#C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT

[iwasntstable]

n.s. | is it true?

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/ISITTRUE [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ … | if-im-there | happy-birthday | [is-it-true]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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summary: Always stubborn, Noah refuses to take a break when he's sick, but everyone's convinced you can persuade him.

content tags: fluff, like a smidge of angst, slight miscommunication.

word count: 3.1k.

note: I started this in September and have been thinking about it ever since so it was about time I finished it 🖤

All the text from Jolly said was, “Hey, can you come down to the studio?” And the first thing you hear as you approach the door is raised voices. 

“You tell him!”

“Tell who what?” You ask, entering into the chaos as the hum of noise is reduced to silence and every face in the room turns to look at you.

“Tell Noah he needs to stop pushing himself and go home and rest in bed,” Matt is the first to speak up.

"I don't need to fucking rest," Noah sighs, rubbing his brow.

"And why do I need to tell him that?" You ask.

"She doesn't need to tell me anything!"

"Noah, you're going to make things worse,” Jolly stands with his arms folded like an impatient father.

“Make what worse? What’s going on?” You look between the men in the room, searching each of their faces for answers.

“He’s sick, but he keeps pushing himself even though he can’t sing properly right now. He needs to go get some fucking rest at home or he’ll fuck up his voice!” Jolly explains.

“It’s fine!” Noah protests from his desk chair. Though he was only half facing you, you could see the dark circles under his eyes and the greyish pallor to his skin. “If I need to re-record it, I will, but it’s fine right now,” he continues, and you can hear the hoarseness in his voice. Matt pulls off his hat and runs his hand through his hair in frustration, then replaces the hat back on his head with a sigh.

“Noah, you’re not going to be able to re-record anything if you lose your fucking voice,” Jolly turns to you and states your name firmly. “Tell him.”

“Again, why do I need to tell him? Why would he listen to me if he’s not listening to you?" You know they’re right, but he’s stubborn; you don’t understand what would make your instructions different.

“He'll listen to you because he's fucking in love with you!" Matt shouts.

It was like the air suddenly became thick, and nobody says a word more as your eyes widen and flick straight to Matt. Then to Noah, where he sits wearing what you guess is the exact same expression as yours. Your eyes lock, and you can feel the panic radiating from him. Just as you’re about to speak, the question on the tip of your tongue goes left unsaid as Noah abruptly stands and shoulders his way past the other men. “Noah,” you try, but he’s steadfast in his pace; his shoulder brushes yours as he passes, and not once does he look back.

You watch as his silhouette grows smaller through the window in the door, watching even as he disappears around the corner and out of view. You only turn when Matt calls your name quietly.

"What the fuck was that about?" you all but shout. The men shuffle awkwardly on their feet and struggle to meet your eyes.

"He's sick and losing his voice, but he keeps pushing anyway. We kept telling him to go back home and rest, but he wouldn't listen." Jolly tries to avoid the question.

"Yeah, I get that,” you cast a glance at him. “What did you mean?" You ask Matt directly.

"What?" He responds like a deer caught in headlights.

"What did you mean when you said he'd listen to me because..." You couldn't say it; just the thought had your face growing hot.

"Look, Dierkes, you go. We're gonna go talk," Jolly nods at his friend and spins around the desk chair Noah was sitting in, taking the seat for himself at the computer.

Matt enthusiastically makes his exit. Gathering his bags, he all but runs out of the studio, out from under the weight of your gaze. When the door closes behind him, you sit in the chair next to Jolly, and he turns his own chair to face you.

"He's crazy about you," he starts without hesitation. You pick at the leather of the armrest as your heart begins to race. "He talks about you all the time. Honestly, I don't know how you haven't noticed. He's liked you for months."

"You're serious?" You ask, meeting his eyes, which hold nothing but sincerity.

"You can't say you haven't seen it even a little!” He tilts his head and leans back against the chair. “The way he looks at you, he drops everything for you. Always coming to your side whenever some weird guy flirts with you. He hasn't gone on a date in ages because he's waiting for you!" You bite your lip, unwilling to believe what you're hearing, until Jolly says quietly, "I know you feel the same too."

"What?!" you raise your voice automatically, wishing immediately that you didn't when you see him smiling knowingly at you.

"I see the way you look at him too, when he's not looking. You go bright red when he teases you. Just like you are now. You know I see everything.” You press your hands to your cheeks, and they feel like ice compared to the heat from your face. "You should go talk to him. At least convince him to take a fucking week off," he spins around in his chair, waving his hand and going back to the piece he was working on before all this.

You sit frozen to the spot for a moment trying to process what he'd just said. Noah likes you. He likes you back.

Jolly's voice rings in your head as you stand. "He's liked you for months." You head for the door, out of the building, and into your car on autopilot. Taking a deep breath before turning the key in the ignition and pulling out onto the road in the direction of Noah’s house.

The whole way your mind is racing. "He's crazy about you." You had no idea what you were going to say when you got there. "He talks about you all the time... the way he looks at you." You were telling yourself it wasn't true; it couldn't be. The man you've admired and apparently not-so-secretly adored all this time felt the same way? It was crazy. It couldn’t be true. And yet the concept still makes your heart race, and that treacherous heat makes your skin flush.

You find yourself parked outside his house, your car neatly on the drive right next to his. For several minutes, you go back and forth on whether to go in or just leave. The idea of really confronting him about this situation brings you nothing but anxiety, but the fact that he’s unwell and pushing himself so hard, the need to check on him and at least make sure he’s okay, brings you to his front door.

When you knock, there’s no answer. You wonder if he's watching you from the doorbell camera and choosing to ignore you. After knocking again, you decide to just use your key instead, hoping he won’t be too mad.

Inside, you find no signs of life. All the lights downstairs are off, and the house is statically silent as though it were totally empty. You’d think it were empty if not for Noah’s car parked outside.

You finally figure out where he is when you head upstairs and see the glow of purple LEDs leak from underneath his bedroom door. Your hand hesitates in a fist before you pluck up the courage to knock. No response. You knock a little louder, but still, no response.

Pushing the slightly ajar door open, you peek into his room, finding him lying in bed. Curled up under a blanket, fast asleep. You can’t help but smile at the peaceful sight. He must’ve been exhausted to fall asleep so quickly and deeply. You back out of his room and close the door softly, treading lightly as you go back down the stairs to the kitchen. 

You jump up to sit on the counter and rest your head back against the upper cabinets, closing your eyes. How could you be in this situation? You were content to never tell Noah about your feelings for him, and never ever did you expect your feelings to be reciprocated. You’re still convinced this is all some joke or a misunderstanding. He ran from that studio because he was humiliated by the thought of liking you. There’s no way Noah could want you the way you want him. But after what Matt and Jolly said, you’ll never be content until you know the truth. Even if he denies it, you still have the chance to salvage this friendship that’s so dear to you. He doesn’t know how you feel. It’s not too late to save this, and if he confesses... Shaking your head, you can’t even entertain that thought.

To distract yourself from the feeling of impending doom and to make yourself useful, you decide to cook. Pulling your phone from your pocket, a quick Google search suggests chicken noodle soup as a good option for someone who’s unwell. Warm, high in protein, easy to digest. You slide from the counter to rummage through the kitchen, mentally thanking whoever went grocery shopping recently for having everything you need for the simple recipe.

Following the instructions on your phone, you work quickly, having the food prepared in just over thirty minutes. After preparing a serving in a bowl and buttering some bread too, you balance both on a plate, almost forgetting the spoon before you go carefully back up the stairs.

You weren’t expecting him to be awake yet, but when you knock, he answers.

"Yeah?" His voice is hoarse and quiet even through the door.

"It's me," you say.

There's a brief moment of silence that has anxiety clawing at your throat before he replies, "Go away."

"Noah, please. I just-"

"Just go away," he rasped louder. "I don't wanna talk."

You sigh, feeling the urge to run, but you suppress it. "But I made you soup," you try, but he says nothing. "Can I at least come in and leave this for you?" Again, no response. You can’t help but sigh quietly. He can be stubborn as a bull at times. "I'm coming in. You better be decent," you try to joke. Once more, no response.

You toe the door open gently, stepping into the dim room to find Noah now rolled over in bed, his back to you, still cocooned in the blanket. Moving over some of the items on his desk—a coaster, a book with a dollar bill sticking out as a bookmark, a half-empty bottle of water, the TV remote—you set the food down. Seeing his phone next to him on the mattress, you take it and check the charge, 12%, and a text from Matt that read, “I’m sorry man.” You crouch down by the bed and put it on to charge, then replace it next to him on the mattress.

You stay there for a moment. Internally warring with yourself on whether you were really about to broach this topic. Ultimately, you decide you just have to know the truth.

"Noah, I know you don't wanna talk, but-"

"Good. Go then," his coarse words sting. True or not, sick or not, he had no right to snap like that. 

"Stop being so fucking harsh with me. I didn't have to come here for you, I didn't have to spend time in your kitchen making food for you, but I did. The least you could do is say thank you.” You wait for him to respond, waiting for an apology, but he says nothing.

The urge to run like Matt ran from the studio was strong; your legs flex under you, and you almost stand, but you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. More so, you don’t want to leave him when he's unwell.

"What they said back there," biting the bullet, your voice is quieter now. "Is it true?"

You didn't expect him to answer, what with his commitment to silence. So when that silence stretched on, you resigned yourself to his will. Standing and heading for the door, hand on the handle, you're stopped by his voice, "That's not how I wanted you to find out."

You pause, waiting to see if he'd continue, but he goes quiet again. "So, it is true?" But he returns to his silence. You go back over to his bed, crouching down again. "Will you talk to me? Please."

Noah doesn’t yield.

"I'm not mad or upset. I just want-" You cut yourself off, struggling to say the words out loud. "Jolly told me he sees the way you look at me, how you go out of your way to do things for me and talk about me all the time," he curls in on himself a little tighter under the blanket, hiding from your words. "He also said... how he sees the way I look at you when you're not looking... and how flustered I get when you tease me..." you trail off. Feeling your heart hammering so hard inside your chest that you can hear it in your ears. You honestly can't believe you just said that out loud.

Noah shifts under the blanket, straightening his legs and rolling onto his back, arm over his face, obscuring his eyes. "You're just saying that," he mumbles.

"Noah, I'm here in your room with homemade chicken noodle soup, even after you told me a million times to leave. Who else would I do that for?"

"You'd do it for Nicholas."

"I would not let Nicholas talk to me like that and walk away unscathed."

He laughs, rubs his eyes, and moves his arm, finally looking at you. He has a despondent expression on his face, but somewhere underneath is a slight smile. You smile softly, happy to finally see his face.

"I'm sorry," he tries, but you shake your head.

"Don't be,” you say, taking a deep breath. “I'd probably freak out too if you found out I love you like that."

"You- What?" He sits up a little straighter.

"Don't make me say it again," you groan and rest your forehead on the mattress.

Feeling the bed move, you look up to see him sitting upright and staring down at you. You move too to sit on the end of his bed. Silence once again fills the room, neither one of you knowing exactly what to say next.

