evergreen: 1 ~ n.s ~
[18+ MDNI] xfem!reader | words: 4.5k | warnings below the cut
Everyone came back to the forest pretending it was just another river night; though Noah knew better, and by the time the house appeared through the trees, so did you.
tropes: childhood friends to lovers / boy next door, reckless summer nostalgia / summer romance, mutual pinning & idiots in love, breaking into abandoned-ish houses (lol), sex with feelings
warnings: (two parts- no smut in part one) - explicit language, mentions of underage drinking
note: hey <3 it’s been a while… but I was very inspired this weekend to write. This comes from very personal feelings and thoughts, and therefore is self indulgent (as most of my stuff is lol). But I hope you enjoy, nonetheless :)
Why was it that the older you got, summer seemed to lose its colour first?
As a child, summer made the whole neighbourhood feel bigger than it was. Summer was the sun that spilled through rickety screen doors with knees raw from mosquito bites and hands sticky from sap as you tried not to scratch them. It was blisters from monkey bars and the smell of someone else's barbecue dinner wafting down the street. The chalk from playground gravel dusting your ankles and fingers.
But it was the taste of summer you seemed to miss most. You missed the way the heat clung to birch trees, leaving the air tinged with an earthy mist you never meant to taste but always did. It was cherry slurpees from the gas station and that metallic tang of the garden hose when you were too impatient to go inside for a glass. And the older you got, it tasted like cheap cider by the river and the cinnamon gum Noah used to chew because he said mint was lame.
Back then, summer stretched on forever. Now, at twenty-five, it came and went like everything else seemed to, even without waiting for you to be ready to move on.
Time instead slipped between work and bills and wedding invitations that held a strange humiliation of realizing people you used to trade Pokémon cards with were now buying houses, having babies, getting promoted, and getting drunk at backyard engagements for people they swore they used to hate in high school.
Though through it all, summer still came. It just no longer belonged to you.
The aspen trees still leaned over the sidewalks on Evergreen Crescent, their leaves flowing, whispering in the heat. The old soccer fields still yellowed at the edges where the sprinklers never reached, and the forest path still waited between the houses at the edge, dinky and overgrown.
Your house still had that brown porch railing your father swore he was going to repaint every June. The run-down "drug house" down the street still had the basketball hoop hanging crooked over the garage. The beige bungalow still stood at the corner where someone's dog barked like a single breath of wind was a threat intruding in on their space.
And next door, Noah's house sat exactly where you left it. Staring at the grey trim, your eyes trailed to the window of his old bedroom, and you sucked in a sharp breath, closing the door of your car.
There was a period of time when the brunette practically lived at your house, and you at his. If an extra plate appeared at dinner, it was for Noah. If muddy shoes were abandoned by the back door, they belonged to Noah. If someone was ringing the doorbell past 8 p.m., it was almost certainly Noah.
There were people in life that you met, and people in life that you inherited. Noah had always felt like the latter. He was in every summer you could remember, biking one-handed down the middle of Evergreen Crescent, shouting your name from the sidewalk.
He had called you “Trees” for years after the summer you spent climbing the oak between your houses, impossible to coax down when your mother yelled for dinner.
His fingerprints were all over your childhood.
And then, the older you got, he had stopped being just Noah from next door.
One day, he was the boy throwing pebbles at your window because he was bored; and then the next, he appeared taller, his hair longer and curling at the bottom of his neck with a voice that did not crack when he laughed. His shoulders filled out, his hands changed. He got tattoos he wasn’t supposed to, and his smile got slower because he had learned exactly what it did to people.
You hated that summer because Noah still let himself through the side gate, still stole food from your plate, and pushed your shoulders when he was upset that you were right. But suddenly, his knee brushing yours beneath the table made your mind scatter. Suddenly, the sound of his bedroom window sliding open at night made your chest warm; and suddenly, when he leaned too close to look at something over your shoulder, you forgot every clever thing you had ever said in your life and became, tragically, just another ordinary person with blood.
