noahsturner-blog

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah flinched when he first felt Trish’s curls against his neck, but made himself relax as she settled in.  She wasn’t dangerous, or someone he had to worry about getting too close.  Her reaction surprised him, though, and just made everything he thought he had figured out much more complicated.  How could she be so loud and make it look as if she was doing it on purpose, but still be upset by the realization that it was a major trait of hers?  Especially when that realization led to her hiding her face against his neck.  It didn’t make any sense.

Whatever it was, Noah knew better than to touch someone when they couldn’t see it coming.  He kept his hands pressed against the floor behind him, supporting them both in whatever strange position they were currently suspended in.  Trish had gone from boisterous to scared to sad and quiet in just a few hours, and even though the rapid shifts stirred something uncomfortable at the bottom of Noah’s gut, his curiosity kept him rooted in place.  There was more going on with Trish than was visible at first glance, and if figuring it out meant keeping himself wary of her changing moods and ready to duck away at a moment’s notice if necessary, than so be it.  For now, at least.

Noah waited a moment longer for her eyes to open briefly before reaching one hand out in front of him and slowly turning her palm over once more.  In the center, he traced out a slow T, followed by an H... A, N, K, S.  She had unintentionally given him something to focus on, something that keep his attention off the suddenly massive world around him.  Watching her settle down from her earlier, harsher personality, Noah could finally see the fundamental similarities between the two of them, and it was shocking at first.  She was just as scared and quiet as he was at her core, and the fact that she had let him see that meant something important.  He just didn’t know what yet.  For now, he would take it as a kindness, and finally relaxed a bit more against the weight on his side.

Trish eyed Noah suspiciously as he grabbed her and turned it over, palm facing the ceiling. For a few seconds Trish wondered if she should tell him that she didn’t like it, the touching, but as he began making shapes across her skin she understood. It was necessary to understand him tonight. Besides, Noah wasn’t the type of person to take advantage of… well anyone. It was strange that she had come to trust him in the short time she’d known him, even though it was still shaky at times. So she sat still, waiting for Noah to tell her what he’d decided she could know.

Loud. That was the overall description of her, wasn’t it. Trish felt tension leave her shoulders, slumping in what shouldn’t be defeat but somehow felt like it. Noah was hiding behind her, she knew that, she’d seen it straight away. Now she also knew why. And just like Trish he had managed to find a way to tell half a truth without giving away the horrid past that had made them this way. “Well,” she said, voice rough, “I’m- That’s good… for you.” She suddenly wondered if things would’ve been different if she’d been more like Noah. If she’d been quiet as well.

She scooted closer, and when she was close enough that her hair brushed against his cheek she leaned forward and rested against his shoulder. “I’m tired,” she said, and her voice didn’t carry the same weight that it used to. It just sounded… worn down and defeated. And honest. She turned her head and buried it in the crook of Noah’s neck and for once she was the one hiding. Trish didn’t know what she had just admitted to Noah, she probably wouldn’t remember it the next day, but she knew that it was more than she had counted on.

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah was impressed.  Trish had managed to avoid giving a straight answer, but what she gave was crucial information.  It felt as if she had answered half the question - like she hadn’t explained the cause, but easily addressed the results.  It was frustratingly vague, but he didn’t really have room to talk (literally) if he was going to be so reluctant to share his own.

Knowing just how uncomfortable her explanation had probably made Trish, Noah scooted forwards, hesitating for a moment before steeling himself and gesturing to her hand.  If she was going to share, he probably should as well.  It was only fair.  She eyed him strangely, but Noah ignored her, instead taking her hand and turning it palm up in front of him.  Trish didn’t know sign language (not that Noah knew it well enough to try it, either), and he knew he wouldn’t be able to speak for at least the rest of the night.  For once, though, it wasn’t going to stop him from saying what he needed to - he could find a way.