Noah closes his eyes and runs a hand through his already messy hair. "Jolly told me so many times to just tell you, but I convinced myself there's no way you felt the same," he confessed.

You almost felt sick from the adrenaline racing through your veins. Looking down at your lap and playing with the sleeves of your hoodie. "Well, I do. He said the same to me too," you let out a bitter laugh. "Seems as though Joakim has been playing cupid." When you look back up, he still seems tense. "Noah, I'm not lying," you hold out your hand to him, which he takes and laces your fingers together. "I was never going to tell you because..." you hesitate again, but it’s too late to turn back now. "I never thought you'd like me back. I thought you'd laugh in my face. I don't deserve you."

"Don't say that. It's me who doesn’t deserve you. You're always so kind and generous,” he glances at the bowl of soup. “Even when I really don't deserve it."

"You do deserve it. You deserve kindness because you give so much kindness. Jolly was right, you do so much for me even when you don't need to. You drove me everywhere before I got my car, even when you were busy. Which I felt so fucking guilty for because I knew you had enough on your plate as it was."

"You know, I hated when you got that car," he smiled shyly. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "I wanted to drive you everywhere, all the time. Whenever you needed. I loved those times when we could just... be alone together," he sighed, not in sadness but in relief. A small smile on his lips.

You don’t think you could handle your heart racing any faster than it already was and decide to change the topic slightly. "How are you feeling, anyway?"

"Terrible, honestly. My throat is fucked. I don't know how I'm gonna finish recording."

"Yeah, you're not," you state. "You're gonna eat the delicious soup I made you, and you're gonna rest. No recording vocals until you're better. I’d say no producing until you’re better, but I think we’d have to detain you. Lock you in the bathroom or something,” you sadly break your hand apart from his and reach for the food on the side table as he chuckles under his breath. "What's so funny?" You ask.

Shaking his head, he says, "nothing. Just, they really were right, I do listen to you.”

Handing him the bowl, you smile teasingly at him, "because you love me."

"Yeah, I do," he smiles genuinely, caressing your hands briefly as he takes it from you to set it on his lap. "Can you stay?” he asks quietly. “I don't want you to go away. Will you sit with me?"

Your heart warms at his sincerity. “Of course I will.” You climb onto his bed and rest back against the headboard next to him in the space he made. A comfortable, familiar setting you’d both been in numerous times before. He leans over to the side table and tosses the TV remote onto your lap.

“Find something for us,” he says. You press the power button and load up Netflix to scroll through the categories as he eats. “Mm,” he hums with a mouthful of food. “This is so good, I should get sick more often. I didn’t know you could cook like this.”

“Yeah, don’t you dare,” you smile as you continue to scroll. The options turn into blurs as they pass by on the screen. Your mind was well and truly wandering at the thought of what was going to come next for you and Noah. Were you dating now? Did he even want that right now, or would it take time? These were all questions that would have to be asked and answered tomorrow. For now, you settled with the contentment that your current relationship wasn’t completely ruined and felt thrilled at the prospect of it becoming something more. 

“Oh!” Noah’s exclamation breaks your train of thought. “Remind me to beat the shit out of Matt the next time I see him.”

You break out in a laugh and lean in closer to his side. “Not if I get my hands on him first.”

This fic was inspired by the following randomly generated prompts, from this post!

꒰ 2 ꒱ “what they said back there. Is it true?” ꒰ L ꒱ relief ꒰ 𓅫 ꒱ the bedside of someone who doesn’t want you there

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ᯤ 𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗦 (28) :　 ⌞⬤ 10 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾⌝ @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning | @english-fucker @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard | @seven-glass-kids @runadaggerthroughmychest

@lma1986 | @shayzillaaaa | @madamaaubergine @thewrstinme | @amourtoken

⌞⬤ 9 𝖺𝗐𝖺𝗒⌝ @livingdeceasedgirl | @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @thecoyotescry | @romanreigns-supreme | @slutforcoffein

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⌞⦵ 5 𝖽𝗈 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝖽𝗂𝗌𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖻⌝ @ferduttini | @fadingintothegrey | @lovesick-evangelist @missduffsblog | @anything-more-than-human

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[iwasntstable]

n.s. | happy birthday

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/HAPPYBIRTHDAY [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ … | new-neighbour | if-im-there | [happy-birthday]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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summary: Sometimes lying is okay when it's planning a birthday surprise for the birthday-hating man you love.

content tags: fluff, fluff, fluff.

word count: 2.5k.

note: Is this two whole days late? Yes. But it's finally here and I hope you enjoy it! Thank you for being so patient, and again, Happy Birthday Noah our beloved 🖤

You’d both gone to bed hours ago, and when you were certain Noah was asleep, you carefully untangled yourself from his arms and slipped out of bed.

“Where are you going?” His drowsy voice reaches your ears through the darkness. 

You squeeze your eyes closed and scrunch up your face with your back to him; you were so sure he was asleep. “I can feel a headache coming on. I’m just going to get the meds I left in your car,” you lie, turning around to face him. “I’ll be quick,” you lean down to press a chaste kiss to his lips. 

“M’kay,” he mumbles, rubbing your back as his eyes drift closed again.

You head out of your shared room to the front door, grabbing his keys on the way. Thankfully, he seemed to believe your little white lie. Going straight for the trunk of the car when you step outside, you hope the flowers you'd stashed in there all day hadn't wilted to death. Inspecting them under the light of the car, they did look a little sad, but you were sure some water and sunlight could save them.

Cradling the flowers, card, and little gift box in your arms carefully, you enter back into the house, cautious not to let the paper wrapping on the flowers crinkle too loud. You go to the kitchen and take out the vase you'd washed and stashed away earlier, filling it with a little water for the flowers to revive in. Setting it all up nicely on the counter—the card resting against the vase and the little box, wrapped in silver paper sitting in front.

Noah told you not to get him anything, but you weren't about to let that slide. He might not be big on birthdays, but you wanted nothing more than an excuse to shower him with love, and knowing he'd likely be up tomorrow before you, he'd find your little surprise first thing when he goes into the kitchen. You take a glass from the cupboard, fill it halfway with water, and take it with you as evidence of your little deception.

"All good?" He asks when you tiptoe back into your room.

"Yeah, all good." You set the glass down on the side and crawl back under the sheets with him, where he instinctively pulls you close into his side, the warmth of his body banishing the chill from yours.

The dip in the mattress wakes you a few hours later, followed by Noah’s lips ghosting softly over yours. With a sleepy groan, your hands instinctively move to his shoulders, where he’s hovering over you.

“I love you so fucking much,” he whispers.

For a moment you’re confused about the sudden show of affection until you crack your eyes open against the glow of the morning to see him holding his card and gift, the latter still unopened. “You haven’t even opened it yet,” you smile when he rests his forehead against yours.

“The card would’ve been enough,” he kisses you again. When he pulls back, you see his eyes are rimmed red, like he’d been crying. “What you wrote was so beautiful. I just- I’ve never felt so loved before. I’ve never loved anyone like you before.”

Now he’s going to make you cry. You encircle his shoulders with your arms, pulling him down on top of you and holding him close, so tight as though you could transfer all of the love you feel for him from your body to his. He rests his head in the crook of your neck, his arm securely around your waist, and you lie there together while the sun rises higher in the sky and the birds fill the air with song.

“C’mon,” you pat his back after a few minutes, “you need to open your present!”

He squeezes you just a little tighter before he plants a kiss against your shoulder and lets go. He sits up, and you follow, crossing your legs and snuggling into the duvet to hide from the cold October air.

Noah looks down at the little box in his hands, then looks at you, his expression saying, “Are you serious? I told you not to get me anything.” You nod encouragingly, and he finally tears off the tape from the metallic silver paper to reveal the little black box inside. He looks up at you again, quizzically. 

“If you want to know what it is, just open it! Don’t look at me!” You kick him playfully from beneath the sheets. He laughs and shakes his head, pulling the lid from the base and finally revealing the gift you agonised over for months inside. You sneak a hand out of the sheets to bite at your nail, suddenly questioning your choice. What if he didn’t like it? He was right; you shouldn’t have gotten him anything. You should’ve just stuck with the card. Now he’s going to have to pretend he likes it to not hurt your feelings.

But when he takes it out of the box and sighs your name, your anxieties vanish as quickly as they arrived. “It’s the date we met,” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” you reply just as quietly, slipping out of the sheets to sit by his side, your legs folded beneath you. “I stole your other bracelet to get the right size, so I hope it fits.”

“Oh, so it didn’t fall down the back of the dresser?” He teases, raising an eyebrow at you.

“It might have fallen into my bag and all the way to the jewellers.”

“Will you put it on for me?” He asks, looking at you with those big brown eyes that make you melt every time.

You nod and take the silver chain from his hand. He holds out his right arm for you to loop the bracelet around, positioning the bar—engraved with the day you first met—on the top. Once it’s secure, he takes your arms and pulls you into him, onto his lap, where he wraps his arms around your waist to snuggle close into your shoulder and mumbles, “I love you.” 

“Do you like it?” You ask, tenderly running your fingers through his hair.

“Are you kidding?” He pulls back to meet your eyes. “I love it. I love you. I never cared for my birthday until I met you,” he brushes your sleep-tousled hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ear. “Now each birthday reminds me of how grateful I am that we get to spend another year together.”

You feel a blush creeping up on your cheeks, warming your face. “I love you too,” you smile and lean in to meet his lips. A soft and gentle kiss, full of love and adoration for the man that chose you that day and still continues to choose you.

“Do you want your cake?” You ask with a teasing smile when you pull back, raising your eyebrows.

Noah blinks in surprise. “My what?”

“Come on!” Your grin spreads wide across your face as you slide off his knee and drag him up with you by his hands, holding them all the way to the kitchen.

You let go when you reach the fridge, throwing open the door and scooping out the contents and tossing them on the counter: tomato ketchup, chicken, veggies, miscellaneous sauces, leftovers.

“What are you doing?” Noah chuckles.

“I hid it in the back yesterday. I can’t believe you didn’t see it... AHA!” You declare when you finally reach the white box. You turn to place it on the counter only to find there’s little to no room left.

“No wonder I didn’t find it. You totally buried it back there!”

“It was a surprise!” You banter back.

Noah just laughs and shakes his head, taking several items in hand and placing them back in the fridge to clear a space for you. Leaving the cake box on the counter, you take the candles from their hiding spot inside a mug in the cupboard and dig the matches out of the drawer. When Noah was putting the last items back in the fridge you ordered, “Stay there! Don’t turn around!” He throws his hands up in surrender and stays facing the fridge.

You quickly lift the lid to reveal the funfetti cake decorated with white icing and fresh fruit on top. You consider placing exactly twenty-nine candles, one for every year of his age, but decide against it and add five instead. Lighting them quickly before they get the chance to drip wax onto the frosting. “Don’t move!” You yell, crossing the room to hit the light switch.

“I’m not!”

“Okay,” you sigh, taking the cake in your hands. “Okay, you can turn around now.”

