Not long ago, I posted the Prologue to a project I’ve been working on that I call the remasters. This is, obviously, at its core Through the Lens.
So what changed?
When I came back from my trip in July, I sat down to write again, and reading back what I had previously written, I hated it. Worse, I wasn’t even proud of what I had written. I knew I could do better.
I got to thinking, and eventually I had the vision that sparked it all: A Halloween party, our lovers, a cake, and a kiss that never gets to happen. And so, the Remasters were born.
I have yet to decide if I will just adopt this title for the whole series, but if I do, I will create a separate Masterlist for the series.
Through The Lens (Remastered) will cover the entirety of the first part (including the lost final chapter) and more. The goal has always been to keep the core of the story and the things that make it great, and make it better. There are differences, and that is because i wanted it to be different.
I sincerely hope you enjoy these as much as I do.
——
Now, for my announcement/author’s note/I’m not dead I promise!!
I am planning to return soon with the Remastered Chapter One, but life has gotten in the way on the several attempts i have made to finish it and get it out into the world.
The day before Halloween I sustained a concussion, which limited my ability to do a lot of that stuff, and as I began to recover, my girlfriend’s birthday came up (happy birthday baby). And now currently I have an ovarian cyst the size of a baseball that is causing a number of other issues.
However!! I have the next week off and so I will have time to write and rest and do all the things!!
They didn't kiss. And maybe that's the worst part of this: Noah had wanted to kiss her. God, he really had. The moment had been right there — he could feel the warmth of her breath against his cheek, see the way her eyes had lingered on his lips for just a moment too long.
But at the end of the night, nothing could change the facts: she worked for him, they were about to spend a little over a month breathing the same recycled van air. There were professional boundaries, contracts, things that could destroy careers if things went sideways.
They didn't kiss, which means all he has is that moment of possibility. That one moment where Talia Merrin could have been his, if he had been brave enough to close those few inches. If he had been strong enough to ignore the voice relentlessly screaming about the consequences of letting people too close.
The sheets twist around Noah's legs as he tosses and turns. A quick glance at the clock on his nightstand informs him that it's just after three AM. He's exhausted, but no matter how hard he tries, sleep refuses to come. His mind won't stop replaying every detail, every look, every almost-moment that could have changed everything.
If he didn't know any better, he would think that actually kissing her would get her out of his head, would scratch the itch that has been slowly driving him insane. But laying here in his bed, he's forced to admit the bitter truth: if last night wasn't the beginning, it sure as hell wasn't the end.
Because it didn't start last night. It didn't even start two weeks ago, when Talia had stepped into his life for the first time, all nervous professionalism and careful smiles. This obsession, this infatuation — because that's what this was, wasn't it? — went back years now, back to the first time he'd seen one of her photographs. He'd spent an embarrassing amount of time studying her portfolio, memorizing the way she could make even the grittiest moment feel like worship.
Now Noah was stuck with the reality that for the first time in three years, he actually wanted someone to know him. Not the version he portrayed on stage or in interviews, but the real him. The one who watched too much anime, who wrote scraps of lyrics on napkins at 2 AM, who got so overwhelmed by the idea of his own success that he couldn't breathe.
The thought itself sends ice slamming through his veins. After Lydia, after everything had gone to hell, he'd learned to shut everything out. To build walls, high ones, ones to keep him safe and functional and somewhat human.
And if that made him want to run, made him want to shut down, it didn't matter. Because he couldn't avoid this. Tomorrow, they'd be sharing the same van, the same venues, the same compressed tour life where privacy was a luxury. He couldn't avoid Talia Merrin.
Talia. She was everything he hadn't expected — quiet, reserved instead of eager, effortlessly charming in a way that Noah longed to be. She asked questions that made him think, laughed at his jokes when they were actually funny instead of being polite.
And yet, he couldn't shake his fascination with her, couldn't stop picking at it like a scab. He'd hoped that meeting her in person would shatter the illusion, that once the mystery fell away she would just be another face to him. But it had only done the opposite, planting dangerous ideas in his head about having someone like that again.
