it’s been about a year since noah had much more attached to his name than what he could fit inside a single backpack, excluding the massive, shitty truck he drives and everything he has to hull around with him to keep it running, but even then, he’s never assumed anything he owns couldn’t be discarded just as quickly as a snake’s skin. wherever he stands, he is half ocean, half salted breeze and crumbling sandcastles, the mirage of a man wavering in whatever light cascades around him, a figment if he can help it, un-solid, unsteady, untamed. wild as a storm, noah paints himself with as little future as possible, as little past as possible, as though drenching himself in skyward tendencies is enough to wash away what his family’s legacy has stained him with. maybe if he pretends to have nothing, to hold nothing, he’ll become nothing. wouldn’t that be better?
when he steps up to the door of the worryingly smallish apartment, the pack is lighter than usual on his shoulder, his eyes a darker blue than normal, his perpetual rain cloud hovering just a bit closer than necessary. the town is already beginning to seep into his bones, cold against his marrow as a disease, already chattering his teeth and pulling his fingers into curls inside his jacket pockets, and he’s suddenly struck with the realization that no one might open the door, that maybe peter isn’t home, that maybe he’s already filled up whatever roommate vacancies he’d had when he’d posted an ad in the paper about it. noah had been hopeful before, optimistic even, when he’d seen it, like a drowning man reaching for a life preserver, anything to keep himself from wandering back towards his parents’ house, anything to keep away from that hurricane catastrophe.
he knocks again and winces, this time more uncomfortable, this time more awkward, this time with his throat scrunching up into his mouth, his shoulders hunching, his teeth grinding. the world shifts immediately as soon as the door releases though, and a seven-year-older peter francis meets his gaze, everything different, sharpened, less-bruised about him than the last time noah had seen him, and the older male grins slightly. “peter. hey. remember me?” suddenly, he’s entirely unsure if this is such a good idea. “i, uh… i saw your ad in the paper and i thought…”