Well I have brittle bones it seems
I bite my tongue and I torch my dreams
Have a little voice to speak with
And a mind of thoughts and secrecy
The possessions a person has can speak a lot about the type of person they are. A music player, for example, suggests a dreamer, someone who can let themselves drift away and create their own ideas. It is for this reason that Noah is not in anyway surprised that Ronan has one, nor that it's filled to the brim with excessive amounts of songs that use about every swear word he has ever heard of and more. Gleefully, he moves it to Gansey's room and plugs it in, hoping he'll take the hint and perhaps add something a little more flowery. He doesn't know what type of music Gansey listens to, but he does expect him to be a little more refined.
Gansey himself is a little different, though. His material possessions consist mainly of countless informative books on Welsh myth and the supernatural and of course, Glendower himself, all arranged pleasantly on their shelf in alphabetical order when he hasn't got them strewn about the place. Because Noah is Noah and sometimes he feels as if he should live up to the whole 'irritating but harmless' ghost stereotype, he sometimes reorganises them how he sees fit. Sometimes, he makes them go from the most colourful spines to least colourful, or maybe he'll move them around by publication date if he's feeling a little less excited.
The first time, Gansey had blamed a most innocent Ronan while Noah had laughed silently behind them. The second time, realising that Ronan would never do such a thing because Ronan was Ronan and Ronan didn't do reorganising, he threw open the door to Noah's room so fast that he had thought he'd briefly become a poltergeist before realising that no, it was just Gansey, and for once, he was actually quite angry.
And then there was Adam, but honestly, Noah didn't really know what sorts of things Adam possessed. This was for two reasons, the main being that Adam wasn't exactly well off and likely to have anything interesting. The second was because that in the end, Noah was a ghost and going places involved effort that he was not willing to give for the sake of finding out what sort of person Adam was. He already knew anyway. Ronan gave enough of that away without even trying.
Noah's room was empty, though. He could have possessions, sure. Gansey had once offered to buy him one of the snow globes from DollarCity (something that had been incredibly, incredibly tempting) but it just didn't fill anything. He could stuff the room full of glittery snow globes but it wouldn't mean anything. The room would still be empty, after all, because its only inhabitant is seven years dead.
But that's not to say he doesn't have anything. A person's possessions can tell you a lot about the person they are, so perhaps the old bottle of wine slid down the side of his bed, gift tag still attached, could tell you everything you needed to know about Noah.
Or, Czerny actually, because that's who the bottle is addressed to and Noah is nearly one hundred percent sure he's not the person people call Czerny anymore. That person had his head caved in with a skateboard seven years ago by his best friend.
Still, he keeps the bottle, because it'll tell you a lot about him regardless.
Blow out all the candles,
Blow out all the candles,
You're too old to be so shy
"Shit way to spend a birthday," Whelk comments, leaning back on the park bench. He tips the beer bottle back into his mouth all the way, wincing as the liquid hits the back of his throat. "Ugh. Come on Czerny, live a little. Should'a had a party. Huge, everyone would have come."
"Too much effort." Czerny shrugs, leaning back against the red Mustang. He watches the stars blink above him. "Who wants to clean something like that up afterwards?"
"You don't. You just don't want to interact, you hermit." Whelk accuses, standing up. His legs waver unsteadily beneath him, already drunk. "Best part is, you spend it with me and not even your girlfriend? What is with you, man?"
Czerny shrugs. He doesn't tell Whelk that his girlfriend is probably fooling around with another of their classmates as they speak, doesn't tell him that he blew her off to help him out with the ley lines last week and that's why she's giving him the cold shoulder. Whelk probably wouldn't care anyway. He was spectacularly amazing at forgetting that people had emotions and lives outside of him. Instead, Czerny says, "Wanna go looking for the lines?"
Something lights up in his eyes at that. "Fantastic idea." he says over brightly. "You drive. I'll give you your present later, by the way."
Czerny opens the door and climbs into the driver's seat. It's no party, but a magical forest is good enough, he supposes.
Things cannot be reversed.
We learn from the times that we are cursed.
Noah never told them the date of his birthday, much like how he forgot to share his last name with them or that his best friend murdered him. In his defence, he did tell them he was dead, many, many times, and he was very specific about it. More fool them for not taking him seriously. He was nothing but open about his haunting activities. After all, what other teenage boy would turn down pizza?
But the point is, he never told them his birth date. Which is why he's so stunned to walk into Monmouth's kitchen area ("Do you glide ever?" Adam had asked once. Noah had told him to stop watching ghost films after that because they are wildly inaccurate.) and find Ronan sticking a candle in a cupcake.
Chainsaw caws from his shoulder. Ronan looks over, lays eyes on him and shrugs. "Hey."
And, because Noah is Noah and Noah is a ghost, he says, "I'm not eating that."
Things cannot be reversed.
We learn from the ones we fear the worst.
Sometimes, Noah wonders what it would have been like to die peacefully, but then he realises that there's no use in even thinking about it. He won't get to experience it, and even if he had - he can't remember the moment he died anyway, so why would it matter?
He does remember some of it. For some reason, Blue knows the whole thing occurred over eleven minutes. If that's true he can remember, he thinks, at least five of them.
The first hit, landing hard on the soft, green grass of the forest glen. Pain spearing through his head, the scent of life and the forest brimming around him. The second hit, the faint sensation of liquid, fear, betrayal, pain, and then nothing.
One minute, alive and rich with his whole life ahead of him. Someone else on the ley line is living when they should not, and so you should die when you should not. The next, he is dead and watching Whelk look down at what used to be him.