He quickly planned out a crude sign language of his own, and supplemented words he didn’t know how to describe physically by tracing them onto her palm.  It would be slow going, but Trish was smart, and seemed to be as motivated to figure him out as he was by her.  Taking a deep breath, Noah started by pointing at her, making sure she saw it before tracing letters onto her palm.  L... O... U... P... no, D.  Once he was certain she understood, he could continue, gesturing to himself and following it with a motion that seemed to simultaneously look like someone who has had their throat cut and/or their voice taken away.  Finally, he gestured all around them, as if there were other people there, before covering his own eyes.  They can’t see me when I’m behind someone like you, he thought, watching Trish’s eyes to make sure she understood what he was saying.

Trish wanted to feel pleased that she was right, but the fact that it probably was some underlying trauma that made Noah so silent took some of the joy out of it. She matched Noah’s approach and looked away, staring intently at the cool metal of the shelves lining the walls. For a moment she saw herself from his point of view, and she had to admit that she couldn’t understand the reasoning behind her hiding from the world in the one place she couldn’t stand either. It must be some sort of fucked up punishment, but for what she didn’t know. Or didn’t want to know, most likely.

The look Noah gave her as she challenged him made her shake her head in irritation. She was the one who asked first, yet he tried to get her to spill all her secrets first? For a few seconds she was prepared to stay just as silent as he was, out of pure stubbornness. The problem was that she wasn’t sure if he’d keep the rhythm if she didn’t say anything. Right now she was too wound up to take that chance. “What do you want me to say? I don’t like silence. It gives you far too much time to think. And to hear everything that’s going on. And, in case you haven’t noticed, everything’s so fucking ugly. I need to block out some of it or I’m gonna go crazy.“ 

It was way too much information to give out, but it was vague enough that Noah wouldn’t really understand why she hated it. It was too easy to lie when parts of what you said was true. Trish rubbed her eyes, suddenly exhausted, and pressed her lips together when she saw that she had managed to smudge her makeup. “Great,” she muttered under her breath and looked back up at Noah. “So? Your turn.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Part of Noah wanted to prove her wrong right then and there.  Blurt out a question, a defense... hell, he was pretty sure anything he said right now would throw her off.  He opened his mouth a bit to try, though, and instantly knew that his voice had gone for a while.  Even if he wanted to ask a hundred questions, he couldn’t even voice one right now.  Oddly enough, that didn’t scare him as much as the incident at the party had earlier.  Noah wasn’t sure why - maybe it was that it was just him and Trish in this closet, maybe it was that it was quieter now and he could make other types of noises to be noticed if he needed to be.  Whatever the reason was, he didn’t feel that gut-wrenching panic as soon as his throat closed up, instead conceding defeat for the night and shrugging slightly in Trish’s direction, looking away.  

As she started to speak more, though, Noah’s head lifted again in interest.  For a bit, it sounded as if she was going to tell him what was so important about the noise.  Just before she did, though, she stopped herself, and Noah cursed as loudly as he could in his head.  He started to think of a way to push her into talking about it again, but froze when she turned her questioning onto him.  

Noah couldn’t offer anything but a weak shrug in response.  She wasn’t wrong.  It was easy to hide behind her.  Trish was loud, boisterous, and an expert at drawing people’s attention away from looking too close, and Noah couldn’t think of a safer place to be than behind her already-set distractions.  That she had caught him was embarrassing, but Trish didn’t seem angry about it, which was reassuring.  Rather than respond any further, Noah pointedly glanced between his knocking hand and her, as if daring her to explain her equally-confounding tick.  You first.

Trish could appreciate them sitting in silence as Noah’s rhythm made it hard for her thoughts to go back to the dark place they had been before. She looked back at Noah, let him stare all he wanted, took in him in return and wondered if they would figure each other out by the end of the night. After a while she leaned her head back against the door once more and closed her eyes. Noah’s tapping was a heartbeat against her skin and for a moment she got lost in it.

“You’re staring again,” she commented, filling the silence, and kept her eyes closed. “You can’t help it can you. So quiet ‘cause you have to figure everyone out. I’m not impossible, kid.” She probably was. “You could just ask me. But you won’t. How many words have you said to me since we first met, huh? Ten? Five? Hardly enough for a question.” It might’ve sound cruel if it wasn’t for the fact that there was no emotion in her voice, only calm stating of facts.