The candles, though small, illuminate the room in a warm, comforting glow, the light of the morning blocked by the still-drawn shades. While the fire warmed you on the outside, the intimate nature of the scene warmed you on the inside. You sing as soon as Noah turns around, and a smile erupts across his face, reaching his eyes, making them crease at the corners, and making his cheeks look full.

“Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Noah, Happy Birthday to you!” He moves closer to close the gap between the two of you. “Come on, make a wish!” You hold up the cake higher as the candles melt.

Noah places his hands over yours where they hold the cake and, with one quick breath, blows out all the candles in one go. “I don’t need to make a wish. All my wishes already came true when I found you.” His eyes meet yours in the dim light, and you put the cake back down to fall into his chest, your arms secure around his waist. “Thank you for this,” he whispers, resting his cheek against your head.

“You’re welcome,” your voice muffled against his hoodie. “You deserve to be celebrated. It’s your day.”

Noah sighs and squeezes his arms around you tighter, swaying you both gently side to side. In his arms has to be your favourite place to be. The place that never fails to banish your worries and anxieties, you hope to remain here for as long as time will allow.

“Do you want a slice?” You mumble against his chest.

“Of cake? For breakfast?”

“Yes!” You exclaim like it was obvious, looking up at his face. 

“We can’t have cake for breakfast,” he scolds, holding you close by the hips.

“It’s your birthday! We can do whatever we want,” you turn, dip your finger in the frosting and smear it on his nose, then wrap your arms around the back of his neck.

He gasps and laughs, full and carefree. He always works so hard and weighs himself down with self-created expectations. To see him now, relaxed and accepting of the love he deserves, especially on his birthday of all days, a day he’s so adamant about not celebrating, warms your heart and brings a smile to your own face. He deserves to be celebrated, and you wish you could get that into his head.

“You know what? You’re right,” Noah dips his finger in the frosting and smears it on the tip of your own nose. “I’ll get some plates,” he leans down to meet your lips in a sweet, chaste kiss.

You laugh in disbelief, then shake your head and get a knife from the drawer, wiping off the frosting and licking it off your finger. “Mm, it’s good!” You look over your shoulder where Noah has two forks and two plates from the cupboard, frosting gone from his own nose and a pleased expression on his face. He nods in agreement and sets down the plates. “How big of a slice do you want?” You ask.

“Hm, maybe just a little piece. Then we can have real breakfast after,” he snakes his arms around your waist as you make the first cut, clinging to your back.

“This is real breakfast,” you retort, lifting the cake carefully with the knife and placing it on a plate, then cutting a piece for yourself. “It has fruit on it.”

“You’re right, that makes it a health food,” he jokes, taking a bite-sized piece on his fork.

“Exactly,” you nod, doing the same.

The cake was amazing, thankfully. You were worried about the flavour, having never bought a birthday cake for Noah before. He wasn’t the type to frequently eat cake, which left you stumped in the store when the staff asked what flavour you wanted. Her suggestion seemed to be a success though, judging by Noah’s pleased hums behind you and the way he was forking down another bite.

“I love the flowers, by the way. They’re beautiful,” he mumbles, mouth full of cake and a smile on his lips.

You glance over to the vase at the end of the counter; the bright colours of the petals thankfully revived after suffocating in the trunk of his car all day. “Good, I’m glad. You deserve beautiful things.”

“Not as beautiful as you, though,” he leans to the side and wipes frosting from the corner of your mouth with his thumb before leaning in to place a quick peck on your cheek. You roll your eyes at the compliment, fighting to suppress the flustered smile it brought to your face.

Cake devoured, you lounge on the couch together, putting on the local weather to see what activities the day would allow. Noah brought the flowers with him, placing them in the centre of the coffee table right in his line of sight, with the card you wrote standing in front of them.

Noah,

Happy Birthday, my love! 

You’ve worked so hard this year, and it has been nothing short of a pleasure to watch you grow and achieve everything you aimed for, and more. I know it hasn’t all been easy, but your perseverance and drive to be the best version of you that you can be inspire me every single day. Even on days where we’ve struggled, you never let it get in the way of what’s most important.

I love you so much, I don’t even think I can put it into words. It’s an honour to listen to your beautiful voice and watch you create every day, and I feel so lucky to be a part of your life and have you be a part of mine.

Thank you for being here for me through everything I’ve been through this past year, even when I felt like I didn’t deserve it. You keep me sane when I’m overwhelmed and feel like I’m losing my mind from stress, and I’ll never be able to express how grateful I am for your love, support, and presence by my side. You mean the world to me.

I look forward to seeing what the next year together brings us, what you achieve next, and what our lives will be like in a year's time. 

Thank you for always being my light in the dark and for continuing to love me.

I love you, and I hope you have a good birthday. ♡

╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

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[iwasntstable]

n.s. | if i'm there

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/IFIMTHERE [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ fear-of-failure | nightmare | never-just-friends 　　　 stay-til-morning | new-neighbour | [if-im-there]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

I didn't want to believe how much you needed help / And I just left you to be all by yourself / And now I wish I had seen that you weren't doing well / But I just came back to see how hard you fell Well, if I'm there to catch you when you fall / You'll have a friend down in Hell after all 　　— If I'm There - Bad Omens

summary: when things start getting bad, you withdraw. ignoring calls and texts, and descending into bad habits as you self-isolate. but noah knows what you're like and he loves you too much to let you suffer alone.

content tags: angst, emotional hurt/comfort, poor mental health, mentions of disordered eating, discussions of food, self-destructive behaviour, fluff.

word count: 3.8k.

note: having a rough time recently so enjoy the self-indulgent product of my stressing. 　　PS: please tell me if the layout of this post is fucked up so I can fix it for you.

Things are getting bad again. You find your sleep schedule sliding later and later, falling asleep in the early hours of the morning and waking in the afternoon, bypassing the day altogether. Meals are becoming infrequent and poor in quality. Appetite dwindling and opting to eat half a bag of microwave rice at 3am rather than dedicating time to creating a nutritious and satisfying meal. Truth be told, you didn’t have the energy to cook anything more, and the malnutrition itself likely played a part in that lack of energy. The trash was left to build up, and the laundry hadn’t been done in weeks.

The progression of all of this was gradual. So gradual, that by the time you recognised what was happening, it was all but too late to stop the rapid descent into your depression. And as the days go by, you start to withdraw into yourself. Messages from friends begin to go unanswered. You tell yourself you’ll reply later, when you have the mental bandwidth to engage in conversation. But later ends up being not at all. Too many days have passed, and you feel like it’s too late to reply now; you don’t know how. That includes your boyfriend.

　　　　　　　　　　　[Noah 💘]

　　　　　　 　　　　　Tuesday 　　　　　　　　　 　　10:45AM

— Morning! Do you wanna call later?    Miss your voice 

          morning! I have a headache —             right now and I feel like it's             not gonna go away :( I'll let                you know though.                 I miss you too ❤️ —

— Aw I'm sorry :( — I hope you feel better soon — Text me later and let me know    how you are ❤️

　　　　　　　　　 　　02:27PM

— Hey babe how are you feeling?

             my head still hurts :( —

— Want me to come over and look    after you? — Have you eaten yet?

       you don't have to do that, I'd be —            shitty company anyway                   just wanna sleep —

— Okay :( — I'll text you later tonight so    you can sleep

　　　　　　　　　 　　10:09PM

— How are you feeling? — Are you sleeping? — Hope you’re resting well. Text    me when you wake up so I know    you’re okay — I love you ❤️ — Goodnight ❤️

　　　　　　 　　　　Wednesday 　　　　　　　　　 　　08:41AM

— Morning, how’re you feeling?

　　　　　　　　　 　　09:13AM

— Are you awake? — Babe, are you okay?

      hey! sorry I was still asleep. I feel a —       little better but my head still hurts :(

— I’m gonna cancel today and come    over — I don’t want you to be alone when    you’re not well 

       no don’t do that, i’m okay really —              you know this happens          sometimes. I just wanna rest,            you don’t have to cancel for        me. not when work is important

— You’re important too — Please let me look after you

          I love you and I love that —           you want to be here for me,         but all I want to do right now                   is sleep

          I don’t want you to cancel —           important schedules just           to watch me sleep all day                I’ll feel better soon.             just need to give it time. —

— I’d cancel to sit and watch you sleep    in a heartbeat — I love you, I just want you to be okay — I have to go, I’ll text you later okay?

         I’ll text you back when I can, —            if I don’t reply I’m probably          asleep so don’t worry have a                good day I love you —

　　　　　　　　　 　　10:26PM

— Hey babe sorry I didn’t text all day I    was so fucking busy — How’re you doing now? — Are you sleeping again?

　　　　　　　[MISSED CALL: 10:31PM]

— Text or call me when you wake up,    even if it’s the middle of the night I’ll    leave my sound on — I love you ❤️

　　　　　　 　　   　　Thursday 　　　　　　　　　 　　08:41AM

— Hey, are you awake?

　　　　　　　　　 　　08:55AM

— Hello??

　　　　　　　[MISSED CALL: 08:59AM]

— Message me when you wake up

　　　　　　　　　 　　12:20PM

— Babe?? — I’m worried — Even if you don’t wanna talk can     you please let me know you’re okay?

　　　　　　　　　 　　12:46PM

— Babe please answer me

　　　　　　　[MISSED CALL: 12:48PM]

　　　　　　　　　 　　01:20PM

     hey, sorry I missed your messages —         I’m okay sorry for worrying you —

— I was just about to come over — I still might — I’m worried about you

           please don’t I just don’t —          wanna see anyone right now

— Even me?

                  I’m sorry —             I’ll text you tomorrow — — If that’s what you want — I love you

　　　　　　　 　   　　　Friday 　　　　　　　　　 　　03:47PM

— I don’t want to bother you, I’m     trying to give you space if that’s    what you need — But I’m worried about you — You haven’t messaged me all day — Did I do something wrong?

　　　　　　　　　 　　04:10PM

— Babe please answer me

　　　　　　　[MISSED CALL: 04:12PM]

　　　　　　　[MISSED CALL: 04:15PM]

　　　　　　　　　 　　04:18PM

— Your friends said they haven’t heard    from you in days — What’s going on? You can talk to me. — You don’t have to talk to me if you    don’t want to but text someone back,    please — I just wanna know that you’re okay

　　　　　　　[MISSED CALL: 04:23PM]

And that’s how Noah ended up outside your door. Banging incessantly and shouting your name through the wood. You could hear him from where you were wrapped up in bed, but you were half hoping he would just drop it and go away. Realising quickly, however, the futility of that hope when you heard another voice join the sound of his. That of your neighbour, the nosy one from the house on the right.

You groan and throw the blanket off yourself, flinching a little when your feet touch the cold floor. You have no choice but to go downstairs, and no time to change your appearance. Hoping to whatever God will listen that Noah doesn’t make a comment on the clothes you’d been wearing for the past week before you can get in the shower and change.

“I’m just really worried about her,” you can hear the unmistakable tone of Noah’s voice through the door before you even open it.

Hesitating for a moment with your hand on the door handle, you decide to eavesdrop on the conversation. “I haven’t seen her for, ohhh let me think... has to be about a week now,” despite the man’s voice wavering with age, it came loud and clear through the door. An unfortunate side effect of his hearing loss.

