It's been a month since Nicole's fall break had ended, and after an excruciatingly difficult final exam week, she was glad to be spending the next month with her brothers, sister-in-law, and niece and nephew.
Noah didn't drive to her this time, as she insisted that she would get a ride home from a college classmate that lived in their area. He wanted to be the first person to see her, so he left work an hour early.
Finally, after being a half-hour late, he watched the doorknob wobble as she unlocked the door and let herself in.
Noah slouched on the couch as she came into the living, staring at his phone to show he hadn't been waiting and anticipating her homecoming. She put her bags at the doorstep and as she walked over to him, Noah put his phone into his pocket and walked closer to her.
"Nicole! Welcome home!" He said. "You came a little bit later than you said you would."
"Well, I wasn't expecting you to be waiting on me. Don't you get off at 4?" She asked. Noah got nervous as he tried to come up with another lie.
"Yeah, but it's Thursday, and on Thursdays, I go home at 1 so I can pick up the kids." Nicole looked around, noticing the house had been silent.
"Then where are they?" Noah stopped in his tracks, realizing that she knew he was lying.
"Oh, shoot…." He said, laughing nervously and taking out his phone. "I forgot to get them! I'll just text Bethany to get them." Noah pretended to send a text, then threw his phone across the room to the couch.
"You can say you skipped work to see me. I'm your sister, not some stranger." Noah sighed and began to relax as the two of them walked to the couch together to sit down.
"It's nice to be here when it's empty. No screaming niece and nephew around to bother you." Nicole noticed.
"So how were your finals?" Noah asked.
"They were fine. I got mostly As." Nicole seemed uninterested in chatting about her finals, and would have rather talked about something else that had been on her mind. "You know, the Drama Brothers just finished their tour." Noah groaned, tipping his head back and looking back at her.
"How do you know that?"
"I follow them on social media. But anyway, my point, there's a certain Drama Brother who lives right near us and has no touring obligations who I'm sure would love to see you." Ever since the concert during fall break, Nicole had been trying to get Noah to see or talk to Cody again, and the topic had been easy to skirt around when she wasn't home, but her being home, he couldn't ignore it.
"I'd rather die." Nicole stared at him as she thought of something. She quickly grabbed his phone from the other side of the couch and inputted his passcode as she looked through his contacts.
"What are you doing?" Noah huffed. She turned her shoulder away from Noah as she began to call one of his contacts, then gave him the phone. He looked down and saw she dialed Cody's number.
"Why would you do that?" Noah began hearing a voice faintly saying 'hello', meaning Cody had answered his call right away. Nicole crossed her arms and gave a devilish smile as she waited for him to answer.
"Better answer him." Noah rolled his eyes as he put the phone to his ear.
"Hey, Cody, it's Noah."
"Oh, hey Noah, it's cool to hear from you!" Cody said. Noah looked over to Nicole, and began to talk to him as if he were reading off a script.
"I heard you got back home from tour. I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out?"
"Sure, that'd be fun! What time were you thinking?" Nicole mouthed the word 'five' as she held up the number 5 with her hands.
"How about… five?"
"Sure. Sounds great. See you then." Noah hung up the phone, slouching on the couch as he threw his phone back on the floor. "Why did you make me do that?"
"You'll thank me someday." She smirked. "Now don't forget to send him our address, wouldn't want him to not know where to go." She laughed as she got up from the couch to grab her bags from the front door, then walked to her room to unpack.
Right at five, there had been a knock on the door. Bethany, Joshua, and the kids were already home, so Bethany answered the door to see Cody there. Noah had been in his room, hoping he just wouldn't show up and he could go about his night in peace.
"Oh, hello. Cody, right? Come on in. Here, let me take your coat." She invited him in and Cody took off his coat, which Bethany took and hung up on their coat rack. "Noah, your friend is here." She began to walk back to the kitchen as Noah and Nicole walked over to her room. Noah had looked like he was forced to get out of his room and follow through with their plans, which had been partially true. He looked nervous to see Cody since their last visit. He watched as Cody took his shoes off near the front door and stepped into the living room to give both of them a hug.
"I didn't think you'd be here, Nicole!" He said as he let go of Nicole. "It's good to see you! I thought you were meeting up with Trent a-" Nicole began to sweat as she made a cutting motion in front of her neck while Noah wasn't paying attention, then stopped as Noah looked over to the two of them as if she hadn't been doing that, which confused Cody.
"You're seeing Trent? Why?" Noah said. Nicole's face went red as she looked at Noah and gave him a nervous chuckle.