Whelk hadn't been able to see him, hear him, so he'd wandered around vaguely, formlessly, dipping in and out of the mortal plane half following Whelk around even though he'd turned on him in such a manner. He hadn't even noticed that even though he was still going to Aglionby everyday he wasn't wearing the uniform of a student anymore. It wasn't like he could be blamed for losing track of time. He couldn't hold a form occasionally and the rest of his existence blurred together mindlessly. One day, out of boredom he retrieved the birthday present from the back of the Mustang and almost threw up after reading the gift tag. Addressed to Czerny, a bottle of wine as old as him for his seventeenth birthday.
"Lets see how much older it can get before we cave."
The only other day that really sticks out in his memory of Before is this. Him, smudgy and as unchanging as ever, mooching around outside a Latin classroom Whelk went into an hour before. One boy with impeccable hair flanked by another with a skinhead and another with a fading bruise spread over his cheekbone crashed into him, his head too busy being turned towards Skinhead and his mouth too busy moving at light speed. Bruise grabbed him, but he'd already knocked right into Noah.
"Oh, sorry," Impeccable had said, and then, "Oh, it's you."
And as he explained how he'd been seeing him around constantly and noticed he was never with anyone and hey, Ronan, Adam, you've seen him too, right? All Noah could think was, they could see him. They could see him.
And learn from the ones we fear the most how to
Blow out all the candles, blow out all the candles
"I'm offended." Gansey says as Noah stares down the tiny cupcake with one blazing candle stuck in the centre of it. His driver's license is the answer, apparently. It had his birth date in it and Gansey somehow remembered that silly little detail. "I baked that cupcake all by myself, the least you could do it eat it."
"Liar," Adam corrects. "I baked most of it. You just decorated the top with Welsh looking things."
"I don't know what you expect from him," Ronan comments, eyeing the cupcake as hungrily as Chainsaw does from his shoulder. "He's a ghost. If he tried to eat it, it'd just like..." he trails off, because Ronan doesn't really know what it'd do.
Gansey snaps his fingers. "Ronan could dream up an eatable cupcake?"
The response is a near unanimous no. Then, Adam looks at the cupcake and says sadly, "It's a shame we couldn't fit all the candles on."
"Monmouth would have burned to the ground in a blaze of glory." Gansey agrees. And then, because Noah hasn't said anything in a while, he asks, "So, how does it feel to be...well, how old are you?"
"Twenty five?" Noah says, thinking in hindsight how kissing Blue may seem a bit weirder factoring in that knowledge. "I feel like I always do?"
"'Course you do." Ronan says, rolling his eyes. "Can you blow out the candle? I want the cake."
"You're a selfish bastard, Lynch." Gansey says amiably. "Noah might have wanted it."
Twenty five years. That's how old he is, and now the bottle of wine in his room is too. Eight years to the day Whelk passed the bottle into his hands in the Mustang near Cabeswater.
So, when Ronan mutters something about how this is the most boring party he's ever seen and Gansey still looks remotely hurt due to Noah's denial of the birthday cupcake, Noah quietly slips back to his room and retrieves it.
"Woah, where'd you get this?" Ronan says in delight as he takes the bottle from his the second he steps back into the room. The drink was expensive to begin with, and Noah has no idea how much value the extra years have added to it. Ronan flips the gift tag and scowls at the writing. "Why the hell would you keep this?"
"Couldn't drink it," Noah explains, but that's only half of the reason. The other half if because it was his when he drove a red Mustang and had friends and girlfriends who called out Czerny when they wanted his attention.
It might also be because it was from Whelk before he became what he was. In Noah's head, he can't quite reconcile the Barrington who he was roommates with and the Barrington who took him out to a magical forest glen and bashed his skull in.
"I don't drink," Adam says.
Noah watches Ronan's eyes flick over towards Adam, unguarded for just a moment. Gansey remains ridiculously unaware even after Noah laughs softly. Instead, he says, "Are you sure, Noah?"
"I'm not going to be drinking it anytime soon." Noah says, because he knows they'll know he means yes.
Ronan cracks the top off unceremoniously and pours two glasses, one for himself because alcohol is alcohol to Ronan, and one for Gansey because Gansey likes fine things. For added effect, he pours a glass of sparkling water for Adam, and finally, Gansey hands an empty glass to Noah.
Gansey tries for a toast but Ronan's glass is already half drained by the time he raises his own. Adam sighs as Chainsaw dips her beak into the cupcake, and all in all it might just be the most underwhelming but best birthday Noah has ever had.
"Shit," Ronan says, and, because he always tells the truth, follows with, "I think Whelk hated you from the start 'cause this tastes like ass."
Noah should be hurt by it. "Ronan!" Gansey and Adam gasp in horror together but Noah is laughing soundlessly, because yes, he's dead and yes he was murdered by someone he trusted but he can't dwell on it forever now, can he?
That boy, take me away into the night
Out of the hum of the streetlights and into the forest.
The possessions a person has can speak a lot about the type of person they are. Once, Noah only had a bottle with a faded gift tag from a friend who left him to die one ordinary day. To someone, this might suggest an inability to move on, a person still clinging to their past.
The bottle is gone now. Instead, a snow globe sits on the bedside table, beckoning Noah to shake it every now and again. It was a joint birthday present from the boys and Blue, because after the cupcake incident he'd told them not to get him anything and when they went back on their word he told them to make sure it wasn't expensive.
The snow globe says a lot about its owner.
It says he likes glitter, and he likes it a lot.