“There’s no need to hide it,” she kept going as if nothing was going on. “We’re foxes for a reason, everyone’s story is fucked up isn’t it?” There was no rhyme or reason to Trish’s rambling at this point, but the alcohol in her system made it hard to care. “I’ve done… so many things. Every time I close my eyes I-” She opened her eyes abruptly. A slow smile spread across her face, never reaching the eyes. “See, this is why I’ve gotta watch my mouth around you. And my back, apparently, seeing as you’re always behind me. Why is that, by the way? You’re always coming up behind me as if I’m your personal bodyguard or something.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah shrugged, not really sure what to do (or say) in response.  He wasn’t doing much, after all - just tapping.  Her need for noise was confusing to him.  Of course, he had the exact opposite problem, and that may have factored into his ability to understand, he reasoned.  Either way, though, something had driven Trish to seek out the noisiest situations possible.  As a distraction?

It could have been as an antagonist, Noah thought.  If she liked to get angry or worked up, after all, loud situations were generally the best places to do it.  But when he had come into the party, Trish hadn’t been doing anything particularly active.  She had just been sitting and talking.  So why would she go to the trouble of finding a party in order to release stress somehow if all she was going to to was sit and talk?  Noah couldn’t figure out how to put the pieces together, and it was beginning to frustrate him.  He had forced himself to be good at reading the people around him in order to survive.  But Trish?  Something was off about her, and he couldn’t figure out exactly what it was that made her so confusing.

Rather than experiment with his rhythms anymore, Noah kept a steady pulse.  Trish had picked up on subtle changes earlier, and there was no need to test that again today, especially not when she needed to calm down.  Instead, he let any erratic rhythm fall out of his beat, eventually landing on a moderate pulse that sounded more like a metallic heartbeat than anything else.  His tapping evened out, and he looked back at Trish, studying her a bit longer before tilting his head.  It felt childish, but it was an instinct he hadn’t been able to shake - after all, the best way to let people know you’re wondering about something without saying it is the universal sign of “I’m confused.”  Rather than ask a specific question in his head, though, Noah just studied everything around and in front of him, trying to piece together enough answers to even form the right questions.

The hesitant rhythm made Trish immediately relax against the door, her body vibrating with every knock against metal. She let the sound fill her up, make her calm down. Not that she really knew why she needed calming down in the first place. Wasn’t she the one who’d been taking care of Noah a few minutes ago? A laugh bubbled up inside of her, but she pushed it down because while the situation was funny she doubted that Noah would feel the same.

But the knocking made her mind focus on something other than hands caressing her cheeks in absolute silence and instead it tied her to reality and made it easier for her breathing to slow down until it had become a comfortable rhythm in her chest. Trish didn’t want Noah; clever, observant Noah to figure out this part of her yet. Probably ever. Even though she pushed at him to open up, to talk, that wasn’t something she wanted to do. The truth wasn’t pretty, and Trish was comfortable with people making assumptions about why she was at Palmetto in the first place. She was sure Noah had his suspicions, all of them wrong if he went by her attitude on the court, and she wanted to keep it that way. She was doing an awful job.

Her heart wasn’t racing anymore. She wasn’t back in her childhood bedroom and she wasn’t fourteen. She was in a tiny closet with a boy she’d only met a couple of months ago. With a smile she opened her eyes and looked at the kid in front of her. “Resourceful,” she commented. “Thank you.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Watching Trish beg for any sort of noise forced Noah back into memories of his first year playing exy.  He suddenly remembered hiding in the corner of Coach Coleman’s office, and his startled jolt when the man came in and noticed him there.  Rather than force him out, though, Coach Coleman had let him stay and hide away from the rest of the team’s post-game parties in the locker rooms and on the fields.  Noah was fine with sitting in silence and waiting motionless until the Coach was done with his work and they could leave, but Coleman wasn’t as quiet a personality as Noah.  He would hum to fill the air, Noah remembered.  It was quiet enough that it didn’t totally bother Noah, but solid enough that the Coach wasn’t uncomfortable, and Noah wasn’t going to complain and lose the best hiding spot he had found all year.