“A week?!” Noah exclaimed. Having enough of the old man sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong, you unlock the door quickly, wrenching it open and taking a surprised Noah by the arm.

“Oh! Nice to see you, dear. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” The old man sneers.

“Yeah, nice seeing you, Trevor,” you barely extend him a glance as you drag Noah in through your doorway, slamming the door closed and turning the key. You let out a deep sigh, your palms and forehead resting against the cool wood.

Noah calls your name softly. You squeeze your eyes tight and take in a breath before you turn to face him. Putting on the best phoney smile you can muster.

“Sorry about him, he’s always in everyone’s business. What are you-”

“He said he hasn’t seen you in a week,” he says matter-of-factly. There’s no hint of a smile on his face. “Your friends said they haven’t heard from you in days either, and you’ve been ignoring my texts. And calls.”

Your heart seizes at the sadness in his eyes. He stands there in your front room, his usual sweatpants and hoodie, but he just looks so defeated. You always tell him he looks like an upset puppy when he’s sad, and the puppy-dog eyes are working overtime on you right now. “I told you, I’ve just been busy, and I-”

“And you had a headache, and you missed my texts, and you didn’t want to talk,” his voice was as stern as his expression. You knew he wasn’t an idiot. That there’s no way he’d believe your—at best—flimsy excuses. You stand frozen to the spot, fiddling with the edge of your sleeve. Picking at the stitches, trying to distract yourself from the lump forming in your throat. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” Noah questions.

You swallow roughly, “I don’t know what you... I don’t-”

He says your name firmly and takes a step towards you, “I’m going to ask you how you are, and I would like you to answer me honestly.”

Feeling your heart begin to race in your chest, you swallow again, but it does nothing to get rid of the tightness in your throat. Or the dizziness creeping up on you.

“Are you doing bad again?” He sounds softer this time, and you almost wish he would just scream at you because when he’s kind and attentive like this, you can’t help but crumble and shut down.

You clench your jaw as your breathing gets quicker, shallower, and you feel the unmistakable burn of tears in your eyes. “I’m fine,” your voice comes out cracked and weak, not at all the sound of someone who's fine. 

“Don’t pretend you’re okay. Please don’t lie to me, because I know you’re not okay!” Noah crosses the room to meet you, holding his hands outstretched towards you, “what can I do for you? Please, I want to help.”

You cover your mouth as you choke back a sob, wrapping your other arm around your middle; you can’t hold it in anymore, and the floodgates open. Gasping for breath that seems to never come, you grip the front of your shirt tight in your fist, the clothing suddenly feeling suffocating and stiflingly hot.

“Oh, baby. Come here,” Noah takes you by the shoulders and pulls you into his chest, where you fall into him and cling onto him like he’s your only lifeline. “I need you to breathe for me, okay? Slowly, in and out,” he strokes soothing circles against your back as he demonstrates to you how to breathe. “Come and sit down here, yeah? The couch is right here.”

You barely register your legs moving for the numbness extending across your entire body, from your fingertips all the way down to your toes. Your tears are hot on your face, and every time you try to wipe them away, they’re just replaced by more in a never-ending stream. The room feels like it’s spinning around you as you move, only worsening the feeling of nausea rising in your throat. The plush cushions of the couch are a welcome relief.

“You’re holding your breath, I need you to breathe. Just how I am, that’s it,” he cradles your head to his chest through your shaky attempts to take in a breath through your nose and let it out slowly through your mouth. Your breath hitches uncontrollably with every inhale, taking in tiny bursts of air at a time. Noah, though, has nothing but praise on his lips: “That’s it. You’re doing so well, just listen to my voice.”

You missed his voice. As you worsened and withdrew, you found any excuse to avoid going out to see him, and you had been ignoring his calls for days. You knew you were doing it, and you missed him desperately, but with every day that passed, you found it harder and harder to reach out. It was hard for you to reach out for help in the first place, hard for you to admit to anyone that you needed help. Hard to admit it to yourself. Opting instead to suffer in silence and just push through it until you finally broke. You didn’t know any other way.

The familiar presence of him by your side eases the pace of your racing heart, allowing each breath to come a little easier. A little calmer. “I hate to see you hurting like this,” he whispers into your hair, his hand stroking through it gently, working to soothe the seemingly unquenchable anxiety. “I want to help you, please let me help you.”

It broke your heart to hear the pain in his voice. You never wanted to hurt him, but that’s all you seem to do. That cold hand of dread tightens its grip on your chest again, panic filling your lungs and replacing all the air. “I’m sorry,” you barely choke out, gripping onto Noah tighter. Warring with yourself, wanting to hold him close, but feeling like you need to push him away.

“You don’t need to apologise, ever. I’m here, I’m right here,” he runs his hand up and down your back, cradling you close. He can’t help but notice that through the fabric of your shirt, the bones of your spine are ever so slightly more prominent than before. He keeps his mouth shut. Focussing instead on quelling your distress and holding you tight in his arms. 

“I just- I fuck everything up. I can’t do anything right, I don’t deserve your love, I don’t deserve you-” Once you start talking, you can’t stop, finally letting it all out until Noah cuts you off, incapable of hearing you degrade yourself anymore.

“No. No, that’s not even remotely true. Don’t say that about yourself,” he says firmly, holding you just a little tighter. 

You shake your head against him, “all I do is hurt people and push you away, and I don’t know how to stop. You don’t deserve that, you shouldn’t have to put up with me.”

“I don’t ‘put up with you’. I love you, and I want to be here for you. Whatever you need, whenever you need it.”

“You shouldn’t have to drop everything to come deal with me when you’re so busy. You deserve someone that isn’t so fucking hard to love.”

With that, Noah pushes you backwards by the shoulders, holding you there so he can look into your eyes when he speaks. “You are not hard to love. Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever had the privilege of doing. You just…” He takes a deep breath, cupping your cheek and brushing away the tears from under your eyes. “You just need to let me in, and let me show you you’re just as worthy of love as anyone else is.”

The image of him blurs when the tears overflow from your eyes again, your face crumpling as you bow your head. “You’ll leave me," your voice shaking with the force of your sobs.

"Why would you ever think I'd leave you?" he asks, dismayed by your fear.

"Everyone always leaves," you tell him, voice brittle and quiet, shaking your head. "It's only a matter of time before you leave too."

"I love you," Noah feels tears prick at his own eyes. "I love you so, so much. And I'm not going anywhere." He lifts your head, once again brushing away your tears so he can look into your eyes, "please trust me to help you."

"I'm just so tired," you confess, and he pulls you into his arms again. 

“I can't promise to fix all your problems, but I can promise you won't have to face them alone. There’s nothing you could do that would drive me away. And the things that would, I know you’d never do,” he runs a comforting hand through your hair as you cry, his other arm secure around your waist. Your tears soak into his shirt, but he doesn’t mind. He wants you to give it all to him—all your sorrows, all your grief—so that he can bear it with you.

You desperately want to believe his words. To lean on him when you need him the most, but that insecure piece inside of you won’t let you yield. You don’t know how to open up to anyone without feeling like a burden.

Noah stays right there with you until the tears subside and your breathing evens out. Your head resting in his lap as he reassuringly strokes your hair, you feel the beginnings of a dull ache in your head that makes you drowsy. He rubs soothing circles into your back with his other hand, shifting slightly to get a better look at your face. “Have you eaten yet today?” He asks tentatively. Feeling your throat constrict under the pressure of guilt, you know you can’t lie to him. You know he sees right through you, so you decide to try being honest by shaking your head. “Want me to cook something for you? Or we can order something? My treat.”

You know he means well, but you don’t know how to say you don’t have an appetite without worrying him. He won’t let you go the entire day without eating, but all you want to do is sleep.

“Please talk to me,” he pleads, “I need to hear you.”

On a shaky breath, you settle for a half truth. “I don’t think there’s anything to cook.”

“That’s fine, we can order food then. What do you want?”

Chewing on your lip, you freeze. The silence stretches on far too long for you to be deciding what restaurant to order from, it’s clear you’re unable to answer.

Noah sighs your name, “you have to eat something.” 

“I know. I just… I just don’t want to,” he remains quiet, waiting for you to continue. “I don’t feel hungry. Thinking about it is overwhelming. I just want to sleep so I don’t have to think about it.”

“What have you been eating these past few days?” He asks cautiously, his tone light. Conscious to not sound accusatory.

You sigh, knowing there’s no way of escaping this. “Microwave stuff, mostly,” you play with the fabric of his sweatpants, feeling his leg underneath, fidgeting your anxiety away. “Rice, oats, ramen. Stuff I don’t have to wash up after.”

“Have you been eating every day?”

The question hangs heavy in the air, the tension only thickening when you answer "no,” barely above a whisper.

You feel him nod. Quiet for a moment until he too speaks so quietly, you almost didn’t hear it. “You can’t go on like this.”

“I know,” you confess.

“Please let me help you.”

The desperation in his voice is what does it—the final straw. You sit up straight, turning to face him. Wiping the residual tears from your cheeks and looking him in the eye. You know it’s time to really be honest. 

“It’s hard for me-” Your voice catches in your throat as the threat of crying again creeps up on you, not quite realising how much your body would resist. Taking a second to compose yourself—a deep breath in, eyes closed, releasing it slowly—your resolve strengthens and you continue. “It’s hard for me to open up to people. To admit when I’m struggling. I’m so used to feeling like I’m burdening everyone with my problems, so I just keep it all to myself. And by the time I realise I’m going down that road again, it’s too late to stop it.”

“It’s never too late,” Noah says reassuringly, tucking both sides of your hair behind your ears—the left first, then the right. “I mean this in the most loving way possible, but you don’t get to decide whether you’re a burden. You don’t get to take that choice away from me. The choice to help you. Your problems will never be a burden to me, no matter how big or small. You will never be a burden to me. I love you. I choose you. And I’ll never think poorly of you for needing help, ever.”

You don’t know what to say. Your eyes fixed on his. One of your favourite things about him is his big brown eyes. Always so full of comfort. So full of love that even you, with all of your self-doubt, can’t deny it. “I’m sorry. I know you said not to apologise, but I think I need to. I’m sorry for making you worry and for pushing you away. I’m sorry for hurting you.”

Noah takes your hands in his. Large palms enveloping your own entirely. “Seeing you hurting is what hurts me the most. I love you so much, all I want is for you to be happy and healthy.”

You squeeze his hands in yours, “I love you, Noah. I’ll try harder, I promise. Feeling so unwanted for so long before I met you, I think I didn’t realise just how lucky I am to have you until now.” Noah raises one of your hands, kissing the back firmly and holding it there, savouring the feel of your skin against his lips. Timidly, you ask, “can we get pizza?”

He breaks out into a smile, “of course we can! But you have to text your friends back first," he bargains, "even if it’s just something short.”

“Deal,” you can’t help but return his smile. “My phone is upstairs, I’m just gonna go get it.”

