AN: I rewatched the film. I fell in love again. And for some reason, I decided to post this up on this pen name instead of my Village-specific one, Noah Percy. Anyway, you should be warned that there is sexual content.
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"We'd play Hide-and-go-seek. The territory would be the whole block. Sometimes the older boys, when they'd find you, they wouldn't want to tag you they'd just want to. Talk." -Ani Difranco, Hide And Seek
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Hide-And-Seek
"Ai-vee, Ai-vee, Ai-vee!" shouted Noah Percy, nearly breathless, running bowlegged after Ivy Walker, who was more than ten feet ahead of him. She giggled between breaths and narrowly missed a host of little girls playing upon the grass. The children watched in intrigue as the blind girl and her "very strange" friend chased each other all over the grounds of Covington Village. It was like something very disturbing- the children had been told not to gawk, but it was tremendously hard to look away.
Ivy held out her wooden cane before her as she ran, skirts swishing, behind the shack known as the Quiet Room.
Noah stopped short, eyes narrow. He crossed his arms.
"Hmm… I'll wager that cad, Noah Percy has lost me. Thank goodness!" she said loudly, her hand exaggeratedly placed in front of her mouth, her shining auburn hair falling in front of her face as she peered around the corner of the Quiet Room.
She waited, counting aloud for a moment. Finally, she walked back out to where he stood so warily. "Noah! I shall be old and quite bent over if you do not hurry and find me soon. Come now!"
Still, he did not reply.
"Oh, Noah, do not be silly!" She thought for a moment. "It's the room, is it not?"
"I will not," Noah snapped, and crossed his arms tighter.
"You do not have to!"
"I have not been bad!"
"Please do not have a tantrum- I could not deal with it today. You broke your mother's favourite Chinaware just last week, and I should think you would not repeat such a childish act." She placed her hands upon her hips. "Do you enjoy acting like a spoiled boy who only makes dire faces and is sour?"
Noah looked at her, biting his lip. "Nooooo," he said slowly. "No quiet, now?"
"Absolutely no quiet."
"Is it a deal?" he edged forward, a smile slowly forming upon his narrow face.
"I am not certain, but if Noah Percy would get off of his high horse and come over here next to Ivy, we could probably seal the deal."
Noah toddled to her, his ridiculously long frame getting the best of his once more as he tripped over a stone. "Ow," he declared happily, and finally joined Ivy behind the Quiet Room.
"There you are," she said softly, patting Noah's cheek, seeing his dark form and feeling his long hair brushing her forehead. "Now," she began, and motioned to her own cheek. She cleared her throat, and spoke very seriously. "I promise that you shall not go into the Quiet Room, so help me God, now would you like to seal this deal, Noah Robert Percy?"
Noah nodded rapidly and leant forward, his lips pursed expectantly. He grazed the side of her face and then paused. His breathing grew ragged, though it was not from all of the running.
"Noah, you know as well as I do that that sort of kiss could never seal any sort of deal." She smiled and lowered her voice. "That was a Christoph Crane kiss, one made so gentle that it would never harm any shirt." She laughed slightly, and then put in, "But you musn't pass that on… Noah…?"
For he had paused once more, and was staring ever so intently at her face. And it was then, unexpectedly, that Noah Percy seized Ivy Walker by her crimson hair and kissed her with such passion that there would have been some debate over just how many deals the kiss would have sealed.
Ivy made no cry of protest. Rather, she was simply stunned at this sudden force that had gotten control of Noah Percy. She wondered for an instant if this was wrong, and she was somehow demented for the slight throbbing that was occurring in her legs. It was not a bad feeling, just different. And when Noah placed one hand against the small of her back and cupped his other hand over her breast, she simply leaned back against the Quiet Room wall and tried to calm her own heavy breathing.
Noah and Ivy, Ivy and Noah.
The names were almost interchangeable, being that the two were always together, either running races or playing hide-and-go-seek, or making some other sort of mischief. If said mischief ever got either of them into trouble, Mister Walker would say, almost affectionately, "I believe Noah's recklessness is rubbing off on my daughter." And Missus Percy would sigh, glance up from her sewing, and comment that "Ivy Walker's stubbornness has certainly made an impact on our Noah. He does not stand for anything anymore!"