He couldn’t hum for Trish, he realized.  He could barely get his vocal cords to cooperate long enough to speak half a sentence, much less hum continuously and loudly enough to fill silent air.  He probably couldn’t even whistle well enough - he’d never tried.  He could beat out a rhythm against the metal shelf frame up against the wall with his knuckles.

Noah scooted across the room to be closer to the wall and gently tapped the frame to test it.  It left a dull, ringing noise that was a lot louder than he had been expecting when he first hit it, and he forced himself not to jump again as he knocked on it again, softer.  This time, the sound wasn’t as shocking or sudden as before.  Slowly, Noah started to build up a rhythm, watching Trish from his corner to see how she would respond.

Trish grinned widely at the scoff Noah let out, louder than he’d probably realised, and BLA. When she felt him push at her knee and nudged him with her foot in return. “I’m serious,” she told him. “Young, tall, mysterious, handsome. What more could they want?” Without waiting for an answer she kept going. “Pretty sure Henrietta was checking you out, she’s one of our cheerleaders, did you know? I mean I might’ve made that one up ‘cause I’m not sure if she even was there I just saw big hair and-” She took a deep breath and realised she was rambling again.

“It’s so quiet,” Trish said as she exhaled, and closed her eyes. She leaned her head back against the door and took a deep breath. Her head was still spinning, but she felt a bit more relaxed than she had before, lured into a false sense of security. Even though Noah’s searching gaze still was on her. Trish knew that he was still trying to figure her out, to understand her. That was okay, for now. She was doing the same thing.

Her fingers were itching against the floor and as she opened her eyes it took some time to get used to the dim lightning again. Trish often wondered why she was attracted to the solitude and silence, especially since it had been one of her worst fears when she’d been younger. There were still traces left inside her that wouldn’t quite let go. She pressed her eyes closed once more and tapped her fingers against the seam of her jeans. “Please do something.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Highline 179 // Niko Brinkmann

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah was immediately concerned.  Rather than calm her down, getting away from the party seemed to trigger even more anxiety in Trish’s behavior.  Between her fidgeting, rambling, and the tugging on her hair, it was clear to Noah that getting her away from everything so suddenly may not have been the best idea.  He couldn’t change what he had done, though.  Instead, he could do what he could now to calm her down.

Of course, if Trish actually had been drugged, this could be more than just an anxious reaction.  Noah couldn’t find the words to ask her if that was what was wrong, though, and panicked slightly before forcing himself to breathe again.  He wasn’t voiceless permanently, and he could find other ways to check.  Instead of trying (and subsequently failing) to voice any concerns about her physical wellbeing, Noah sat down cross-legged in front of her and watched her pupils carefully.  He didn’t quite know what he was looking for, but he assumed it would be obvious.

When he finally registered the last thing she had said, he scoffed.  Yeah right.  Barely anyone had seen them.  Even if they had, it wasn’t as if he was completely obtuse.  Noah knew panicking and randomly shouting in the middle of a party was about as far ask you could get from attractive.  Rather than respond to that, he nudged her knee slightly, a playful gesture and response as much as it was a test of how aware she was at the moment.

There was no need to talk to Noah as they made their way toward the exit. Her grip was loose around Noah’s hand, but she knew she wouldn’t have to hold on for him to follow. He wanted to be here less than she did. As she reached the door she used her shoulder to push it open. Once Noah was out she closed it. The silence was startling in her mind, and Trish blinked. The corridor stood silent, save for the thumping from the base. Noah tugged at her arm, moving her forward, and made off toward the elevators. She followed obediently, for a moment forgetting that she’d been the one pushing forward and didn’t realise where they were going until they stood in front of their storage closet.