"No." She chuckled. Noah knew when Nicole was lying. She wasn't good at lying like he was. "We can talk about it later. Good seeing you again, Cody!"
"What do you mean again?" She realized what had just come out of her mouth, and began to rush to the door and put her winter coat on from the coat rack.
"I better go, my friend is waiting outside." She grabbed her purse from the door and opened the door a pinch.
"Oh, really?" Noah said, his teeth gritted. Noah didn't know why she was being so secretive tonight.
"Yep. See you guys!" Nicole quickly left out the door, leaving the two of them alone in the living room. Cody began to take a look around at the living room photos, which mostly consisted of Bethany, Joshua, and their kids, with the occasional photos of Joshua and his twin brother Nathan, followed by photos of himself, his siblings, and parents over the year.
"Are those all your cousins on the wall?" Cody asked as he pointed over to an old family photo. It had been one of the last family photos taken before his parents died.
"No, those are all my siblings. My sister and I are the youngest, both twins, then there's Joshua, who I live with, and Nathan, his twin. Then there's the quints - Gerald, Gavin, Blair, Valerie, and Bryson."
"Man, your parents must have been busy." Cody chuckled. Noah began to feel uncomfortable, not wanting to discuss the photos on the wall or his family life any further. "Where are they, anyway?" Noah's heart shattered as he looked down at the floor, then back to Cody.
"Oh, um… they…" He gulped. "They died." Cody looked down and paused, then looked back at him.
"Oh. I-I'm sorry. I feel kinda stupid now. I had no idea."
"It's okay." Noah tried to play it off like Cody wasn't the first person besides Owen to hear about this. He had first told Owen about it in a similar way. He hadn't meant to tell Owen, but on the first night on Camp Wawanakwa, he wouldn't leave Noah alone and asked him all these personal questions to get to know him better. Something inside of him broke down with the truth about his parents, even though he didn't mean to, and ever since then, Owen has vowed to always be there for him, much to Noah's dismay.
Just as things were getting even more awkward, Bethany popped her head out from the kitchen.
"I have dinner, Cody, if you'd like to eat with us." Noah looked at Cody, hoping he would say he ate already.
"That'd be great, I'm starving!" Noah rolled his eyes and walked into the kitchen with him to see Joshua, Bethany and the kids, then the two of them sat beside the kids. Joshua reached out his hand to Cody as Bethany began to put plates at everyone's placemats.
"Nice to finally meet you, Cody. I'm Noah's brother Joshua." Cody smiled as Joshua shook his hand. Joshua looked so happy that Noah brought a friend home.
"I'm Cody." Cody chuckled. "Well, you probably already know that." Joshua laughed back as Bethany sat down, and everyone started eating.
"So, Cody, how was tour life?" Bethany asked. Noah came in to interject.
"You don't have to talk to them if you don't want to, Cody. They're just making small talk." He whispered to Cody.
"Oh, it's fine." Cody said, looking at him then at Bethany. "It was so much fun! Noah was the only person from Total Drama to come see us, so it was a nice surprise." "Really?" Bethany asked.
"Yeah. A lot of our cast mates from Total Drama used to make fun of the Drama Brothers, or say that our band was silly." Cody laughed nervously. "But anyway, it was nice to see him there."
"Maybe you two could get together more often now that you're home." Joshua said, taking a bite of his chicken.
"That would be great, Noah." Cody said, looking at him. The room had become silent as only chewing noises were heard.
"Uncle Noah!" Noah shot up as he pondered what damage Spencer was about to do to him by opening his mouth. "Remember when you kissed Cody?"
Noah crossed his arms. "We didn't kiss!"
"Yes you did! I saw it!" Spencer said, laughing with his mouth full of peas. Noah's face turned red.
"Spencer, that's enough." Bethany said as she looked closer to him. "Don't talk with your mouth open." She looked over to Cody and Noah. "I'm sorry."
"It's all right. It happened a long time ago. It was an accident." Cody said. He remembered that moment. He was so sleep-deprived from the Awake-a-Thon that he had been dreaming of Cody, which at the time he thought was ridiculous. He didn't realize he brought his dream to real-life until he heard Cody screaming.
"Well, I think Cody and I better get going." Noah said as he had finishing scarfing down the rest of his dinner.
"Oh, but I'm not done with my f-" Before Cody could finish his sentence, Noah grabbed his arm and began taking him out of the kitchen, and they were back in the living room.
