ic inbox [box]

[unknowable]

"Please leave a message and I'll return it as soon as I'm able."

[if necessary, you can also leave a message for Ronan Lynch here]

Comments

7/6

[casperdisaster]

[Nothing in particular has prompted the start of this conversation, it's been one Noah has actually been meaning to have with Adam for a long time. Waiting has not yielded any ideas for how to start it gracefully, however, so instead the first text comes in the early morning hours, not absurdly so, but Noah didn't sleep well back on the train and this was one thing he kept rolling over in his mind. If only to avoid thinking about other things.]

Are you awake?

[unknowable]

[Adam hasn't been sleeping as much as he might normally, which has left him tired most of the time, but also currently awake. It's only minutes before he replies.]

Yes. Everything ok?

[casperdisaster]

I'm okay.

[No need to make him worry, after all, that one is sent quickly. God, how does he even...? Just get it out, Noah. The next message comes fairly quickly after the first.]

I wanted to talk to you about Whelk.

[unknowable]

[He doesn't know what to expect, now, and it takes him a moment to reply.]

What about him?

[casperdisaster]

I don't think it was your fault, what happened to him.

[It's difficult, being too far away to be able to hear what Adam is thinking while talking about something like this, but it gives Adam a chance to collect his thoughts before replying, it puts him in a more comforted position. It does the same for Noah as well. Texting is the closest to being able to vanish again in the middle of uncomfortable conversations.]

[unknowable]

It was my responsibility. Maybe not my fault, but he would have lived if not for me.

[It doesn't haunt Adam, exactly. He's not sorry. He only sort of remembers the whole thing, though he remembers what should have happened, what probably did. But the weight of a human life - that's something, even if Whelk deserved it.]

[casperdisaster]

He would have lived if he left the ley line alone.

[unknowable]

Yes. But he also would have lived if I had saved him. I don't regret it, Noah, but it's still on me.

[casperdisaster]

He would have tried to hurt you all again if he lived. Might have succeeded that time.

[It's hard, over text, to get across the certainty that Noah has with that. The certainty that comes from being able to see the curve of time patterned out before you and behind you, familiar steps to be retraced over and over again. If Whelk had left well enough alone, he would have lived. Leaving well enough alone was not in the nature of Barrington Whelk. Noah knows this as part of the Henrietta ley line as well as someone who had the best friend ability of knowing Whelk better than he knew himself.]

Anyway. If you want it to be on you, okay. Thank you, then.

[unknowable]

It's better that he's dead. It's what he deserved, not for us but for what he did to you.

[That doesn't make it okay, not really, doesn't mean there isn't a human's death on Adam's shoulders. It just makes it right. Fair. Just, maybe, the justice of nature.]

You don't need to thank me. I don't remember most of it.

[casperdisaster]

I do.

[Remember it, what he was there for (unseen, voiceless, murdered murdered murdered remembered). Needing to thank Adam.]

I couldn't do it or ask for it, but it was needed. So thank you.

[unknowable]

Then you're welcome.

[He doesn't send anything for a few moments, and then:]

It was justice. You deserved better.

[casperdisaster]

It isn't all bad. I got some good friends out of it.

[unknowable]

Gansey's a pretty decent friend. Ronan and I are a little more questionable.

[casperdisaster]

You and Ronan are great too. Thank you for checking on me that week during everything else, too.

[unknowable]

Are you and Ronan all right?

[casperdisaster]

I think so. We lit some stuff on fire.

[unknowable]

Well, that's... good. I guess. Just remember next time that he gets mad all the time, but he doesn't stay mad that long.

[casperdisaster]

I'll try to remember.

[unknowable]

All right. Take care, Noah.