A person whose heart raced too fast at the sight of another human.
It was humiliating. You had known him too long for that. You had seen him cry over the ice cream truck not having his favourite flavour. Witnessed him spit on the ground like it was normal and lick his fingers after eating a bowl of Cheetos.
Still, at seventeen, you had looked across your backyard one August night and realized it was too late.
He had been sitting on the porch steps with a can of beer in one hand, laughing at something Ruffilo said, his head tipped back, throat exposed to the summer sun. The light had caught on the edge of his jaw, and there had been fire pit smoke curling around his knees, the smell of citronella thick in the air; and you remembered watching with a racing heart, sucking in a breath as your stomach swirled. That feeling was the kind of realization that ruined everything without changing anything at all.
The years kept moving, nonetheless. Graduation came, then came again. People left, and people came back. The old friend group chat went quiet for months at a time before waking every July, because none of you had the heart to get rid of it.
And yet Noah remained next door.
Every time you came home, some part of you still checked for him without even thinking. Every time you stood beside your car, just as you did now with your duffel bag slipping down your shoulder, your eyes went straight to his old bedroom window.
The curtains were open, and your stomach did something inconvenient as it tightened, butterflies making you sick.
There was no reason for that to mean anything. It was a window. A normal, rectangular, grey-trimmed window on the second floor of a house you had seen nearly every day for over half of your life. Still, you stared, the glass reflecting the mid-morning sun, hiding whatever waited behind it. Noah's driveway was empty, but that meant nothing. He had always been impossible to track... and as an adult, he had somehow become both more predictable and less reachable, which felt unfair in a way you couldn't explain without sounding weird about it all.
Adjusting your grip on the duffel bag, you turned, opening the back door to grab your pillow- until a sound cracked through the quiet street.
"You always did overpack."
When you turned, he was standing at the edge of your driveway with one hand tucked into the pocket of his sweat shorts, the other wrapped around a plastic Slurpee cup. His hair was shorter than the last time you saw him, dark and parted in the middle, loose around his face. He wore an old black band T-shirt faded soft from too many washes, and there was a silver chain resting against his collarbone. But it was the tattoos covering his arms that made your lips part.
Noah noticed. He always had the irritating ability to catch the exact moment you became weak and then stand there looking pleased with himself about it.
His eyebrows lifted slightly as he took the straw into his mouth. "You good, princess?"
You blinked, dragging your eyes back to his face with all the dignity you could scrape together, ignoring the nickname that raised the hairs on your arm. "Fine."
"That was convincing." He teased.
Closing the door with your hip, you raised your brows, hugging your pillow to your chest. "I'm processing."
"My arms?"
"That, and many other things that don’t involve you."
Noah's mouth twitched, which immediately prickled the skin on the back of your neck. God, that mouth. He took another slow sip from his slurpee, eyes never leaving yours, and the straw made that obnoxious sound of someone reaching the bottom.
"You missed me," he said, taking a step toward you.
You laughed once, sharp and disbelieving as you nodded towards the house, because apparently dying on your own driveway was not dramatic enough for him. "I missed peace and quiet. You just happen to live beside it."
Licking his lips, he got close enough and nudged you with his shoulder, pushing you towards the front door. "Liar."
"Whatever, neighbourhood infestation." The tease left your mouth quickly, the slap of your flip flops loud in your ears.
"C’mon. National treasure." He replied.
"Nuisance."
"First love?"
His words landed casually, tossed out as a joke, and your fingers immediately tightened around the strap of your bag.
Noah's smile did not disappear as you turned to give him a sharp glare. Then he tilted his head toward your bag and said, "Seriously, how long are you staying? It looks like you packed for a divorce..." he paused, and continued.
"...How is Justin, anyway?"
Just like that, the moment slid back behind a curtain. You looked away first. "He's probably fine."
Noah's brows lifted as the two of you stepped onto the porch. "Probably?"
"Yes."
"That's usually not how people talk about their boyfriends." He said.
