maskormenacelogs | you'll know i'm out of hiding

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you'll know i'm out of hiding

WHO: Noah

admemoriam and Ronan

nightmarist
WHERE: The Meadows
WHEN: Sunday afternoon
WHAT: A (re)introduction to Raven Camp
WARNINGS: Ronan Lynch's mouth

[The cars are the first sign that they've arrived - four of them, covered in rotted leaves, some of the tires muddy and flat. A newer car, clearly Ronan's preferred model, sits to the side of the house; a similar four-door rests close to it, clearly abandoned for some time longer. A fair replica of the Pig is parked some distance away, closer to the graffiti-covered barn. And between them all, its cheerfulness out of place in the farm's dismal atmosphere, is Matthew's bright yellow Mini Cooper. They're the detritus of a carefree summer, and the sight still makes Noah's heart ache.

Some feet ahead, a hen wanders across their path.] Here it is. [An unnecessary announcement, but he feels the need to fill the void.] The Meadows.

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[Ronan feels like the ghost of himself, standing beside a former ghost, staring at more ghosts. He tries to imagine what this place was like when it was alive. Instead he can't stop thinking about Noah alone here after the rest of them passed on. Like the Barns, this is a beautiful place from which all happiness has fled, replaced with aching nostalgia.

He wishes he could at least remember what the Meadows were before.

His face is complicated when he tears his gaze off the farmhouse and turns it to Noah. He doesn't quite know what to say. In the end, he settles on:]

I'm not sure I should be here.

[It's as if he's visiting his own grave.]

[Noah shakes his head, stepping over a beer bottle. The deadness is like a fog, choking everything across the property, but some part of it seems to have sensed the return of its creator. The clouds fold away just an inch, letting the sun glint off of the BMW. Inside the house, a dog starts to bark.]

You made it, before I ever showed up. You belong here more than me.

[Ronan shakes his head, doubtful about that. All of this is so far beyond his ability. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to create something so massive. A car was difficult enough.]

I don't remember a single thing.

[It's like the opposite of déjà vu, this sense of truly feeling very strongly in his heart that he has never been here before. Not just a lack of memory, but a void of memory, where something is supposed to be but isn't. The sense of it leaves him shaken.]

[Noah hears the doubt and fear in his mind, and pauses. His breath fogs, and he reaches out to place a hand on the Mini.]

You made this for Matthew, on his sixteenth birthday. He drove it into a lake, and we couldn't stop laughing, even though the rest of you were pissed.

[Next, he moves towards the leaf-covered sports car beside Ronan's.]

And Adam bought this one, with his own money. Everyone was really proud, but especially him. No one could keep their hands off it.

[Ronan can imagine it, of course, but imagining isn't the same as remembering. He feels so far away from everything Noah's describing. He thinks he understands why he'd wanted to run away when everyone else began to disappear.

Noah's still here, though. How could he have abandoned Noah?]

We don't have to stay here, you know. We could find a new place.

I can't.

[Even at his worst, even at the bleakest end of December, he would have found it impossible to leave this place. It means too much. It's seen too much.]

... Sometimes, I find pieces of thread from Blue's sewing kit, all pressed into the floor. And Gansey's closet still smells like him, even though he's been gone since August. And there's still a chunk missing from the wall by the stairs, from this party we had. [He doesn't even know who caused it, honestly, but it's familiar. It's important.] This is the only place I got to live with all of you. I can't leave it.

Okay.

[That's enough of an explanation for Ronan. As much as this place makes his heart ache and leaves him wanting to dive straight to the bottom of a bottle, it's where Noah wants to be, so it's where Ronan will stay.]

Let's get on with the tour, I guess.

[Ronan's acceptance is clear as a bell in Noah's mind, and he pauses for a moment, looking out at the field and the barn.]

... Thanks.

[For staying, he doesn't say, but it shows in the way his shoulders relax.

He starts up the stairs to the front porch, and the barking inside gets louder, more excited.]

That's Max. He'll shed on you.

[His tour doesn't seem to cover the array of porch junk - a small rainbow of rusted spray paint, a few empty liquor bottles, a long-deflated pool float. There might be a nice redneck charm to it, in other circumstances.]

[It's hardly anything to thank him for. Seems like it should be a given, really. Of course he'd stay wherever Noah wants him, and he hates whatever stupid-ass tantrum he must have thrown in the past that got them to this point of estrangement.