His phone buzzes on the nightstand beside him, and for a brief, irrational moment, his heart jumps at the thought that it might be a text from her. That she might be lying awake too, thinking about him just the same.
But it's just Instagram, and he clicks on the notification banner that tells him he's been tagged in a post before his brain can stop his thumb.
The image that greets him makes his stomach lurch. In the foreground, a simple cake with candles, and in the background, Noah. But he's not looking at the cake, or the camera, or anywhere he should be looking. His eyes are on Talia.
Noah doesn't need to wonder why. He doesn't need to analyze his body language or guess at what he was feeling. He knows exactly what he was feeling in that moment.
And it terrifies him to admit that he's still feeling it now.
Two
October 31st, 2022
Two days until tour
When he looks in the mirror that night, Noah is half expecting to see someone else — someone fundamentally changed, marked by another year. What he finds is disappointing: twenty-seven looks exactly like twenty-six, just with a few more invisible scars.
Downstairs, he can hear the night's festivities beginning to bleed through the floorboards. People pouring through his front door in clumps, their conversations mixing with the steady thrum of whatever playlist was put on. Any minute now, someone will come to drag him down to his inevitable fate of forced smiles and small talk, of drinking just enough to make the night bearable but not enough to make tomorrow hell.
He smooths a hand through his hair and practices a smile, one that's just friendly and welcoming enough. He reviews the answers to the questions he will undoubtedly be asked. Tonight is just another night he has to be "on," nothing new.
Truthfully, Noah hadn't wanted a party. The idea had made his skin crawl when Jesse had suggested it. He would have been perfectly content to spend the last few precious days before tour hibernating in his room, lost in subtitles and the ritual of packing and repacking his suitcase. But here he was anyway, pulling on his most Halloween-appropriate black hoodie and preparing to descend into the chaos of thirty people treating his home like their personal playground.
When he finally forces himself downstairs, he's hit by a wall of sound that makes his teeth ache. Bodies fill every available space between the living room and kitchen, costumes ranging from lazy vampire fangs to elaborate horror movie recreations. The air is thick with overlapping conversations, perfume, and the distinctive smell of too many people crammed into one space. No one notices him at first, which is a small mercy as it gives him more time to make a beeline for the kitchen and get alcohol in his system before someone corners him into a conversation about tour dates.
Any hope he has to go entirely unnoticed, however, dies the second his feet hit the tile.
"Noah!" Nick's voice cuts through the din like a blade, and he raises his red solo cup like a trophy. "About time you got your ass down here, birthday boy!"
Noah rolls his eyes but fails to hide the grin tugging at his lips, "Isn't this supposed to be my party? Shouldn't I get be to fashionably late in my own house?"
"Not when we're all waiting for you to get drunk," Folio calls from across the island, and the group erupts into laughter.
Noah quickly joins the circle his bandmates have formed around the island, the familiar comfort of their chaos already loosening something tight in his chest. Almost instantly, a drink appears in his peripheral vision. Someone's arm reaches towards him, their fingers brushing his as they press a plastic cup into his hand.
He turns to thank whoever it is, and the words die in his throat.
Talia Merrin stands beside him, close enough that he can make out the faint scar where a piercing had once been. Like him, she's one of the few people without a costume, dressed instead in dark jeans and simple black top that somehow manages to be both understated and devastating. Her dark hair has been straightened, falling in sleek curtains around her shoulders. There's something about seeing her here, in his space, that makes the room feel smaller and infinitely more dangerous.
"For the man of the hour," she says, but Noah can hardly hear her over the stutter of his heart, "happy birthday."
"You made it." He says simply, like it's the only thought he can form.
Talia just laughs — a warm, unexpected sound that hits him behind the ribs — and shrugs as if saying she wouldn't dream of being anywhere else. The gesture is casual, effortless even, but it sends heat crawling up his neck. She turns back to the group conversation, folding herself into their circle like she's always belonged there, and Noah takes a long swig to steady himself.