It opened with a silent click and Trish felt a chill run down her spine when silence embraced them fully. The only sound was their breaths mixing with each other. Trish heart began to pound. “Oh, this is not good.” Still, she locked the door and sunk down with her back against it. “So quiet. My ears are ringing. Head’s spinning. Isn’t yours?” Her hands curled into her hair and tugged slightly, to break through her haze. Pain stretched down her scalp into her neck and she took a deep breath. “Better.”

With blank eyes she looked at Noah. “Have you ever had this feeling like your head is about to explode?” She tugged at her hair again, to get her to focus and sent him a small grin. “How was your first college party? Pretty sure at least half of the girls there was intrigued by your silent, tortured act. Probably some of the guys as well.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Party for introverts:

Silence! At the disco

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah stumbled slightly, but followed dutifully behind, as relieved as he was frustrated.  Trish’s laser focus on his silence, and refusal to take it for what it was, made him wary of how she would react if she ever found out the reasons behind it.  It wasn’t something he was comfortable thinking about, and God only knows how long it would take him to scrounge up the right words for however he could explain her away.

At the same time, though, Trish was equally as deflective concerning her past.  He hadn’t forgotten her drink comment, and had already resolved to save that one for later, but it made him pause and think.  If she saw Noah’s silence as... whatever she was seeing it as, then it made sense that her own boisterous personality was hiding something much quieter.  People projected, after all.  Noah had found that out early on when he started to pay attention to the world around him.

Noah could only hope that when she said she was drunk, she would be drunk enough to forget this interraction in the morning. Rather than insist that they stay where they were until he figured her out, Noah gladly followed Trish as she tugged him out of the party.  It was far too loud and busy in there for his comfort.  He didn’t let Trish just pull him half-willingly anywhere, though.  Instead, he gently slipped his hand out of hers to gently tug her towards the elevators, punching the button for the floor that held their storage closet. 

Trish nodded with a slow smile spreading across her face, teeth bared. “Loud,” she repeated. “Always talking even when you’re not. You think you’re silent, but I can see you.” Her fingers curled in his hair slightly. “I see you.” Trish didn’t know what else to say to explain it. She didn’t even know how she could. He was always hiding, behind doors, around corners, behind her. Trish didn’t know how she was the one who was able to see all of this, but somehow she was.

After a while her vision blurred and she couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m drunk,” she said and let her hand fall to her side. She ignored the look on Noah’s face, because it left her more uncomfortable than she cared to admit. Sure, she was able to read Noah, even in this state, but he’d had more time to learn how people worked. Trish usually didn’t care. But Noah, he just observed. He knew stuff, whether people told him things or not. Right now it looked as if he wanted to figure her out, which was less than stellar.

“Do you wanna get out of here?” she asked without waiting for an answer. With poor coordination she grabbed his arm, which ended up being his hand, and pulled him through the crowd toward the exit. Anything to make him stop looking at her like that.

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah flinched slightly, but was too confused to really react beyond that outwardly.  He was loud?  Maybe Trish was right, and that not-water-bottle was drugged, because people had described him in many ways, but “loud” had never been one of them.  The whole “I don’t speak” thing usually stopped that particular description in its tracks.  He pointed to himself after a moment, even more confused than before, as if to ask what the hell she was seeing.  His outburst on the couch was the loudest he had been in weeks, after all.  And why was everyone so concerned about how he would “communicate on the court” if he was loud?

No, he definitely wasn’t loud, and he would just have to do everything in his power and more to make sure it stayed that way.

Her last comment had distracted him from what she had said before.  Getting drugged wouldn’t be the worst thing that’s ever happened to her?  She said it like it had happened before, but like she wasn’t afraid of it happening again.  For the first time, Noah wondered what, exactly, had brought Trish to the Foxhole Court.  He had assumed it was something to do with her temper so far, but, he was realizing, the chances of it being something far more than that were getting higher and higher by the minute.  He wanted to ask, but even he realized that he would need some serious words for that.  Instead of pushing the issue now, he stored the question in his head, prepared to make the words exactly what they had to be and ask at a better time.