"Good thing he isn't one anymore, then." You sucked on your teeth, taking your key and unlocking the door.
Noah went quiet. It was barely a pause, though you felt it anyway. The way his expression softened, mouth closing around whatever joke he would have normally made. And then his October eyes moved over your face.
"Oh," he said.
You hated the gentleness more than the teasing. "Don't do that."
"Do what?"
"That." With a frown, you turned, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
"I said one word." He replied.
You shot him another look. "You said it sympathetically."
"Well, should I say it like an asshole?" With the shrug of his shoulders, he followed you in.
A heavy sigh left your mouth as you kicked off your flip-flops, the cold tile pressed against your toes, and Noah shut the door behind him.
"How long ago?" He queried, watching you carefully.
You adjusted the strap of your duffel and immediately regretted giving your hands something to do, because Noah noticed that too.
"Like, a month," you said.
His gaze sharpened. "And you didn't tell me?"
Shoving your pillow against his chest, you began walking up the stairs. "Usually when people are trying to get inside and unpack, they don't want to be interrogated by the boy next door and his gas station slurpee."
Noah caught the pillow, his hand closing around the edge before it could fall. You watched the way his inked fingers sank into the fabric, and it took every sheer ounce of willpower to drag your gaze away.
"The boy next door," he repeated, toeing off his vans, one step behind you.
You swallowed, suddenly aware of his every move. "That is what you are."
His mouth curved, but it did not reach his eyes this time. "Thought I got promoted."
"To what, exactly?" The carpet was soft against your feet as you made your way up the stairs. Reaching your bedroom you gently pushed the door, the familiar smell of clean cotton and floral perfume strong in your nose.
"I don't know," he said. "You tell me."
Stopping just inside your bedroom, the two of you stood there for a quiet moment, letting the question settle into the warm air.
Your room was exactly as you had left it, preserved in the way bedrooms became when you moved away but never fully moved out. The pale yellow curtains still hung over the window. The mirror covered in stickers you had attempted to peel off when you deemed yourself 'too old' for Tinkerbell. A row of glow-in-the-dark stars still clung stubbornly to the ceiling, arranged in constellations that didn't actually match the real ones in the sky.
Noah walked, pulling at your desk chair and taking a seat in his spot. You set your duffel on the bed and turned to face him, forcing your expression into something unimpressed.
"I think you got promoted from idiot to idiot with tattoos."
His grin grew wide as his bottom lip found way between his teeth, letting the chair spin him methodically side to side. "Ohh, big day for me."
"Try not to let it get to your head." With a smile, you lie back on your bed, letting the familiar fabric brush against your fingers.
"Too late." Noah glanced down at his arms, then back at you, eyes bright with unbearable satisfaction. "You keep bringing them up."
"I brought them up once." The frown was evident from your tone, and you sat back up, arms behind you.
Noah hummed, head tilting to the side. "You've been home five minutes, and 85% of that has been staring at them."
Your face warmed. You hated him in the way a person hated humidity, or a catchy song, or the exact part of a dream they kept remembering after waking up.
Without a word, his gaze slowly moved from you to over the room. He then caught the photo still taped on your mirror, half-hidden behind a ribbon from some high school band award.
Noah stood, crossing the room before you could stop him, plucking the photo from the corner of the mirror.
"No," you said, standing immediately and rushing towards him.
"Yes." He turned it toward himself, ignoring the way you said his name in protest. "Oh, this is gold."
"Put it down." You growled, now pressed against his chest as he held the picture above your head and out of reach, grinning as you tried to lunge for it.
"Absolutely not. Look at us." His smile was wider than wide, all teeth and tease as you pushed against his body, only for him to swat you away with his free arm.
It was a photo from the summer you were seventeen, taken in the backyard. Jolly was blurry in the background, mid-yell with Ruffilo, making an obscene gesture that your mother had not noticed until after she printed the picture. Folio looked high as shit, sitting in a red camping chair, and there, in the middle of it, were you and Noah.