"I'm sorry. They can be a handful." Noah apologized.
"It's okay. What do you want to do now?" Cody asked, trying to change the subject.
"We could hang out in my room, I guess."
"Sounds like a plan!" Noah and Cody walked down the hall and over to Noah and Nicole's room and closed the door behind them.
"Sorry about the mess." He wasn't expecting visitors, not that he ever does, so his side of the room was a little messy, while Nicole's side was nice and neat.
"That's all right. Hey, did you ever make that Twitter account?" Cody asked.
"Not yet, no."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's do it! Give me your phone!" The two of them sat down on the floor and leaned on the bed, then Noah unlocked his phone for Cody and gave it to him as he downloaded the Twitter app.
"First you have to pick a username." Cody said as they pressed 'sign up' and handed him his phone.
Noah didn't know what to do, so as Cody looked over his shoulder, he put 'Noah123'.
"Okay, that's a start. But what about something like this?" Cody took the phone from his hands and typed in 'totaldrama_noah'
"What?" Noah scrunched his face up. "That sounds lame."
"You have any better ideas?" Cody asked.
"No. Proceed." He huffed as he watched Cody type, then he handed him his phone.
"Anyway, next you put in a password." Noah was about to put in a password, but realized Cody was staring and looked over at him.
"Oh, uh... "
"Right! Sorry, I'll close my eyes." Cody put his hands over his eyes as Noah typed in the password and filled out the rest of the profile, then nudged to Cody.
"You can open your eyes now." He whispered.
"Ah, right. Sorry." He took his hands off of his face and down at the floor, where his right hand had accidentally touched Noah's hand on the floor, in which they both lifted their hands off the ground and into their laps.
"Sorry about that."
"You don't have to apologize so much."
"So--" Cody smacked himself on the forehead, then chuckled. "D'oh!" They paused for a moment, both looking around and re-adjusting, when Cody broke the silence.
"So anyway, now you can press that 'import contacts' button and follow everyone in your contacts who has a Twitter."
He pressed it and saw a few names come up, like Owen, Cody, Nicole, Bethany, and Joshua.
"See, there I am." Cody pointed to his username. "And then you can click follow." Noah pressed the follow button for everyone, then noticed that instead of the word following next to her name, it said pending next to Nicole's name.
"What does that mean?" Noah asked.
"She has her Twitter locked." Cody said as they went onto the next screen. "Now here we are! Twitter! You can start by adding a profile picture and bio." Noah went into his camera roll, which was just photos that his niece and nephew have taken of themselves.
"Oh, those are the kids from the dinner table." Cody noticed.
"Spencer and Hannah. They're a handful, as you saw, but they're good kids." Noah smiled.
"It's cool that you've got such a big family. My parents were never really around for me. I mean, they forget my birthday every single year." Cody said.
"Yeah, I remember from World Tour." Noah said. Cody paused and looked down, trying not to open all his life story on Noah.
"Sorry, didn't mean for this to get so depressing."
"That's all right. Depressing is my middle name." Noah said, too shy to ask more. He scrolled through more of his photos until he found the photo he wanted - a photo of his dog.
"Wouldn't you rather post a photo of yourself?" Cody asked.
"No." Cody looked at him, then looked down at his phone again, not wanting to argue. Noah pressed "save" on the profile picture and started going to the bio, but blanked on what to put.
"I'm not sure what to write."
"Well, what are your interests?" Cody asked.
"I don't really have any interests." Noah lied. He couldn't bear to tell him about his passion- well, former passion- of art.
"Any hobbies?"
"Not unless you count sulking to sleep." He noted quietly to himself.
"Come on, there's gotta be something interesting you can put down." Noah felt pressured to open up to Cody, but in a way where he wanted to voluntarily speak about himself, but didn't know why he felt that urge around him. "I'll make something for you." Cody took the phone into his phone, and began thinking of a good bio. After a few moments of this, he had the perfect idea.
Noah from Total Drama Island, World Tour, and Ridonculous Race. Twin, brother, and uncle.
Noah took a look at it. He didn't like it. He didn't want the world to know who he really was, even if it was just at a glance.
"I don't know, I've never really talked about my life."
"Now's the perfect time to do it!" Cody exclaimed. "People are dying to hear from you, Noah!"
"Really? But… I'm not even that memorable." Noah sighed.
"People ask all the time when you're going to make a social media page. You're relatable and funny as hell." Cody smiled as he posted the bio and began to show Noah. "I mean, the fans think you're funny and relatable." He took the phone from his hands and stared blankly at his newly made Twitter account. Cody took out his own phone and drafted a tweet to get the word out about Noah's account.