“Whoa, easy. I’ve had my fair share of drinks tonight, I don’t think that this will make any difference.” Noah’s reaction was interesting. He grabbed the bottle, almost angrily, and threw it away. It was as if he cared about her well being, but wasn’t that a bit too little too late? Her gaze followed the bottle’s journey through the air and when it landed in the trash she let out a loud laugh. It bounced off the walls. “Kid, there was no need for that. I’m wasted either way. Accidentally getting drugged won’t be the worst thing that’s happened to me.”

Too much, her mind supplied, too fucking much. Her hand flexed in irritation and she decied to keep her mouth shut, instead of giving even more of herself away. So she focused her gaze on Noah and tried to make sense of everything that was written across his face. Trish was too drunk to make sense of it at that moment, but, for all intents and purposes, Noah looked worried. It looked as if he was disappointed. Trish didn’t know if she liked it. She knew how to take care of herself, she didn’t need him to tell her what to do. The confusion was what got her though. She didn’t know why he was, but she knew that he was questioning her in some way. As if he was getting to know a part of her she hadn’t been ready to share, and he hadn’t known existed. She just wondered what part of her that was.

They probably stood like that, facing each other, ignoring everything; the music, the people, the silence, and just looked at each other. Trying to figure the other one out. Trish didn’t know if she was any wiser by the end of it. “You are so loud,” she said, finally. “I don’t think you even notice.” With a deep breath she raised her hand and let it rest against Noah’s cheek. “You can stop screaming.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Horrified, Noah made a grab for the bottle, not sure why she would tell him not to drink it and immediately ignore her own advice.  He didn’t know what she had already had to drink, and he didn’t know what exactly was in those bottles, but he did know that it definitely would do nothing to help Trish in the morning come practice and class time.  Some of the drink spilled onto his hand, but Noah rescued the bottle from her before securely tightening the cap and tossing it into a trash bin.

Once that had been taken care of, he turned back to her and, pointing towards the waste basket, scrunched his eyebrows together in a combination of frustration and confusion and tilting his head to convey his question.  What the hell was that?  He wanted to scream to make sure she heard him, but he had done enough yelling for today.  Even just thinking about stringing words together enough to form a coherent verbal thought felt exhausting, and he needed to compromise with himself to make sure she was ok.  Over the course of the past week or two, Noah had seen Trish in a variety of ways - tired, quiet, boisterous, even angry - but he had never really seen her this out of it before.  It was concerning, and for once, Noah didn’t quite know what to do.

Her words about family twisted around in his gut, and he shoved them to the back of his mind.  He had already proved he didn’t need a family.  So long as he had one person he could trust, Noah would be fine.  The more people that knew too much about him, the harder it would be when they eventually got bored with him, or when he needed to slip away.  He wasn’t sure which one was worse yet, but he was game to find out, so long as one of the few people he had decided was worth trying with was ok.

Trish’s smile widened slightly as she saw Noah take in all the information and make his own conclusions, that somewhat matched her own. She elbowed him lightly in the side. “Never trust anyone in here,” she told him. “Only your team. We’re your family now, for better or worse. Mostly worse.” Sappy, disgusting, but true. “God, I need to stop talking.”

She followed Noah’s finger where it pointed, and bit her tongue when she saw where it landed. “Oh, him?” Trish threw her head back and laughed. “That’s no one. Mitch, he… Well, we hooked up once. Harmless, slightly stupid, but all in all okay.” She grabbed a bottle and opened it carelessly, making it spill all over her hand. Without questioning it she took a large gulp and made a face. “Yeah, definitely not water.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah jumped slightly, but calmed once he realized who was speaking.  Confused, he turned around and tilted his head in question, not sure what she meant.  Water bottles couldn’t hold the same stuff as the rest of those red solo cups did, could it?  A quick glance around the room reminded Noah exactly who was surrounding him, and he nodded a bit to himself.  Yeah, he probably should have known better.