Folio, presumably dressed as Billy Loomis based on the bloody t-shirt, is in the middle of some elaborate story about a high school Halloween party gone wrong. His hands move dramatically through the air, beer sloshing in his cup, and Noah tries desperately to follow along. It's nearly impossible to do so when all he really wants to do is take Talia by the hand and pull her somewhere quiet, and ask her about every photograph she's ever taken.
He's saved about ten minutes later, when Bryan materializes in the doorway, scanning the room until his eyes land on their group. Cutting through the crowd with easy confidence, Bryan comes to stand beside Noah and clap him on the back hard enough that Noah stumbles slightly.
"Happy birthday, man." Bryan says, his grin wide and full of mischief, "Twenty-seven! How does it feel to be ancient?"
Noah shoots him a look that's half gratitude, half desperation, "Thanks, asshole. Have you met Talia yet?"
"I can't say I have."
On cue, Talia steps forward, extending Bryan a hand and a warm smile that almost makes Noah's heart stop.
"Talia Merrin." she says, and Noah finds himself stepping back instinctively, watching as she moves closer to Bryan to hear him over the noise. "You're the Bryan I'm filling in for?"
And just like that, Noah becomes a spectator to his own party. Within moments, Bryan and Talia are deep in conversation, trading war stories about difficult artists and near impossible lighting conditions. Easy camaraderie between two people who speak the same language. Noah hovers awkwardly nearby, nursing his drink and intermittently getting pulled into mini-conversations — someone asking about tour, another asking if he'd seen a movie that recently came out — that he only half pays attention to. His focus keeps drifting back to Talia. Back to her laugh, back to the way her face lights up when she's talking about a passion, back to the way she tilts her head just a little when she's really listening.
Minutes crawl by like hours, each one a small hell as he waits to get a chance to actually know her. By the time he finally removes himself from a particularly mind-numbing conversation about some Marvel movie and turns to talk to her, Nick is spiriting her off to some other corner of the house.
As she's being led into the living room, Talia glances over her shoulder, eyes catching his across the crowded kitchen. It only lasts a fraction of a second, but it feels loaded in a way that Noah can't begin to explain. He watches helplessly as she disappears into the crowd, leaving him alone with a racing pulse and a growing certainty that this night was going to be a lot more than he bargained for.
Three
November 1st, 2022
Of all the things that should be consuming Noah's thoughts the day before tour — setlists and door times, for example — his photographer is definitely not one of them.
He reminds himself this as he double checks his bags for the fourth time, methodically checking each compartment even though he packed them yesterday. He repeats it like a mantra as he reviews the setlist on his laptop, staring at the song order and making sure he can really live with those choices. It starts becoming his internal soundtrack as he mentally prepares to give over his life, his privacy, and his sanity to the chaos of the road.
But nothing seems to stop him from jumping at every buzz of his phone. Nothing keeps him from thinking, for a split second, he might see Talia's name dancing across his screen.
By noon, Noah has opened her text thread seventeen separate times. He knows because he's been counting, which is possibly the most pathetic part of this situation. The thread sits there, mocking him — just her contact information and a simple 'Hello! - Talia Merrin.' Professional. Clean. Safe.
He's typed seven messages and deleted six, all unsure thumbs hovering over the keyboard like a teenager with a crush. Each attempt either feels too casual or too intense, too professional or too personal. There's no clear middle ground here.
One message sits in his drafts, cursor blinking at the end like there's anything he can add that doesn't make him seem like an absolute fool.
Noah: Looking forward to getting to spend time with you
He stares at those nine words until they seem to lose all meaning. Deletes them. Retypes them. For one wild moment, he considers just doing it, just sending the message and dealing with the fallout later.
Because it's not a lie. That's the problem. He is looking forward to spending time with her, more than he's ready to admit. But putting that out in the open feels too personal, too honest. He might as well take apart his brain and show her how much space she takes up in it.