You were sitting on the grass, knees drawn up, cheeks flushed from the heat and cider you had snuck to drink.
Noah sat beside you, one arm braced behind your back, but not quite around you. The two of you were so close to touching that any reasonable person looking at the photo would have asked why neither of you had done something about the very obvious want evident in the frame.
Noah stared at the photo a little too long, the curve of his mouth softening before he could stop it. The joke slipped from his face, and you noticed the way you could feel his breath against your forehead. Your hand was still pressed to his chest, and neither of you moved.
His eyes dropped, the small motion somehow made your fingers want to remember the shape of him through worn cotton, following the steady rise and fall of a breath he seemed to be holding back.
Noah's throat bobbed. Then, quieter, he asked, "Did he hurt you?"
You blinked up at him. "Justin?"
His jaw shifted. "Yeah."
The way he said it made your stomach tighten. "No," you said. "Not like that."
He didn't relax. "Like what, then?" he asked.
After a pause, you pulled your hand from his chest, flexing your fingers quickly before taking a step back. "He was a long, slow waste of time."
His expression shifted, and you hated that too. The understanding and the way he did not immediately speak.
"It's fine. He wanted a girlfriend who fit nicely into his life and did everything for him. I wanted to stop feeling like I had to make myself smaller just to get through a date."
Noah's mouth pressed into a line, and he stared at the photo for a moment before placing it back onto your mirror. "Sounds like an idiot."
You huffed, but it came out softer than you intended. "He wasn't terrible."
"I didn't ask if he was terrible." He said, running a hand through his hair. You watched every move, taking in the way his fingers glided through the strands.
"No, you asked if he hurt me."
His mouth twitched, and the carefulness did not leave his face. "You didn't tell me," he said.
You looked down at the carpet, at the faint oval stain near the closet from when Noah had once knocked over an entire bottle of Fanta and tried to clean it with scented hand sanitizer from Bath & Body Works.
"I didn't tell a lot of people."
"I'm not a lot of people."
There were a dozen things you could have said to that. You could have told him not to make himself sound important or accused him of being dramatic. But Noah was looking at you differently.
"No," you said quietly. "You're not."
His face shifted, and for a breath it was still, until he reached for you, tugging you into his arms.
The hug landing strangely familiar and foreign. You had hugged Noah a hundred times before, but this felt different. Noah's arms came around you properly, one hand settling between your shoulder blades while the other curved low around your back, firm enough to make your breath catch. He smelled like sun-warmed sap and laundry, and you stood there with your arms trapped awkwardly beneath you. Apparently, you could survive a breakup, but Noah hugging you in your childhood bedroom was where your nerves frayed.
His chin brushed the top of your head, chest flush against your body. "Come here," he murmured.
You let the tension go, hands slipping around his waist, fingers curling into the back of his T-shirt. The second you held him back, Noah exhaled against your hair, the sound almost one of relief.
The curtains shifted in the window, and you closed your eyes, letting your head rest against him while feeling the press of his heart thump loudly.
Noah's thumb moved once against your back. "You should've told me." And there was the hurt beneath the softness, again.
Tightening your fingers in his shirt, you mumbled. "I know."
"I would've answered." He said, squeezing you tighter.
Your throat tightened, and you squeezed back in response, breathing him in. "I know."
It was easy to say you had not called because calling would have made the breakup real. But maybe it was because calling Noah about another man leaving would have exposed something far more humiliating.
Pulling back just enough to look at him, his arms refused to loosen. "I didn't want to be pathetic."
His brows drew together. "You're the last thing from pathetic."
"I'm moving back into my childhood bedroom." The scoff left your lips, but Noah didn't tease.
"That's not pathetic." He said, pulling you back.
"No?"
"No." His mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed careful. "It is pretty on-brand, though."
You shoved at his chest again, but he still didn't let go, and you caught the brief drop of his gaze to your mouth. Your hands were still on his waist, his arms still around you. It took everything not to count his breaths as he held you close, his thumb shifting further up your spine.