His scan of the area had led him to the realization that Trish’s... friend was still sitting on the couch, now moodily drinking and staring into his cup like it held the answers to whatever questions his teenage angst had led him to ask.  It was a little amusing, but Noah bit back his smile, choosing instead to silently ask another question by pointing between Trish and him and tilting his head again.  He could tell nothing worthwhile was going to happen between them tonight, but he was curious about who he was, and it never hurt to know who was around you.

It seemed as if Noah had calmed down slightly and Trish let go once she’d seen a shaky thumbs up. The smile was a bundle of nerves, but the thumbs up was an active gesture in that he was feeling better, so Trish decided to trust him. Her hand fell back into her lap and she studied Noah for a few more seconds, enough to see him point toward the drinks table and getting up.

Mitch started talking again, but all Trish heard was someone interfering. “Shut up,” she snapped at Mitch. “God, just stop talking.” She watched as Noah made his way toward the drinks table, and how he steered towards the water bottles. A frown appeared on her forehead and she got up from the couch, ignoring Mitch’s annoyed huffs and walked over to where Noah was. In a low voice so that she wouldn’t startle him she mumbled, “Honey, I don’t know what that is, but what I do know is that it’s not water.”

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah nodded, not wanting to worry her even more.  Trish had been at a party, having a great time like every other normal college athlete does, and it had taken Noah less than five minutes to mess that up for her.  The guy behind her still looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to be frustrated, concerned, or confused, so Noah didn’t bother with him any further.  Instead, he clenched his shaking hands into fists to force them into stillness, and smiled at Trish again.  For good measure, he even lifted a thumbs up in her direction as he watched her squint at him.

Seeing water in the corner next to the drinks the rest of the party was more interested in, Noah almost smiled.  He had the perfect out to leave Trish alone with whoever that guy was (he could have been on their team for all Noah knew, but he could just as easily have been a track runner) without having to leave right away, which would no doubt convince her that he was still too shaken up.  He stood, pointing towards the water briefly before waving at her and mouthing one last sorry at both of the figures left on the couch before starting towards the drinks.

Trish had seen her fair share of panic attacks, and she was almost certain that Noah was well on his way to experience one right now. His mouth was opening and closing, time and time again, as if he was trying to tell her something but couldn’t. “Fuck,” she swore. “Noah, just breathe. Come on now.” Almost immediately after the words had left her mouth Noah let out a strangled noise. It was as if all the strength left his body and he just sagged against her grip on him.

“Shit, kid,” she said and forced his head back to face her once more. The terror she had seen in Noah’s eyes just a few minutes ago was gone, instead she saw relief. The mouthed words were almost too blurred for Trish’s drunken mind to understand, but somehow it all fit together. “See, that wasn’t so bad,” Trish forced out and suddenly felt completely sober. “Are you going to be okay? Just nod, if you don’t want to talk.”

[noahsturner-blog]

He wasn’t making sense again, Noah realized.  In response, he dodged the last few cones before slamming the ball home into the goal, breathing heavily for a moment as the ball rolled around in the goalie’s crease.  He knew what he wanted to explain- words and words came to mind about the unpredictability of game situations and practicing adaptability, but nothing that he could put clearly enough for someone outside his head to understand.  It would have been frustrating if it wasn’t such a usual occurrence for Noah.

Instead, he shrugged.  It wasn’t a wrong answer - “bad” was an opinion, after all, and he certainly wasn’t the best player out on the court.  Recovering his breath, he scooped up the ball and passed it to Sophie, wanting to try a second set with a more traditional passing method.  Maybe the first practice with a new teammate wasn’t the place to experiment around after all.  “Again?” he asked hesitantly, voice equally soft and scratchy as he asked for a second chance.

Noah passed the ball in such an uneven manner it took Sophie a moment to register that it had slid practically under her. A moment was all she had to consider, though, because as she turned her head to check the ball behind her, it bounced just once, and likely would not keep bouncing enough for her to get a grip. Just run and shove it towards him. She ran while it was up in the air and, instead of catching it and throwing it again, she slammed the ball right after the next cone and hoped Jackson would be able to catch it in time. 