"I'll give you a hand at gaining some new followers."
Codemister3000
Hey guys! My friend totaldrama_noah made a Twitter! Great timing, am I right? Go give him a follow! #totaldrama
Within a minute of pressing send, Noah and Cody watched as Noah's phone blew up with notifications, over 500 followers so far.
"You might want to turn notifications off. Your phone's gonna be busy." Noah went into his settings quickly as more notifications came in, turning notifications off, and gave Noah his phone off. Noah refreshed the page and saw 1,500 followers during that period.
"See, I told you people would want to hear from you! Now you just have to remember to post consistently." Cody said to him.
To tell the truth, Noah was feeling overwhelmed with the night; first, with Nicole clearly hiding something. Before she left for university, the two of them shared everything with each other. What's going on that he can't know about? Next, with Cody here in his bedroom. He's been telling Cody details about his personal life, and now he's learning about him having fans on Twitter who actually want to hear from him. It brought him back to all those comments he saw online, but being with Cody, he couldn't get one comment out of his head: the one where people wanted him and Noah to be together. Romantically together. He wonders if Cody has seen these comments. He had to. Why wouldn't he? Almost like word vomit, he began to speak to Cody as he got out of this funk.
"Do you know about Noco?" He asked. He looked down, not knowing if he could look Cody in the eye.
"Oh…" Cody started getting nervous. "Yeah, I do. It's silly, isn't it?"
Noah chuckled. "Yeah. I mean, my lips just touched your ear like 3 years ago. It was an accident."
"Yep. Fans have really creative minds." Cody gave a slight chuckle.
Suddenly, Noah couldn't control himself. He thought about what it would be like to kiss Cody on the lips, and without warning, his body took the lead. His body leaned into his as their lips met, and Noah lightly pressed his hand lovingly on his shoulder. The two had just shared a kiss without Noah being in control. Once he felt himself back in control, he thought about how much he didn't want to let go. It seemed as though Cody didn't want to let go either, but after a few seconds, the two came back up for air, and they were left speechless to one another. The air around them was silent until Cody began to speak.
"Oh, um.." Suddenly, his heart began to race. He couldn't tell if this was a panic attack or a feeling of love, they both felt the same to him. He began to interrupt Cody's thoughts, as he couldn't let Cody see him this way.
"You should go." Cody looked down to the ground, looking hurt at Noah's statement.
"Oh, okay. Yeah." Cody didn't have it in him to argue with him, so he nodded as Noah hurriedly led him back to the living room. Noah looked panicked and as if he was holding something in as Cody fumbled with his winter coat at the front door. Bethany was in the living room, reading a book as the kids watched TV before bed. She looked up to see Cody and Noah stepping out, and unaware of the situation, she began to look up.
"Leaving so soon, Cody?" She asked. Cody's face turned to Bethany's, but Noah spun around to speak for him.
"Yeah, he's got an emergency at home."
"Oh no, I hope everything's all right. Thanks for coming over, Cody! Hope to see you again!" She said. Noah grabbed Cody's arm and they left out of the door before Cody could say anything else. Noah looked at Cody again, feeling sick.
"Bye, Cody." Cody gave a sad wave as he got into his car, then Noah looked at him with anger and remorse. "You can go now."
"Can I see you again?" Noah was surprised to hear this, even after how terribly Noah was treating him due to him not wanting Cody to see him so vulnerable. This almost made him get out of his current state.
"I don't know." Noah said honestly as he crossed his arms. Cody slumped into his car seat and closed the door as he began to turn the key into the ignition and reverse out of the driveway. Noah waited until Cody was out of view, then sprinted out of the cold and into the warmth. Bethany looked over to Noah with curiosity as he stormed into his room without warning.
All at once, Noah's chest began to tighten, and his eyes were watering as he tried to resist crying. He sat on his knees on the floor of his bedroom as the tears came out like sobs. After a few minutes of this, he took a look at his closet door, and as he stood up to grab a box from the top shelf, his breathing felt heavy as he looked inside at the box's contents. He dusted the items off one by one, and took deep breaths as he settled them together in front of him. He took the chair from his desk and began an activity he hadn't done in four years -- he began painting.
A/N: Thank you all so much for sticking around while I take a long time to finish this story! I really appreciate it if you're still here! I have split this chapter into two parts, so expect a part 2 later today!
~Sami