“Wait!” he calls as you stand, pulling you back to the sofa and into him with a hand on the back of your head, “can I kiss you first?”

Without a word, you lean into him, closing the gap between you and feeling his lips on yours for the first time in weeks. That familiar burn of tears threatening to escape your eyes returns, and when you pull away, those beautiful brown eyes are full of concern.

“It’s okay,” you reassure him, laughing awkwardly, “happy tears. I just missed you so much.”

“I missed you too,” his smile taking on a more solemn appearance this time. “But I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I love you, please don’t ever forget that.”

“Don’t forget that I love you too. No matter what happens. No matter how stupidly self-destructive I act.”

Noah pulls you in for one final embrace before letting you retrieve your phone. You spend time texting back each of your friends, apologising for your absence and telling them you were okay, that Noah is here, and you’d explain more later. Noah, sitting at your right, creates your pizza order, periodically asking what else you’d like adding.

The two of you spend the night watching trash TV, settling into your usual comfort and hurling insults at the characters for making stupid decisions while you eat your food. Only realising after it arrived just how hungry you really were. And when you’re finished eating, Noah and you head upstairs.

You feel like a new person after you shower, coming out of the bathroom to find Noah relaxed against your headboard. The sheets on your bed changed, and a fresh set of clothes lay waiting for you to change into for bed.

Accepting finally how much lighter everything feels when someone is around to help you. You slide under the clean sheets, comforted by the warmth of Noah’s body beside you for the first time in too long. And just as you fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat and the feeling of his hand stroking your back, you’re determined to never let things get this bad again. Knowing you need to trust him, because trust is the foundation of love, and you love Noah with every fibre of your being. And despite how hard it is sometimes, you need to let him love you back.

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[iwasntstable]

n.s. | nightmare.

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NIGHTMARE [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ fear-of-failure | [nightmare]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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summary: reader experiences an intense and terrifying nightmare, luckily noah is there to bring her round and make sure she's okay.

content tags: emotional hurt/comfort, fluff

word count: 3K.

note: I experience night terrors like this every so often, so here is me projecting. This can be read as either an established relationship or a friends/roommates/housemates kind of situation, it's pretty open!

You know you’re awake. Sat upright, eyes open but the world looks wrong, and your hands won’t stop shaking. The proportions of the familiar environment of your bedroom are distorted; the carpet is too long, stretching uncomfortably across the floor, the desk is so far away, and too short. It’s bent and warped, distressingly the wrong shape. The mirror, too tall, towering over you from where it rests against the wall like a skyscraper, and those things, the shapes and shadows reflected in its surface that can’t possibly be real—all made worse by the dark and the quiet of the night, and the shadows cast by the moon. The walls extend on, and on, and on, and on, further and further away until they vanish into a pinpoint in the distance. 

Eyes wide and flickering around the room, a futile attempt to make you believe what it is you’re seeing, that the objects around you really were melting and sliding into puddles on the floor like dense candle wax. The beat of your heart hammering so hard in your chest that you rock back and forth with every pulse. In an attempt to ground yourself, you grip the sheets in your hands, feeling the texture against your palms, but even the tangibility of the fabric can’t snap you out of it.

Warm hands on your skin make you flinch. Recoiling from the touch, you frantically shove them away and shuffle backwards on the bed to escape. The dark hinders your vision just enough that you can’t make out the figure before you. The shape whispers your name softly and somewhere deep inside, it feels familiar to you. You stare at it, its broad shoulders and messy hair, palms outstretched towards you and you feel like you know it. 

The shape’s malformed voice speaks your name again, “-’re okay. Look a- me, you’re dreami-, -’s okay.”

You feel like you’re spinning where you’re sitting. The sheets around you are writhing and flowing like water but when you lay your hands on them again you’re surprised to find they don’t feel how you expect them to, they still feel like cotton. Of course they do. 

A shifting shadow in the corner of your vision draws your attention. Immediately, you lock your eyes to the corner, unblinking, seeking the shadow. There’s nothing there. But there was. You’re sure of it. It was right there in the right-hand corner, by the window. Maybe it went behind the chair. Your breath comes quick and shallow as your eyes scour every inch of the area. It’s there you know it is. With your skin beginning to crawl, you try to scratch away the feeling, raking your nails up and down one arm, then the other. The burn though does nothing to quell the itch that lives beneath the surface. The bed shifts beside you but you don’t dare look away, once you do the shadow will move again. Your throat tightens at the thought of looking away and missing it move, then it’ll be somewhere in your room but you won’t know where, and-

“Hey, hey look at me,” the voice breaks through the haze.

You whip your head around to face it when you feel a hand on your arm again. Looking it in the eyes, then down to where it has you in its grip, back at its eyes—its big, calm brown eyes— and then back at its hand again. Patterns adorning the skin that hit you with a pang of recognition. 

In both of its hands, the shape takes both of yours, gently caressing its thumbs over the back of them, making your racing mind forget about the crawl in your skin. You’re fixated on the movement when the shape speaks again, “its not real, you’re still dreaming. It’s me. It’s Noah. I need you to look at me.”

Feeling compelled, you look at its face again.

Noah…

That’s Noah.

You stare hard at his face, that familiar face that has become your refuge too many times to count, and too often to forget. Looking from one eye to the other and analysing his features; his sharp nose and soft cheeks, his warm eyes full of concern, and his messy hair.

It’s him. It’s him. It’s Noah. He’s real.

“It’s you,” you whisper. “It’s you, you’re real.”

You reach out to him, sitting up on your knees and holding on tight to his arms, whispering a mantra of “you’re real, you’re real, you’re real” so quietly it’s almost unintelligible as tears burn in your unblinking eyes and the image of him blurs.

“It’s me, I’m real,” he holds your arms back in kind and shuffles closer to you on the bed. “You’re still dreaming. Whatever you’re seeing, I promise it’s not real.”

“But I saw,” you look back at the corner of the room, now, just a regular corner of a regular room, “I saw… but there- over there,” the dresser looked normal, the mirror was exactly how it usually is, and the walls were the same as always, stationary and secure where they stand.

You tighten your grip on Noah’s arms, feeling your heart race again and a couple of tears slip free as panic seals its grasp on you. How could it all not be real? You saw it. Where did it all go?

“Baby, listen to me,” he cups the side of your face in one hand and pulls your attention onto him again, “you’re half awake, but you’re still dreaming. You’ve told me about this before, remember? You’re still dreaming, you need to fully wake up.”

“Dreaming…” you whisper while entranced by his espresso eyes illuminated by the moonlight.

Noah nods, stroking your cheek, “it’s okay, I’m here. You’re safe. I promise you’re safe.”

You look down at the sheets bunched up by your knees again. Just plain, white cotton sheets, unmoving on the bed. No longer slithering and flowing. Taking in a deep breath, you lower your head, letting the air out slowly between your lips. You flex your grip around Noah’s arms, feeling the solid muscle beneath soft skin. Real. 

Unable to fight it any longer, the dam breaks, and hot tears roll freely down your cheeks, air catching in your throat as your body is wracked with the force of your sobs, unable to take in a full breath.

“Come here,” Noah sighs, enveloping you in long sturdy arms, pulling you in and holding you close to the warmth of his chest. He shushes you and cradles your head gently, smoothing down your tangled hair as he rocks you both back and forth. “I’m here. Just breathe for me, I’m here.”

You grip onto him like he’s the only thing keeping you attached to the Earth. Your only lifeline as your fingers and toes go numb and your head spins like you’ve just stepped off a carousel. The act of focusing on the way his voice reverberates through his chest while he repeats a steady hymn of “it’s okay, I’m here. Just breathe. It’s okay,” is the only thing to keep you sane. Your body feels heavy in his arms, fatigue catching up to you with every tear that falls onto his inked skin. 

Noah rubs soothing circles into your back while you cling to him. You don’t know how long you’ve been entwined before your senses start to clear, becoming acutely aware of the night’s chill against your skin and the beginnings of an ache in your head. You shift in Noah’s arms, peeking once more into the darkness of your bedroom as if to check one final time that everything is as it should be. It was.

“Hey. You come back to me yet?” 

You nod, resting your head back against his chest, too tired to move or to speak. Fingers tingling and arms like static.

“Do you need anything? Some water or-”

Noah’s question was cut short by you shaking your head, gripping onto him tighter, as though to say “please don’t go, please don’t leave me yet.” 

“Okay,” he whispers, softly placing a kiss on the crown of your head. “Let’s sit back here, yeah?” He manoeuvres your body along with his to lay against him while he rests back on the headboard of your bed. The rhythm of his heart being the only sound you can hear.

Your own heart still thuds hard in your chest no matter how evenly you breathe, overwhelming anxiety and shame threatening to engulf you. “I’m sorry,” you whisper through the tightness of your throat. You had no idea what time it was but it must be late, and here you are, disturbing the peace and ruining rest with this pathetic display. Noah should know better than to come rushing to your aid in the dead of night for no good reason.

“Don’t say that, you have nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault you had a nightmare,” he pulls you closer into his embrace, a large palm running comfortingly up and down your spine.

“You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your rest to help me.”

“No. Stop that right now, okay?” He tucks your hair behind your ear to see your face clearly, “you’ve told me about these weird nightmares of yours before, how you can’t tell what’s real and what isn’t. I’m not just going to let you sit there terrified while the hat man tries to get you.”

You can't help but laugh at his change in tone, “I don’t see the fucking hat man,” with a playful slap to his chest.

“Okay, okay sorry! I’m serious though. If you think I’m going to leave you alone you’re wrong. I’ve never seen you so scared. I’d sacrifice a hundred nights' rest to make sure you’re okay.”

“Noah…” You’d never heard someone say something so sweet before. Never experienced a modicum of comfort like that which you’ve received from him tonight. 

“No more apologies. Do you want to talk about it? Or we can talk about something else, or do you want to rest?” He delivered his options as he traced patterns on your back with his fingertips.

You shake your head, partially in disbelief and part embarrassment, “I feel so stupid now that it’s over, but it feels so real in the moment,” you twist a little out of Noah’s embrace to gaze up at the ceiling, running a palm down your face and wiping away the residual tears from your eyelashes. “Everything just looks so warped and fucked up, it’s like a bad acid trip. But because I’m half awake, I can feel things that are really there, and I’m looking at things that are real, but the part of me that’s still asleep is distorting things… I don’t know, does that even make sense?” You press the heel of your palm against your brow bone, that ache still lingering like a hangover.

“I think I understand what you mean,” He continues caressing your arm, thanking God for the low light allowing him the privilege to watch you unabashedly.

“Thank you, anyway,” you slide your hand down your face and drop it against your stomach, looking up to find Noah already looking down at you. Heat radiates across your cheeks. He looks so beautiful in the dimly lit room like this, hair unruly and starting to form waves in places. A soft smile on his face, only for you. Your breath catches in your throat, “I’m really glad you were here.”

“I’m happy to be here for you, any time, day or night. If you need me I’ll be there.”

You swear you can feel your heart rate accelerate again and you wonder if he can feel it too. All you can do under the weight of his caring gaze is offer him a smile. You have no idea what to say or do, this kind of care and attention still a foreign feeling for you. 