Because after Lydia, Noah knows he has too much damage for anyone like Talia to be able to know him. The real him, the one underneath all the stage lights and carefully constructed melodies, is a collection of jagged edges and poorly-healed wounds.
His phone buzzes in his hand, and his heart momentarily stops. But it's just Matt, confirming arrival times for tomorrow. Noah deletes the draft one final time and tosses his phone aside, trying to ignore the disappointment that sits heavy in his chest.
Forty-two days. He can keep his distance for forty-two days. He has to.
Four
November 2nd, 2022
Forty-two days to go
The first day of tour might as well be considered a memorial service for Noah. He was going to die before ever stepping foot on stage that night, and that would be that. The headlines would read: 'Bad Omens frontman dead at twenty-seven; too worried about a girl.'
Of course, there are other things that could take him out. The Atlanta heat, which had his clothes sticking to him uncomfortably the second he stepped out of Hartsfield-Jackson. The mad dash from the airport to the venue. The trial-and-error of a first show, first soundcheck, first shot to get this right. A myriad of things that would be good cause for cardiac arrest.
But the real kicker was no matter how many times he wiped sweat off his brow, no matter how many red lights they hit, no matter what went wrong, he couldn't stop thinking about Talia.
He'd gone through the motions that morning — the last minute bag checks with shaking hands, the tediousness of airport security where he'd nearly forgotten his own name, the long flight that had made his legs ache and his mind run in endless circles. And all the while, his thoughts were on a loop. Today he got to see Talia. Today he got to see Talia. Today he got —
It was white noise by time his plane landed.
Now, standing under the white-hot stage lights of The Masquerade, the mantra has evolved into something more desperate, something fueled by the fact that she has yet to arrive. Maybe he scared her off, maybe she got a better job offer, maybe things were ruined before they ever even started.
"You with us?" Jolly's voice cuts through the static in Noah's head, sharp and concerned.
Instantly, he snaps back to reality like a rubber band. The venue materializes around him — the scattered equipment, the lingering scent of last night's beer and sweat, the way the empty space seems to swallow sound. Most of the eyes in the room are on him, and for a brief, mortifying second, he considers curling up into a ball and letting the stage floor claim him.
He rolls his shoulders back with deliberate force, works out the kinks in his neck, "Yeah, yeah. Can we run through 'Nowhere' again?"
The rest of soundcheck drags on longer than it should, even this early in the tour. Things go wrong left and right. First, the sound levels are too low. Then, a light that is actually threatening to blind Jolly. Every little possible speed bump, making the minutes stack like thick books, heavy and suffocating.
By the time it ends and they can finally say that things are ready to go, Noah is ready for this whole thing to be over.
Forty-two days. That's all he has to survive. Forty-two days of this knot in his chest, this constant hum of anxiety.
He follows everyone into the green room, a cramped space that smells like stale coffee and ambition. He claims a small chair in the corner that practically swallows him when he sinks into it, the worn fabric scratching at his palms. Chatter fills the room, but he doesn't join in. Instead, he pours himself into his phone, scrolling mindlessly through Instagram, not really seeing any of it but needing something to do with his hands anyway.
And then the door to the green room opens with a soft click that somehow cuts through all the noise, and everyone's heads turn toward it like sunflowers turning towards light. Noah's heart begins to roar in his ears, a thunderous drumbeat that drowns out everything else. The phone slips slightly in his grip.
Looking as nervous as the day he met her — fidgeting with her bag strap, eyes doing that quick scan of the room that he remembers so clearly from his kitchen — Talia Merrin walks into the room.
And Noah forgets how to breathe.
Hi hi! HAPPY HALLOWEEN! And, happy birthday to Noah lol.
I will have a post coming in the next few days to talk about this, but this is the prologue to a project that I've been working on for some time! I'm so excited to finally be able to share it with you! I hope you enjoy it!!
Thank you so much to everyone who I have sent pieces of this to! And of course, a special thank you to my friends Halen, Percy, and Loki who have helped with everything!!