Ronan follows close behind Noah, eyeing the various pieces of junk as they pass. It's comforting to look at. They make it feel like home.]

I think I'll survive.

[Considering he already got his ass kicked in this outfit, smudged with dirt and blood.]

[Noah opens the unlocked door, and fifty pounds of excitable pit bull leap out. Max immediately shoves his head into Ronan's hand, panting and squirming and generally making an adorable idiot of himself, before zooming off into the yard after the hens.]

He was Adam's too.

[But it isn't sad, like most else of what he's said. This time, it's fond.

The door opens into the living room. It's scattered with much the same as Monmouth may have been, but it's been pushed gently to the sides, piled lovingly around the sofa. Noah steps over some roller skates and a Latin book to flick on the lights.]

There's basically just PopTarts, but help yourself. Kitchen's that way. [He gestures to the swanky if disused kitchen lies through a dark doorway.]

[Ronan gives the pit bull its due amount of attention, letting out an unexpected laugh as it snuffles against his hand and runs a circle around him before disappearing into the yard. It's a good way to warm him up to the place, some of the uneasiness shaking off of him as they step inside.

He wonders what it would have been like to actually live with Adam. Here, like some kind of family.

And he quickly banishes the thought, focusing on the interior. It's a cozy place, warm and well-loved. It reminds him of the Barns in that way, even more than the location.]

I didn't know you liked PopTarts.

[Excuse him while he gets another small thrill over the idea of Noah eating. Noah is alive. That's such a huge deal.]

The blue kind.

[That's his favorite food: "the blue kind". Of what, it doesn't really matter. But as long as it's unnatural and turns his tongue a funny color, it's good.

Noah kicks off his sneakers - there are mismatched socks underneath - and gives the rest of his interior tour in a series of fluttering gestures, starting with the stairs.]

The loft up there was Gansey's room, and Blue's was above that. [The sappiest of possible living arrangements.] Adam and Matthew were down that hallway- [He points at a door behind the sofa.] There are three bathrooms, and laundry's in the basement, and there's one room with nothing but a Murphy bed and dog statues.

[Ronan kicks off his boots and ambles after Noah. He goes along at an unhurried pace, registering the details of the house and trying to picture himself in it with all the rest of them. He can hardly believe the whole gang was here, under one roof together, and somehow they didn't leave much structural damage in their wake.

This, possibly, is due to the absence of Ronan Lynch from the equation.]

Sounds stupid.

[The Murphy bed, he means.]

[You were a part of it, Noah thinks.

You slept in Adam's room, he decides not to say.]

Your room's in the barn, [he says instead.] But you don't have to stay out there.

Damn right I'm not sleeping in the barn.

[First off: Ew. Second: He said he'd live with Noah. That means in the house. With Noah.]

Was I always in the barn, or did I ever crash in here?

[He would not for a second believe he ever slept in Adam's bed.]

[Noah nods, trying to contain a growing smile.]

There's a bed in here you liked.

Don't say the Murphy bed.

[The smile turns into a poorly-masked laugh. He's not going to tell him it was Adam's, but that doesn't mean he won't have fun with it.]

It's through the bathroom upstairs. You can't miss it.

I swear to God, you little shit, if it's a room full of toilets, you're going out the window. I don't care how many bones you break.

[He means that in the most loving way. But fine, he'll take the bait. Ronan turns to stomp up the stairs, passing doors until he finds the bathroom, then kicking open the alleged bedroom door.

A second later, he calls out:]

It's perfect. I'll take it.

[Noah follows him up the stairs, footsteps light but solid. The loft was clearly Gansey's domain, scattered with nerdy volumes, half-painted shoebox buildings, and a pair of muddied boat shoes. In the middle is a pulled-out sofa bed - oddly, it's the only one in the house that looks slept-in.]

Sometimes it quacks. I don't think your dreams know what swans sound like.

[By the time Noah's joined him, Ronan has a hand planted firmly on the swan's beak. He pats it a few times, like it's a good boy.]

Or I knew exactly what I was doing. Quacking swan. Genius.

[But for real, he's not sleeping in here. Ronan saunters back out to the loft, and his heart hurts a little because he sees where Gansey was and Gansey isn't anymore, though his face remains its neutral level of impassive.]

I can sleep on the floor.

[But Noah shakes his head, trying not to frown at that pain that he senses.]

You take the sofa bed. I've got a room.

[It pointedly was not included on the tour.]

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