"You okay?" He asked.
It was a simple question. So you did what you had always done with him when things got too close to serious, and ruined it. "I was until you made this a dumb, romantic moment."
His laugh broke low and warm, his head dipping as if he was trying to hide it against your hair. "Aaand, there she is."
"Don't sound so relieved," you muttered.
"Well, I was worried."
"That I had matured? God forbid." You scoffed, "I could still surprise you, y'know."
"You always do, princess."
The nickname should not have touched you the way it did. It had been harmless in the driveway, but the way he said it with his arms still around you, voice gentle against your hair, it felt different. His voice warmed beneath your ribs, sinking the ache somewhere lower, but thankfully your phone buzzed on the bed.
Both of you looked toward it, and Noah slowly released you; though his hand lingered at your wrist for a moment too long before falling away.
Your screen lit up again, and your phone buzzed three more times.
"Popular," he murmured, earning him an eye-roll.
Noah reached for his Slurpee before sliding up beside you, his chest brushing your shoulder as if the hug had permitted him to touch you again.
"You are physically incapable of minding your business." You muttered, but he only leaned closer, so that the straw of his drink tapped lightly against your arm.
"This seems interesting." He shrugged.
"You haven't even seen who it is."
"I bet ten bucks it's the boys."
You picked up your phone before he could reach for it, angling the screen away from him out of principle. The old group chat had risen from the dead.
Jolly: River tonight?
A second message followed almost immediately.
Ruffilo: We are twenty-five
Jolly: Thanks, Captain Obvious. That was not the question
Folio: I'm down after dinner with the fam. What time?
Jolly: Screw dinner with the fam.
Folio: I'm not telling my mother that
Ruffilo: Yeah, don't weaponize your European abandonment issues against Folio's mom
Jolly: Wait. Is she home yet?
Noah: 7 works
You turned your head slowly, watching the way Noah smiled around his straw as his thumb hovered above his screen.
"You're in the chat," you said blankly, and he snorted. "And you’re literally standing beside me."
"Anyone ever tell you that you're so observant?" Noah's shoulder brushed yours again, and this time, it felt intentional.
You: Unfortunately.
Jolly: YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
Folio: Welcome back!!! :)))
Ruffilo: Welcome home <3 (I think?)
Jolly: Okay, yeah. The forest at 7. No excuses
Ruffilo: Bring snacks. Actual snacks. Not whatever Jolly thinks is food
Jolly: Chips are food if they are food-flavoured
Ruffilo: I'm talking about the time you dumped a jar of pickles into a Ziploc bag
Jolly: You people ate them
Folio: No, YOU ate them
Jolly: I am people.
A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it, and Noah looked down at you gently, fighting back a smile. Little did you know, he wasn't smiling at your friends being idiots. He just couldn't help but grin at the sound he had been waiting to hear since seeing your car pull up on the driveway.
Jolly: Also, someone bring cider.
Ruffilo: Why don't you bring cider?
Jolly: I'm bringing vibes and a bag of pickles, apparently
Folio: Nobody wants your vibes
You: Or your pickles
Jolly: C'mon, don't offend my pickle like that
Noah's brows pulled together.
Noah: Bro, what?
Jolly: PSYCH, dw Y/N I know you don't want my pickle.
Ruffilo: She wants Noah's IMEANWHAT
You felt Noah go still beside you. Then another message appeared.
For half a second, you forgot how to breathe, eyes locked on the screen; until you were suddenly aware of every place he was close to you. His arm beside yours. His breath near your temple.
Folio: For the love of God, I'll bring the cider.
You made a strangled sound that might have been a laugh if it had not died of embarrassment halfway. Noah then reached forward and plucked the phone neatly from your hand.
"Hey."
"Responding," he said nonchalantly.
"Noah." His name was said with a warning, but he only smiled.
"Relax." His thumbs moved quickly over the screen, and you lunged for the phone, but he lifted it above his head with infuriating ease.