“What, uh, what time is it, anyway?” You turn to glance at the window over your shoulder—eyes hesitating suspiciously at the corner for just a moment—seeing the darkness remaining outside, no hint of daylight.

Noah shifts across the bed towards your nightstand and reaches for your phone, the glow of the screen illuminating the two of you where you lay. “Almost 3am,” he sets it back down gently, shrouding the room in darkness once more, “still enough time to sleep.”

“I feel so tired but I don’t think I can sleep yet,” running your hands down your face again, rubbing the fatigue from your eyes. 

“What do you want to do?” Noah continues to trail his fingers up and down your arm, “we can put the TV on, watch a movie or something? Go sit outside and get some fresh air?”

“Don’t wanna move,” you whine, rolling closer into his side.

“Hmm,” Noah mused, deep in thought and always maintaining his gentle touch—which had now returned to your back—feeling muscles you didn’t even know were tensed so harshly relaxing beneath his fingers. 

You might have been able to drift off to sleep once more until Noah gasped and sat up slightly, “I have an idea,” he said a little too enthusiastically for 3am, “I need to go get something, will you be okay alone? I’ll be quick, I promise.”

Nodding, you sit up fully so he can slip out next to you. 

He swings his long legs off the side of the bed and starts towards the door, hesitating before turning and saying “I’ll be right back.”

Now alone in the darkness of your room, you look around once again, feeling embarrassment creeping up your spine. You bury your head in your hands and whisper “God…” into your palms. These kinds of nightmares don’t happen often and you likely won’t have another for months, but you always feel ridiculous when it’s over. Thinking the walls are melting and seeing shadows move? How can you be so stupid, of course it isn’t real. No matter how much sense you have, your mind fools itself every time.

Noah returns to find you like this. Climbing back onto the bed next to you he resumes stroking soothing circles into your back, like it’s his full-time job. “Hey, I’m here. I wasn’t gone long, I’m back.”

You shake your head as though to scatter the negative thoughts from your mind, “I’m okay. I just feel so stupid,” you say with a bitter laugh.

“You’re not stupid. Don’t say that,” Noah’s voice stern and unyielding. “Don’t apologise for being afraid.” You get as far as opening your mouth and inhaling before he cuts you off, “and don’t say sorry either!”

Biting the inside of your cheek you meet his eyes. From just one look you can tell he’s serious, but there’s an underlying compassion there too, in the way he’s fighting back the urge to smile. You notice then, the ‘something’ he went to fetch.

“Your guitar?” You ask, nodding in its direction.

“Yeah,” Noah picks it back up from where he set it on the edge of your bed, “you said you like listening to me play, so I thought I’d play a little until you fall asleep.”

He remembered. 

You told him months ago that you liked to watch and listen to him playing guitar. You were forced to confess after he caught you staring one afternoon while he was redoing take after take in his studio. 

~

“Like what you see?” He said teasingly.

“What?” Stunned out of your trance by the unexpected sound of his voice, “what did you say?”

Noah laughed a full, profound laugh that came from deep within. You throw a couch cushion at him, scarcely missing the side of his head. “What’s so fucking funny?!”

“You- you were, fuck sorry,” he pauses to catch his breath, then with a deep sigh, “you were staring so hard, it's like you were hypnotised.”

“God, stop it! I was just watching you play!” You hide behind your hands, shaking your head in embarrassment.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry, I was only teasing,” he leans the guitar by the neck against the edge of the desk, “I don’t mind you watching, it's okay.”

Dropping your hands to your lap, you play with the frayed edge of the couch blanket, “I just like watching you play… You do it so easily, it’s…” you scour your mind for the right word that could possibly describe his skill, “soothing, calming, I don’t know. It’s nice, I like it.”

“That’s… really nice to hear, thank you. I’m sorry for laughing, I didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” his tone was soft and appreciative.

With a shake of your head you wave off his apology, “it’s okay, just forget about it. I’m gonna get a drink, do you want anything?”

Noah shakes his head ‘no’ and you stand to make a beeline for the door, needing just a moment to yourself to breathe. When you come back with a cold drink from the fridge he’s in his own little world again, headphones on, fingers deftly working the strings of his guitar as his focus is maintained on getting the perfect take.

~

Your heart feels full at the kindness of his gesture, “thank you, I’d like that,” you said smiling.

Noah returns your smile and settles himself back against the headboard, guitar across his stomach, and pats the mattress next to him to indicate where he wants you to lay. It’s easy to get comfortable beside him, feeling utterly drained after the nightmare, your eyelids start to drift closed automatically. You can’t help the smile that creeps its way onto your face though when you hear the first few chords; one of your favourite songs. No idea how Noah even knew this was one of your favourites. 

You allow the melody to relax your mind and lull you into a safe and peaceful rest, falling asleep almost immediately. 

Noah noticed halfway through the song the look of peace on your face and correctly assumed you had already slipped off to sleep. He played it through in its entirety twice, and then when the song was over, he placed his guitar to rest carefully against the side table. Tactfully, he shifts down in the bed to lay beside you, overly cautious to not disturb you, pulling you in to lay in his arms. 

And when you wake up in the morning, despite the tumultuous night, you feel more well-rested than you have in a long time.

[iwasntstable]

Hiii love your writing!! + you can totally ignore this if you’re not interested but can I request a little something about Noah being your neighbor in an apartment building?? You do whatever you want with it, I just think the idea could be so cute (:

n.s. | new neighbour

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ASK/NEWNIEGHBOUR [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | one-shot | blurb | head-cannons | [ask] 　﹂ [new-neighbour]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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content tags: fluff. word count: 3.1k note: thank you for requesting and for being so patient! 🖤 I originally wrote this as head-cannons but thought, no this needs to be a whole thing, it's too cute.

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ᯤ 𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗦 (15) :　 ⌞⬤ 5 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾⌝ @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning | @english-fucker @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard | @seven-glass-kids @runadaggerthroughmychest

⌞⬤ 5 𝖺𝗐𝖺𝗒⌝ @lma1986 | @shayzillaaaa | @madamaaubergine @thewrstinme | @amourtoken

⌞⦵ 5 𝖽𝗈 𝗇𝗈𝗍 𝖽𝗂𝗌𝗍𝗎𝗋𝖻⌝ @livingdeceasedgirl | @alwaysfightforwhoyouare @xcllnt | @romanreigns-supreme | @slutforcoffein

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When you first move in, you don’t see him much—the tall guy that lives across the hall. To be fair, you’re too busy trying to organise everything that comes with moving to a new place, ran off your feet redirecting all your mail, setting up your bills, and needing to go out and buy disposable plates, cups, and cutlery since your real ones are still packed in boxes at your old place. Everything is still packed in boxes at your old place.

After three days of sleeping on your mattress on the floor, the movers finally deliver your entire life to your new address. You didn’t know if they were in a hurry or just doing a bad job, and you can’t help but think you should’ve pushed the boat out and paid for more expensive movers because the ones you hired, instead of bringing everything inside like they were supposed to, left it all in the hallway. Every box. Every piece of furniture.

You try your best to move it all out of the way quickly, anxious that at any moment someone will use the elevator or come up or down the stairs and be unable to pass. Or, God forbid, the fire alarm goes off. Most of the boxes aren’t particularly heavy, but after all the repeated stooping down and standing up, your muscles were beginning to ache and strain, and it only worsened as time went on.

Pushing a stack of three boxes through your doorway—two heavy ones on the bottom with a lighter one balanced on top—you hear a muffled “what the fuck?” come from the hallway. For a second you freeze, feeling a wave of panic wash down your body, but the urgency has you sprinting back to the hallway to save the stranger.

“I’m sorry!” you shout before you even reach the door, exiting your apartment to find your neighbour trapped in his own doorway, unable to move past the stacks upon stacks of boxes. “I’m so sorry! The movers were supposed to bring them in, but they just left them out here. I’m sorry, just give me a minute,” scrambling and dragging the cardboard to clear a path for him.

“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t worry,” the neighbour’s voice was calm and not at all pissed off like you expected. When you turn back to him after shoving a pile out of the way, you see his outstretched hand, “I’m Noah.”

Just for a moment, you’re transfixed by the beautiful tattoo work decorating his hand and extending up his forearm. You snap out of it, wiping your sweaty palm on your jeans before taking his hand in yours. You tell him your name, somehow able to think past just how big his hand is around yours. Noticing too, when you look at his face, the inkwork that peeked out from underneath the collar of his hoodie.

Noah smiles warmly and asks, “do you want a hand with... all of this?” Looking around at the carnage, “you look exhausted.”

You drop his hand from yours to run them through your hair, smoothing down the flyaways and tucking the strays behind your ears, only now realising how sweaty you are. “I- uh… It’s okay. I think I can handle it.”

“It’s no problem, seriously. And you’ll be done twice as fast with another person. Come on,” he pockets his keys and crouches down, picking up a box with ease. “Where do you want this one?”

You blink at him for a second before shaking yourself out of it and moving closer to read what you wrote on the top of the box, “uh, that’s kitchen.”

“Got it,” he said confidently, striding over a mound of boxes on long legs and disappearing through your door.

He was right; it only took you around 20 minutes to finish moving the rest of your belongings and furniture into your apartment. 

“Drink?” you ask him, leaning back against the kitchen counter. He nodded, and you turned to the cupboard to retrieve a glass, only to realise the glasses were still packed, hiding in one of the—maybe fifteen—boxes strewn across the floor and the countertops. Looking back at him, you find amusement written all over his face, both of you bursting out laughing, delirious from the hard work.

“Do you know which one they’re in?”

“Not a clue,” you sigh, wiping at your eyes. “I labelled which room they belong to, but didn’t think to write what was inside each box on the outside of the box.”

“Well,” he grunted, taking the box nearest to his feet and hoisting it up onto the counter, ripping off the tape. “I guess we’d better start searching.”

You shake your head with a chuckle, pushing off the counter to begin the hunt.

The both of you spend the next few minutes rummaging, calling out the contents of each box you unsealed, declaring “plates!” here and “pans!” there. “Microwave!” and “knives!” Organising as you go, you tell him to place the microwave by the window and the knives next to the oven for you to put away later. 

“Mugs!” you declare triumphantly, “these will do. My hands are going to fall off if I have to rip any more tape.” You take two—one decorated with Halloween-themed characters and one with the symbol of your zodiac sign—and rinse them under the tap before filling them with water and handing Noah the Halloween-themed mug.

He smiles at the little characters, “you know,” he says, raising the mug, “my birthday is on Halloween.”

“Oh my God, what a coincidence,” you smile, eyes wide. “I’ll try to remember to get you a card.” He chuckles and takes a sip of water, and you can’t help but notice how pretty his eyes look when the sunlight from the kitchen window hits them. “Thank you, by the way. For all the help. The hallway would still be a disaster zone if it wasn’t for you.”

“Don’t mention it, I’m happy to help my new neighbour.”

You’re mulling over how to ask more about him—who he lives with, what he does for work, when his phone pings. He takes it from his pocket and immediately his eyebrows furrow. “Something wrong?” you ask instead.