Noah's body surged with a feeling he had not known until that moment. He had not an idea as to why he had moved so rapidly and he could not even fathom how his hand had arrived upon Ivy's breast. It was not his mind moving him, but the urges of his body. The urges of his heart. It was so difficult to be branded as a 'child' at age twenty-eight, because although his thought process lacked certain amounts of logic, and although he could be classified as mentally retarded, Noah did not lack emotion. But as he grew older, it was so much more difficult to ignore these feelings of adoration and sexual attraction to Ivy Walker. Noah Percy may have been a bit slow, and perhaps a bit erratic, but Noah Percy was a man.
"Ivy," he said quietly, his eyebrows raised in confusion.
"I think perhaps you should cease your speaking for just this moment," Ivy replied in a whisper, her hand moving up to the side of his face where it stayed during another kiss. Her heart pounded wonderingly at the unusual feeling of Noah Percy's groin hardening against her hip.
Noah was captivated by the taste of her lips, the feeling of her swelling chest underneath his extensive fingers. He rubbed himself slowly up her thigh, and pushed his hand down in between her breasts. He began to fondle her softly, moaning into her ear.
Her mouth fell open, her head moving backward in pleasure.
"What in God's name…?"
Noah turned toward the voice. There stood sixteen year old Fenton Coin, and a host of children, their eyes as big as saucers.
Fenton moved his lips, but was at a loss for words. "I did not- you should-"
"Oh, no. No!" murmured Ivy, shaking her head as curls bounced and swayed.
"Oh, no," mimicked Noah, with his hand still inside her dress.
Ivy pushed him away with an outstretched, shaking hand. "It is not as it appears-"
"Mister Walker," screamed a small girl. "Mister Walker, do come quick!" And off she ran, the other children at her heels.
Fenton stood disbelievingly. "I think- I think this is a sin," he muttered morosely, and headed after the others.
"Ivy? Ivy, what?" Noah's voice was filled with uncertainty.
She shook her head again and again, tears welling in her eyes. Her heart was thumping in her chest, her legs still damp and quivering. Everything was spinning, and though she could see nothing she was feeling everything.
Noah could not understand why Fenton had looked at him in such a manner of disgust. He was looking at Ivy, and she now seemed so sad. Was it what he had done to her? Was that call sin? But, wasn't sin bad?
"Ivy?" Noah voiced, sidling up to her and pulling on her skirt. "Ivy, what is-"
"Noah! Do you not understand that we are in trouble? Why were you…doing that? Now we must answer to my father! I did not even mean it! What were you doing?" she cried out, wringing her hands, tears beginning to drop down her face, dotting her pale blue frock.
Noah smiled and clapped his hands. "We're in trouble…"
"Stop it!" Ivy yelled. How could Noah Percy be the first man she had given herself to? Why had it felt so right at the time? Now, she realised just how stupid she had been. The Percys trusted Ivy to look after Noah. She was supposed to be like family to him. She had failed all of them. She and her awful, deplorable cravings.
Noah stepped back as though he had been slapped. Why she hated him now, he was not certain at all. So he instead busied himself with a button upon his sleeve, and left Ivy crying silently against the Quiet Room wall.
Mister Walker walked slowly toward the Quiet Room, and when he appeared before the two perpetrators, his face was grave and his voice extremely dry.
"Ivy Walker and Noah Percy, you will now follow me."
"Papa—"
"We will discuss this in the meeting hall, young lady. I am still attempting to gather my wits. I hope you can give me a very clear explanation about what was going on behind there, and if the many witnesses who came to me were wrong, please let me know and we can deal with them as such."
"Papa—"
"I said I do not wish to speak about it now!" Walker hissed, keeping a quick pace before the both of them.
"Trouble, trouble," sang Noah softly. "Ma-ma?"
Vivian Percy ran toward Walker, her expression very worried. "What is this I hear? My son-" she lowered her voice- "and your daughter having relations?"
"We have yet to understand what went on today."
"Mister Walker, it could not have been Ivy's doing. It is my Noah- he is not right, you know he is not right, I am so sorry, Ivy—he does not mean harm, that is, did he harm you? I will deal with him, what—"Vivian stopped as her voice had begun to shake.
Walker, despite his anger, touched Vivian's arm. "I can assure you, Missus Percy, that this will all sort itself out soon. Perhaps you can talk to him and we will meet later to discuss the consequences."
Vivian nodded, and latched onto Noah's arm with a firm grip. "Come now. You're trouble," she snarled, though her face was soft and sad. She pulled Noah toward their cottage, and Noah began to scream and kick and struggle.
"Ivy promised! Ivy promised!"
Closing her eyes, tears trailing down her face, Ivy wondered if this was growing up.