“That was…” Her voice trailed off, nose scrunched up slightly. “Was that on purpose or are you just…” Coming up with words while running was a bad idea, but what was even worse was the idea of not only using her instincts during a game but also completely thinking this out through. Annoying. “Or are you just bad?” That tone might not really get her anywhere, but at least it wasn’t her worst. And, well, if Jack was bad, it’d be best to know now. 

[noahsturner-blog]

Noah shook his head, aware in some faraway part of his brain that everything happening right now was completely irrational and that he could speak whenever he chose to, but distracted in the moment by the sudden, choking panic that was filling his throat and catching any sound before it came out.  He had to speak, to prove he could, because anything else would just be even more damning evidence forcing him to acknowledge that his voice had left for good.  It was entirely the wrong time and place for this, and he felt another brief moment of regret for interrupting Trish’s conversation.

Noah finally managed to force a strangled, broken-off yelp out, and his shoulders sagged immediately in relief.  It was there, and he had been able to hear himself.  His voice hadn’t left him.  I’m ok now, he tried to convey, forcing a shaky smile and a mouthed thank you out.  The man sitting behind Trish looked equal parts concerned, confused, and weirded out, an expression Noah had grown to recognize.  He tried to shrug a sorry in his direction, but Noah didn’t know the man, so he didn’t know if he would understand what he meant.  It didn’t bother him as much this time- he still had his voice, so any silence now was definitely by choice.  

When Noah didn’t reply Trish shrugged with a small smile and turned to talk to some dude named Mitch she made out with once a few years ago. She traded a few, pointless, words with him and leaned forward to see if maybe he’d be up for a repeat. Mitch looked like he was up for it, until his gaze shifted to Trish’s left and frowned slightly. “Is something wrong with your friend?” he asked and when Trish turned around the smile left her face.

“Noah,” she said and followed the movements of his hand toward his throat. Her mind was hazy, but through it all she could translate the movement to words. Can’t speak. “Noah,” she said again and grabbed his hand to stop the motion. “Breathe. Can you do that? You need to breathe.” She let go of his hand and grabbed his face instead, forcing him to look at her. In a low voice, almost too low to hear over the music, but just for the two of them, she spoke, “Noah, you don’t need to speak. I’m sorry. You don’t have to. You can be quiet.”

[noahsturner-blog]

I’m still here, Noah wanted to shout, but he couldn’t bring himself to make his voice raise louder than the world around them.  He could try to trace the letters onto her palm, but she was probably too drunk to understand.  She didn’t know any sign language, either, Noah knew from experience.  He realized, suddenly, that he had no way of telling Trish anything in this moment.

It was a panicky realization.  Silencing himself by choice was one thing, but now, he was essentially voiceless.  For whatever reason, it felt different, and much scarier, than it had when he controlled when he did and didn’t speak.  His sudden, forced silence was disarming, and Noah raised a panicked hand to his throat, as if he could free his voice by tugging it out.  He looked at Trish, suddenly, realizing that he had no way to tell her about any of this, and gestured helplessly at his throat, praying that somehow she got the message without him having to track down a Fox in the throng of people that could help find him a pencil and paper.

As suspected, Noah didn’t reply, simply stared at her, a bit too long, and then took a look around the room. At this point Trish didn’t even remember what the faint sound of his voice sounded like. It made her fingers itch, because she knew there was a story there, a story she wanted to know. But she also knew she couldn’t force Noah to tell it, because then he could demand the same of her.

Instead she tried a different approach. Because, she could at least try to get him to open up. Even though she wouldn’t have if she’d been sober. If things went to shit she could always blame the alcohol. Whatever, she was smooth when it came to this. “You know, you’ll have to talk to me sometime. I can’t sit here talking to myself, they’ll think I’m crazy.” She let out a laugh. “Well, crazier than before. That would honestly take first place, wouldn’t it? Me talking to myself.”