“Not wrong, no,” he sighs, “but I do have to go.”

“Yeah, no problem! Thank you again for all your help,” you take the mug from his outstretched hand as he pockets his phone again. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah, definitely! It was nice meeting you, and good luck unpacking.” He steps over your kitchen supplies and heads out towards the door, calling over his shoulder “bye!”

“Bye!” you shout back.

You wouldn’t see him around much after that afternoon, somehow managing to miss each other in the hallway, never coming or going at the same time. You found yourself unable to stop thinking about him, listening intently whenever you heard the elevator or someone’s footsteps on the stairs. Always though, they would pass by your floor.

On occasion you do hear the sound of his door when you’re awake early in the morning. Angling to look out of your living room window, you’d see him—recognisable by his stature even when his identifiable tattoos were covered—exiting the building and taking off for a run. You mentally chastise yourself for acting so pathetically. Listening out for his footsteps in the hall made you sound like some kind of deranged lunatic.

Going about your evening, you make dinner, choosing to eat in front of the TV to watch a two-hour-long YouTube documentary on some TV show you’d never seen. 

You didn’t realise you’d fallen asleep on the couch after eating until you were startled awake by the piercing sound of a siren. Sitting bolt upright, you look around the room and try to make sense of your surroundings. Reality sank in after a moment—that you were in your living room, and the fire alarm was going off. You couldn’t smell smoke and wondered if this might just be a test, realising, however, the unlikeliness of that scenario when you look out of your window to see nothing but the pitch black sky. Still unsure if there was a real risk of fire or not, you think to check the hallway. If the other residents of the building were leaving, you would too.

Already hearing numerous footsteps and murmuring voices before you even reach the door, you look through the peephole to see, yes, every resident of the complex was evacuating. You curse under your breath and slip your sneakers on—the only shoes nearby that were able to be slipped on quickly without needing to undo the laces. You open your door and lock it behind you once you enter the hall, following the steady stream of bodies down the flights of stairs and out into the night. 

“Fuck,” you curse; the cold air hits you first, then the rain. The weather didn’t even cross your mind before you came out in the clothes you wore to sleep—comfy shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Wrapping your arms around yourself in a feeble effort to protect yourself from the chill, you go to stand out in the rain with everybody else.

“Is it a real fire?”

“I thought I smelled smoke on the way down.”

“Really, which floor?”

“I don’t remember.”

“I didn't smell anything.”

“It’s probably the old man on floor five again. The one that fell asleep with a lit cigarette and had us all out here at the crack of dawn waiting for the firefighters.”

“Or the woman, what’s her name? The one that left candles burning all night and her curtains caught fire.”

You’re pulled out of the hum of conversation by someone shouting your name. Whipping your head around to see Noah jogging towards you as carefully as he could in his slides.

“Hey!” you call, moving away from the crowd to meet him. “What’s going on? Do you know what happened?”

“No idea,” he sighed, looking you up and down, “what are you wearing?”

“Oh, I-” feeling heat rise to your cheeks as you become acutely aware of how you were dressed in front of him, “I was asleep.”

“You’re gonna freeze. Here,” he takes his hoodie by the hemline, crossing his arms and pulling it over his head, turning it right side out after the garment was off. “Have this.”

“No! No, it’s fine. I’m okay, really! I’m not even that cold.” 

“It’s raining, and you’re shivering. Put the hoodie on. It’s okay,” he bunches up the hoodie, aligning the neck hole and the bottom so he can easily slide it over your head. “Put your arms in. There.”

The hoodie was warm. And smelled comforting—a pleasant mix of his laundry detergent and cologne. It was huge on you and came down to about mid-thigh, covering your shorts entirely. “I- thank you, Noah. I’ll give it back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he smiles, pulling the hood up over your head and tucking the damp strands of your hair inside. The sound of the rain around you dampened to a soft fuzz through the fabric.

The sound of sirens in the distance drew everybody's attention, the bright red truck pulling into the parking lot and stopping right outside the building by the crowd of people. Noah puts an arm around your shoulder, pulling you back out of the way of the crew and off to the side. You hope it’s too dark to see the telltale blush burning your cheeks.

“Does anybody know what happened?” the first person off the firetruck shouts. The crowd murmurs amongst themselves again, looking between each other and shrugging their shoulders.

As the crew disembarks the vehicle and prepares their equipment, you turn to Noah to find him already looking at you. Only in a t-shirt and sweatpants, you can see now just how extensively tattooed he is. The only times you’d seen him, he’d been wearing a hoodie or a long-sleeved shirt, but now you could see both of his tattoo sleeves, and how his neck piece covered the whole front of his throat. “How’ve you been? It’s been a while,” he asks.

“Yeah, good,” you look up at his eyes, the hood shielding your eyes from the rain, “haven’t been too busy. What about you?”

He nods, “Been good. I’ve been busy though. Kind of hectic with work.”

“Oh, what do you do for work?”

“I’m a musician, actually,” he ducks his head to hide his shy smile, looking back up at you while he shifts from one foot to the other. “I’m in a band. We’re releasing a new single soon, so there’s a lot of preparation. Lots of stuff to do.”

You can’t help but smile at his demeanour. Being in a band made so much sense; what with the tattoos? He seemed like a creative guy. “That’s so cool! What do you do in the band?”

“I’m the vocalist. Kind of like you,” he kicks your shoe teasingly with his, a sly smile on the corner of his lips as water begins to drip from his hair.

“I- what?” You question, “what do you mean?”

He breaks out into a laugh, not a cruel one, teasing. Amused by something that apparently only he knew. “I like Aurora too.”

All at once, it hits you. “Oh my God,” you groan, covering your face with the sleeves of his hoodie. “You can hear me singing in the shower?!” Contemplating running back inside the potentially burning building.

“I’m only joking. Hey, I’m sorry,” he takes you by the shoulders, “your singing is very good. I like it.”

“I wanna die,” your voice comes muffled by the fabric, but you can hear him laugh again just fine. You continue to hide even when he tries to pry your arms away from your face; if the blush wasn’t visible before, it definitely would be now.

You’re gratefully pulled out of your shame by the fire chief’s voice echoing across the parking lot.

“All clear, folks! Kids pulled the fire alarm, you can all go back inside!” The volume of the crowd peaks again, irritated voices muttering as the mass of bodies filter through the door back inside, shaking off raindrops as they go.

You and Noah follow slowly, not wanting to get caught up in the crowd. “I am sorry,” he says sincerely, turning to you. “I didn’t mean to offend you, I really was just joking.”

With an awkward laugh, you shake your head and wave him off, “I’m not offended. Just fucking embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. I meant it, your voice is nice. I’d be putting in a noise complaint if it sounded bad.”

You smiled and looked down at your feet, droplets of water running down your legs. 

After what felt like too long, you make it back to your floor. Taking the stairs while everyone else waited for the elevator. Once you reached your joint floor, you both paused in the hallway, unsure what to say and hesitant to part.

“I’ll-”

“Do you-”

“Sorry!” you burst out, “go ahead.”

“I was going to say, do you want to come over one day? I can show you my music, maybe we could have dinner? I’d love to get to know you better.”

Speechless for a second, you stare at his face. He’d pushed his wet hair back out of his eyes, giving a completely different, cleanly handsome aspect to his appearance. His black shirt—soaked through—clung to his skin. But his expression was earnest, his eyes showing no evidence of that teasing look he had back outside. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll get your hoodie back to you too. I’ll-”

“Don’t worry about it, seriously. Looks good on you.”

“Okay,” you duck your head to hide your grin, turning towards your door, “I’m gonna go dry off.”

“Wait!” He pats his legs, feeling his pockets and fishing his phone out of the right side, “can I have your number?” He taps for a few seconds, looking up quickly, then averting his gaze just as quickly. He holds out his phone eagerly, open on an empty contact page.

Grin still wide on your face, you wordlessly take his phone, typing in your name and adding your number. “There. I even put my birthday in so you can give me a card too.”

Noah looks down at his new contact; he too grinning as he locks and pockets his phone. “I’ll add it to my calendar. And I’ll text you so we can arrange that da- Uh the, you coming over.” 

Not missing the slip of his words, you decide not to comment on it, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over your hands and fiddling with the fabric. “Sounds good. I’m gonna,” you gesture over your shoulder to your door.

He replies with a soft “yeah” and does the same.

“Goodnight, Noah.”

“Night. See you around.”

Praying he doesn’t see you fumble with your keys, you quickly slip into your apartment, seeing his shoulders disappear through his own doorway just as you close your door. 

You lean against the cold wood of the door once it’s locked, head resting back. Your smile is unrestrained now, your cheeks beginning to ache after a couple of seconds. “Oh my God,” you whisper to yourself. Shaking your head to try and regain some composure. 

Reluctantly, you pull off his hoodie. The fabric was almost soaked through from the rain and desperately needed to be hung up to dry. Getting a hanger from your room, you thread it through the neck and head into your bathroom to hang it on the shower curtain railing. You smooth down the fabric, squeezing out some water onto the floor, and get the chance to look at the design for the first time. 

It wasn't just a basic black hoodie; it had small, red text embroidered across the centre of the chest that read “I can’t be saved” and had stylised designs of birds shot through with arrows on each sleeve. It wasn’t common to see hoodies with designs on the sleeves, but you liked this one a lot. Flipping it around, it read “OMENS” in large, dark grey text across the back-shoulder area. With a subtle smile on your face, you turn off the light and take yourself back to your bedroom.

Changing into different clothes to sleep in, you discard the damp ones in your laundry basket. Just about managing to put your phone on charge on the side table before the drowsiness hits you when you lay down in the comfort of your sheets. You snuggle down and let your eyes drift closed, ready for sleep to take you when your phone pings. 

The screen illuminates your room and hurts your eyes when you unlock it. You slide the brightness down and immediately smile when you see who the notification is from.

[UNKNOWN NUMBER]

— Hey it’s Noah!

— Sleep well :) 

[iwasntstable]

n.s. | stay 'til morning

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/STAYTILMORNING [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ nightmare | never-just-friends | [stay-til-morning]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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summary: noah never stays until morning, lest the guilt from lying about the depth of his feelings for you destroys him. but the lies both of you tell yourselves are beginning to crumble under the weight of your yearning for more of each other. what will happen when, for the first time, noah stays past the sunrise?

content tags: best friend!noah, fluff, smut aftermath but no actual smut, idiots being stupid, they have a tiny argument

word count: 3.8k.

note: second part to my previous work never just friends (linked above) can be read as a standalone piece. he stayed 'til morning :')

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✉ C:/SYSTEM/APP/TAG

ᯤ 𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗥𝗦 :　 ⌞⬤ 5 𝗈𝗇𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾⌝ @broken0mens | @iloveyoutodeathbutimdrowning @ultimatekarma | @dixoncider-x @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard

⌞⬤ 4 𝖺𝗐𝖺𝗒⌝ @seven-glass-kids | @english-fucker | @lma1986 @shayzillaaaa

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The sun wakes you. Warm beams of light seep through your open blinds, raising the temperature in irregular stripes across your skin. You curse yourself for forgetting to close them. Well, not that you had the chance to, what with the activities you and Noah engaged in the night prior. Heaving a deep sigh, you feel that familiar pang in your chest. You don’t want to do it today. You don’t want to have to get out of bed and face the world like you’re expected to when the burden of your love for him is weighing you down. You don’t want to have to meet up with him and your friends and treat them the same as each other. He’s not the same as them, he’s so much more.

