smile has dropped ever so slightly at the edges and if there’s one person’s moods, other than Gansey’s, that Ronan is attuned to, it’s the boy’s sitting on the end of his bed.
“Alright, alright, what about if I promise not to throw you-” He asks, trying to coax back that smile but it’s too late because Noah clearly has something on his mind and looks about ready to spill. Ready enough to interrupt, even.
“I kissed Blue.”
Ronan blinks. For starters, he’s utterly perplexed how three out of the four of them can be so clearly enamoured by this girl. She’s alright, and she has helped more than Ronan cares to admit but there is something prickly about her that rubs him the wrong way at the best of times. Now this?
“When?” It’s the only question he can think of that doesn’t have an expletive because it has only taken him a moment to realise why this news irks him so much. He twists and chews on the leather band around his wrist and glares Noah in the eye.
Noah, for his part, looks bashful and smudgy. He feels very conscious of his hands resting on Ronan’s legs, of Ronan’s feet in his lap. He hadn’t meant to confess it so suddenly but something about seeing Ronan unguarded and alone and relatively relaxed had just freed up something and it just had to be said.
“Yesterday. No, before. I’m not sure, I went away afterwards.” He doesn’t elaborate, and Ronan feels an ugly surge of smugness.
“Can’t have been all that good, then, if it couldn’t even keep you in the here and now.” It’s mean but he feels hurt and somehow betrayed. Noah’s fucking dead , why does he get to go around kissing people? And why did he choose Blue ?
Ah, there it is. The choice, that’s what stings. Ronan withdraws from Noah’s lap and stands up from the bed, scowling and pushing some morsels of food into Chainsaw’s cage. Leaving the bed behind doesn’t necessarily mean Noah is left behind, though, and he should have realised this for Noah is just suddenly there again, standing just in his periphery.
Ronan realises he’s near the door and suddenly is filled with a foreign feeling of regret, a desperation for Noah not to leave.
“Why her?” His eyes aren’t as blazing when they find Noah’s this time, just a gentle simmer. He faces Noah full on, arms crossed over his chest. The rest of his question goes unspoken because they both know what it means. It’s no coincidence that Noah is the first one to calm Ronan out of his worse dreams, nor that he is the only one with an open invitation to Ronan’s room.
Noah doesn’t visibly move but he’s closer now, close enough to touch ghostly but solid fingertips to one of Ronan’s crossed arms. “She was here.” You were not.
It’s not the cold that has a pleasant chill running up Ronan’s arm. After a beat, he lets Noah tug his arms loose, unfolding them and now boldly resting a hand on Noah’s hip. This is a different deliberate touch to the others, unlike the too-casual stretch of his legs across Adam’s lap that make Declan so tightly wound to witness, unlike the sling of his arm around Noah’s shoulders when they walk through the doors of Nino’s.
“I’m here now.” His voice comes out low, a gravelly near-whisper. There’s a trace of the hurt and anger in his eyes still but it dissipates with every millimetre Noah gets closer to him. Noah might even have spoken, maybe that’s why Ronan can only focus on the curve of his mouth. It blisters inside Ronan that Blue had it first so when he finally makes his body move it’s with a sense of urgency, the hand at Noah’s hip pulling him forward and slipping round to the small of his back.
“Ronan,” Noah’s voice is little more than a facsimile of a breath, a sigh, and all Ronan needs to press forwards and cover Noah’s lips with his own. It feels wrong and right; wrong because somewhere in the back of his mind he [i]knows[/i] Noah is slightly less than real, an ethereal presence that could vanish at any time, and so, so right because they’ve shared everything else the past few years that this is just a long time coming.
There’s a ghostly hand upon his shoulder growing bolder and more colourful with every passing second and Ronan takes this as Noah’s wordless invitation to press closer, grasping the back of his neck with a greedy hand and kissing him properly, tongue probing forwards against the seam of Noah’s lips for them to part immediately with a soft sound that probably would have been accompanied by a breathy sigh if Noah still breathed.
When they part, Ronan is breathless and there’s colour in Noah’s cheeks which makes Ronan feel prideful and smug. He wonders masochistically if Blue had managed that. Then he decides to ask.
“Better than her, right?” He mumbles, staying close to Noah’s mouth and sliding an arm around his waist, moving back towards his bed. Noah’s response is quiet, a small nod that he reinforces by moving his mouth against Ronan’s again and speaking a quiet “Yeah”. Ronan responds by squeezing Noah in his grip, laying him down on the bed and covering his body with the entire length of his own, kissing him more confidently than before. He has kissed people before, only a handful, but this is - or will be - the furthest he’s got. Ronan had wondered for a while if maybe it would be Gansey in the end, even though he doesn’t particularly like him that way. He’s certain Gansey doesn’t swing that way but he’s the kind of guy that would probably do it to help a friend out which is, he supposes, kind of a sweet sentiment but Ronan is far too proud to allow that kind of pity anywhere near him.
Noah, though… they’ve always had this bond, this connection. It must be because Noah has been dead for so long and just existing in the group, and Ronan being the Greywaren, similarly existing on a separate plane without even realising it.
There’s no doubt now, though, that Noah exists. He is solid and full underneath Ronan, even going so far as to wrap his arms around Ronan’s neck and pull him down closer, more sure with every passing second. His kisses with Blue had been experiments, a favour for her even as much as it had been a satisfying of his own curiosity. Kissing Ronan feels like life . Life that he hasn’t had for nearly seven years. Life that stirs within him as he arches himself against Ronan and as Ronan answers with a rude grind of his hips that makes them both moan.