"Give it back."
"One second." He smiled wider, his inked thumbs moving quickly over the screen, grinning as you grabbed at his wrist.
Though it was too late. He sent the message.
You: yeahhhhhh I do
Noah lowered the phone just enough for you to see the damage, his expression all innocence except for the slow, smug curve of his mouth. Your lips fell apart in shock as you stared at the screen, then at him in disbelief. "You're fucking dead."
His brows lifted as he laughed. "Okay, tinker bell stickers."
Fuming, you shot him a look that could kill, before groaning as your phone blew up.
Jolly: OH MY GOD
Ruffilo: I KNEW IT
Folio: huhh I leave for one second.
Ruffilo: Noah is beside her, isn't he
Folio: He def typed that.
Jolly: HE TYPED THAT
Ruffilo: Bro cannot even let her confess by herself
You made a strangled sound and lunged again. Noah laughed, twisting away, but the room was small, and the edge of your bed caught the back of his knees. He dropped onto it with your phone still in his hand, grinning up at you because he had never once feared consequences in his entire life.
Climbing onto the mattress after him without thinking, you reached for the phone with a growl. "Noah, I am literally going to kill you."
"Careful," he said, holding it over his head again, "This is how rumours start."
"Rumours? You just announced to the group chat that I want your dick, you asshole."
His smile flickered. Then you realized that you were kneeling on your own bed, one hand braced beside his hip, the other stretched toward his wrist. Noah was leaning back on one elbow, your phone still raised above him, his shirt riding up just enough to show a narrow strip of inked skin and the branded waistband of his briefs above the top of his shorts.
His eyes dropped to you, the grin slowly fading from his face as he noticed the catch of your breath, and he spoke lowly. "I didn't type dick."
"No," you said, and hated how thin your voice sounded. "Ruffilo implied it."
"Well, you clarified."
With another groan, you crawled onto the bed, leg between his as you reached for the device. The pulse of your heart thrummed hard in your throat. Noah's arm stayed lifted above him, phone dangling loose from his fingers, his attention gone from the screen entirely.
His body had gone still beneath yours, the pattern of his breath changing as you felt nothing but the bed and him beneath you. Noah's eyes moved over your face, trying to decide how much trouble he was allowed to want.
"Give me my phone," you said once more, final and demanding.
His mouth twitched again. "Ask nicely. What's the magic word?"
"You are about five seconds away from being smothered with my pillow pet."
"Kinky."
You reached again, but he shifted the phone, and your hand slipped against his bicep instead. His skin was warm under your fingers, the ink on his disappearing beneath your palm; and for one awful second, you forgot why you had climbed onto the bed in the first place.
His gaze dropped to your hand around his arm, then lifted slowly back to your face, lips parted, threatening a smile.
The group chat buzzed again, vibrating against his fingers.
"You gonna answer them?" he teased. You sighed in frustration and snatched the phone from his loosened hand.
"I'll just clarify later," you groaned, thigh brushing his.
Folio: OKAY, Forest. 7. Cider. Bikes. Clothes on. Please.
You stared at Folio's message, heat crawling up your neck so quickly you wanted to blame the July air; literally anything except the man sitting too close beside you.
"You heard him," he said, laughing. "Clothes stay-"
Turning your head slowly, you dared him to finish the sentence. "Don't."
His expression was painfully innocent. "I didn't say anything."
The bed creaked beneath you as he sat up, scooting off until he stood before you. "I'll be waiting outside at seven."
You raised a brow. "Confident I'm coming?"
Noah paused in the doorway, his smile infuriating.
"You always do. See ya, Trees."
Then he disappeared down the hall, leaving the room too quiet.
Trees. He hadn't called you that since you were teenagers, and the thought made a blush stain your neck. When you turned your head, you noticed what remained of his Slurpee sitting on your nightstand, the condensation leaving a ring of water beneath the plastic.
Even now, Noah's fingerprints still lingered.
part two coming soon
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