Ronan’s hands are firm and daring as they slip underneath Noah’s shirt. Or at least one is - the other one has remained outside of it and is surprisingly methodical in its undoing of the shirt buttons. He’s giving Noah one last chance to back out and is immensely, immeasurably pleased when he doesn’t take it. He breaks from Noah’s mouth to drag his kisses down to his collarbone, enjoying the hitch in Noah’s breathing that follows. In that moment, Ronan wants to do more , to really make Noah’s breath catch and release, and he growls possessively against Noah’s skin as he makes his way further down, while Noah trembles slightly under his mouth.
“Ronan,” He says but nothing in his voice is asking Ronan to stop. It’s a plea, a word on a moan that he reinforces with soft hands roving over Ronan’s near-shorn scalp. A plea to slow down, to keep going, to help him. Ronan knows this instinctively and pauses to look up at him, chin just under his belly button, but doesn’t say anything. It’s enough to reassure him with a look.
His hands feel steady and sure even though he hasn’t done this before, and Ronan has Noah’s pants unfastened and down to his thighs by the time he thinks too far ahead about wanting to be good at this. He swallows his nerves and only meets Noah’s eye for a split second as he curls surprisingly confident fingers around his cock, movements slow and steady to keep his attention divided between this and how Noah is reacting above him.
Noah, conversely, is flushed and embarrassed because his breath has hitched before Ronan even touches him. He’s exposed and very conscious of being so even though it’s nothing unusual for the others to be blasé about states of undress around the apartment (except maybe Adam who is also conscious of his state of being fully dressed too), especially because Ronan is still fully dressed. He looks down and meets Ronan’s eyes, surprised to find them so wide and reverent because Ronan has never looked like that before, not to Noah’s memory. A breathy sound escapes him, hips pushing tentatively up towards the circle of Ronan’s fingers that is growing more confident with every stroke, every passing moment. Noah’s head drops back to the pillow and it’s at that moment, with Noah’s gaze no longer on him, that Ronan leans in with his mouth.
The first sweep of his tongue up Noah’s cock is met with a strangled noise of surprise up above so he does it again, licking all the way up him but slower this time around, pausing almost imperceptibly when he reaches the head. Then, Ronan parts his lips and when he takes Noah into his mouth it feels like the most natural thing in the world; the taste of him, the weight of him, like every lingering glance he has ever noticed Noah make towards his mouth has been a precursor to this . Noah’s hand smooths over his head, blunt nails scratching at his scalp and sending a shudder down his spine, and then comes to his jaw, pressing urgent fingertips into his skin. Ronan doesn’t stop, not until he hears his name again and Noah pulls hard on his ear.
He draws back from Noah’s cock, mouth shining and still parted, eyes dark and hopeful that Noah has only asked him to stop because he wants more, not because he has changed his mind. One look at Noah’s face is enough to know it’s not the latter. In the throes of lust and arousal, Noah has grown bolder, is as solid as Ronan has ever seen him in the last few weeks, and is reaching for Ronan’s t-shirt, hastily pulling at it until Ronan gets the hint and pulls it clumsily off over his head in a rush. “Your pants,” He says, unable to reach them, but Ronan is half a step ahead, pushing them them down his hips even as he falls to the bed at Noah’s side. Where there had been hesitation, there is now only urgency; Noah pawing at the back of his neck to bring him in for a lewd kiss, the like of which he hadn’t thought Noah even capable of, and the pressing grind of his own hard cock against Noah’s hip.
“Fuck, Noah,” Ronan groans as Noah ruts back up against him, both boys on their sides and greedy with their hands. Ronan has one on Noah’s ass, pulling him closer and pressing oval fingerprints into his skin, but Noah does one better and reaches down to wrap his hand around them both. This time, Ronan’s cursing is swallowed by Noah’s mouth, cut off by the tongue pushing greedily against his own.
Noah comes first, Ronan’s name running off his tongue as he spills hot and hard and messy over his own knuckles, over Ronan’s stomach and his bed. For a heart-wrenching moment, he thinks he has already disappeared, his body feeling too light and shimmery around the edges, but he can still feel Ronan in his hand, feel their legs tangled together and Ronan’s mouth on his neck. Maybe Ronan has the same fear, for his grip on Noah is tight, too desperate to apologise for it, and his teeth are pressing into Noah’s very real shoulder as he fucks needily into Noah’s come-slick hand.
In his wildest, most vivid imagination, Ronan knows he could never recreate this. He could never do what other Greywarens have done and dream up a whole person to be with, to create the perfect match for himself. Noah is too nuanced, too dreamlike already that anything other than the real thing, than this , would fall so far short. He climaxes with a groan and bite of his teeth into Noah’s skin, covering them both in yet more come and finding that fact only more appealing. They lie wound up in each other, dirtied and sweat-sheened, chests heaving together. Ronan can’t articulate his feelings in the aftermath, doesn’t know how to tell Noah that he wants him to stay, that he’ll miss him furiously when he goes like he always does, so he kisses him instead.
It’s a testament to their underlying friendship that Noah understands what he means even though they’ve never communicated quite like this before. He keeps himself pressed close and meets Ronan’s mouth with a lazy kiss that he hopes is a clear answer of ‘me too’.