Tears begin to burn behind your eyes. Maybe you should cut him off, stop all of this. You love him, but you can’t keep giving yourself to a man who doesn’t even care about you enough to stay past the sunrise. Devoting yourself to someone who doesn’t see you the same way is no way to live a life, but then again, what is life without him? A single hot tear slips free and rolls down your cheek, you try to blink the others away only to be stunned by the sharp sunlight. You squeeze your eyes tighter against the light, the rays annoying you out of your sleep but not annoying you enough to get out of bed and do anything about it. The sounds of birds outside your window mix in a jovial chorus with the distant sound of children’s laughter. Too upbeat for your sour mood.

Sighing again you try to turn your back on the light, only to find a weight across your body. A familiar tattooed arm slung across your waist. You could’ve sworn you felt your heart stop in your chest. Noah is still here. It wasn’t the sunlight warming your skin, it was him. 

His grip tightens on you, pulling you closer, groaning deep from within when he has your back situated flush against his chest. You don’t know what to do, your hand hovering above his. For years you’ve hoped and literally dreamed about waking up to him just once and now he’s here, you don’t know what to say. You lower your hand to his, resting it on top gently. He laces his fingers through yours, squeezing you tightly and burying his face in your neck.

“Good morning,” his morning voice husky and low.

“Morning,” you whisper back.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know, we left our phones out there.”

He shifts and hums against your skin, “mine’s probably dead.” You feel a soft kiss on your shoulder blade.

“The sun’s pretty high though. Might be like, 9, 10 o'clock?”

You feel him move behind you, peeking from behind your shoulder and immediately shying away once the light hits him. “Fuck, that’s bright.”

“Hmm, woke me up,” you grumble.

“C’mere,” he leans back, pulling you with him so you lay flat, and then rolling over all the way to face him. The rays of the sun warm the skin of your bare back. “Hi,” he whispers, a sweet smile on his lips.

“Hi,” you can’t help but reciprocate.

His brows furrow suddenly, his hand moving to your face to swipe at your cheek, feeling the wetness of the stray tear between his fingers. “Were you crying?”

You shake your head maybe a little too fast, “no. The sun’s just so fucking bright.” You feign a laugh and wipe at your eyes trying to erase any leftover evidence of your emotions.

“Are you sure?” he asks, tucking your hair behind your ear and stroking your cheek with his thumb, “you’re not hurting are you?” His eyes flit down your body.

There’s that pang in your chest again. “No, Noah. I’m okay, I promise.”

“Are you sure? You need to let me help you if you are. You can trust me, it’s me. You can tell me if I was too rough.”

“Noah,” you sigh, taking his hand in yours and pressing your lips to the back, holding it there a few moments. “I’m okay. I’m not in any pain, you didn’t hurt me. I told you last night you didn’t do anything wrong and I’m telling you again. I liked it.”

“Then why were you crying?”

You groan and squeeze your eyes closed, biting the inside of your cheek. He laces his fingers through yours again.

“Why did you stay?” you ask impulsively.

Confusion crosses Noah’s features, “wha- You asked me to?”

“Yeah but you’re still here. You’re always gone when I wake up,” pulling your bottom lip between your teeth, you can’t help but notice it feels tender.

Noah stutters over his words, “I- Sorry. Do you want me to go? I just thought-”

“No! No stay,” you insist. Guilt claws its way up your throat and threatens to choke you. You didn’t mean to make him feel bad. “I just- Every time I wake up, you’re gone. Why are you still here this time, what changed?”

He rolls onto his back, his pretty eyes following invisible patterns on your ceiling as he thinks, the prominent crease in his forehead telling you he’s conflicted over something. “I don’t know,” he says with a resigned sigh. 

Silence fills the air. The only thing to break it being the birds outside the window.

“I’m glad you did,” your voice barely above a whisper, “I’m glad you stayed.”

“Me too,” he smiles, turning his head back to you. It’s a small and sweet smile, and you don’t miss the way his eyes dart down to your lips, watching as you worry at your bottom lip. Trying to avoid the weight of his gaze you stare idly forward, eyes locked on the patterns adorning his shoulder. “What are you thinking about?”

You shake your head, fighting back the urge to lay all of your feelings out bare for him. You can’t do it.

“You had that look in your eye last night too. I know something’s bothering you and don’t say it’s nothing.”

Rolling flat on your back again and running your hands down your face, you consider escaping to the bathroom the only option to avoid this conversation. You sit upright, holding the bedsheet to your chest and rubbing the last remnants of sleep from your eyes.

“Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom, Noah. Is that allowed?” You snap a little harsher than intended, regretting it immediately.

“No, actually. It’s not,” he sits up too and shuffles closer, giving you no choice but to look at him. “You’re going to tell me exactly what is going on with you because if you think I don’t know when something is bothering my best friend, then you’re wrong.”

You feel your heart fluttering in your chest and a cold chill creeping down your spine despite the warmth of the day. Telltale signs of the anxiety threatening to consume you alive at the prospect of having this conversation with Noah. You weren’t ready. You weren’t ready to lose him. “Noah please, just drop it. I don-”

“No,” he cuts you off, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you but you are not leaving until you tell me, and I’m not going anywhere either. Let me help you.”

“I don’t think this problem can be fixed,” you say quietly with a shake of your head.

“How do you know that if you don’t let me in? What happened to us telling each other everything?”

“Oh my God, Noah,” you cover your face with your hands and groan, breathing deep.

“Oh my God what?” he says your name firmly, in a way that makes your heart seize mid beat, “I can’t help you fix the problem if you don’t tell me what’s wrong!”

You scrape your hair back between your fingers, sucking in a sharp breath, “what’s wrong is I can’t keep giving myself to you like this when you don’t feel the same way about me,” his eyes are wide, mirroring yours, “I can’t keep pretending like we don’t end up in each other’s beds every chance we get! I can’t stop thinking about the way you kiss me and hold me and make me feel special, only to immediately go back to treating me like you do all our other friends. I can’t stop the jealousy inside me when I think of you doing what you do to me to someone else. I thought this was enough, to have you like this, to do what we do but I can’t lie to myself anymore. I can’t keep pretending I don’t love you!” 

You didn’t even notice you’d started crying until Noah was kneeling before you, smoothing the tears away with his thumbs and holding your face in his hands. 

His voice was meek, barely audible, “say that again”

Your eyes flit between his. So wide and beautiful and full of you. Warm, brown eyes brimming with tears, pleading with you from the bottom of his heart to say those words again.

“I love you,” you yield.

For just a moment, neither of you move. Noah almost can’t believe what he just heard and he’s half tempted to ask you to say it again. But the twist in his heart tells him he heard correctly. Unable to resist, he crashes your lips together in a needy, yet desperately slow kiss. The salty taste on his lips you realise, is not the result of your tears, but his own. He tangles his hands in your hair tightly and pulls you closer to him, almost all the way out of the bedsheets and onto his lap where you sit with your thighs on either side of his. The white cotton sheet being the only barrier between your lower bodies.

He sighs into the kiss, chasing your lips with his and holding you tight against him. Like he was scared you’d vanish in a split second. The way he moulds his lips against yours was deliberate, as though he had all the time in the world to indulge in the feeling of you against him. The sounds beyond your window and the harsh light of the morning fade to a distant hum and a warm glow, leaving just the two of you entangled together like branches caught in a flood.

The anxiety dissipates just enough to let you savour the moment. Enough to be happy in this instant of delusion where maybe, just maybe, he won’t say no. Just enough to cling to him like a lifeline and pretend everything will be okay while he kisses you so deeply you can’t quite feel where you end and he begins. Noah has never kissed you like this before. He might not have turned you away, but that dark little voice in the back of your mind can’t help but think this is a goodbye. 

“Can you say it again?” Noah whispers against your lips, “please.”

You peck his soft, reddened lips a few times, unwilling to pull away. Running your fingers through his hair and down his neck, caressing his jaw with your thumbs, needing him to feel it and not just hear it. “I love you, Noah.”

He holds you tightly around the waist, enveloping you in his long limbs and burying his face in your shoulder, nipping and biting at the skin and pressing sweet kisses over the bruises he left last night. “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever to hear you say that.”

Your breath hitches, willing him to continue.

“I’ve wanted you,” his voice soft as he speaks through the kisses he leaves across your skin, “to myself for so long. But I could never do it, I couldn’t risk losing you. Couldn’t risk you not wanting me the way I want you. I thought we could just have sex sometimes and that would be enough to satisfy me, but it’s not about the sex. It’s you. I want you. I want all of you all of the time, you have no idea. The thought of lying to your face hurts me more than I can bear to think about, so I leave before you wake up.”

“I don’t like waking up alone,” you whisper into his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he drags his lips across your collarbones, down, pressing them there to the centre of your chest where he can feel your heartbeat. “I’m sorry I was so stupid. I should’ve just told you, we should’ve spoken sooner. I never meant to hurt you or make you feel unwanted, it’s the opposite of what I want. I should’ve told you sooner,” Noah raises his head to meet your eyes, running his palms up and down your sides. “I should’ve told you that I love you long before now.”

You try desperately to keep from breaking down, but your resolve cracks like glass. Your eyes sting as you blink rapidly, regardless of your efforts, the tears welled anyway. The image of him blurring until your eyes overflowed, tears streaming down your face in a steady, inevitable stream.

Noah breathes your name, brushing the hot tears from the curve of your jaw, “I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you.”

“I’m sorry,” you sob, shaking your head and trying to catch your breath, “it’s just as much my fault, I- fuck-,” unable to get your words out.

“Shh, don’t think about that now. Come here,” Noah pulls your body into his arms and holds you securely against his chest. “I’m here,” he smooths a hand up and down your back, trailing his fingers lightly across your flushed skin, “I’m not going anywhere.”

The promise whispered into your hair and sealed with a kiss to the crown of your head. You sink into his embrace, finally free from the burden of doubt and insecurity that has plagued you so terribly for so long. Feeling his own muscles ease too, shoulders curling in on you, helping to envelop you entirely. The comforting pressure of his arms and the regular beating of his heart help to ground you and soothe your nerves. Focusing on the sound, the tears gradually reduce to a stop and the peace of the moment washes over you both.

“Promise me something?”

Noah pulls away, needing to see your face, “anything.”

“Promise me I’ll never wake up alone again,” your heart hammers in your chest, and as though he can sense it, he rests a hand there, on your sternum.

“I promise,” leaning in so close your noses brush, “as much as I can. And even when I’m not here, I’ll make sure you know I’m always with you.”

One thing you can say for certain about Noah, in all the years you’ve known him, he’s never broken a promise. Whether it be to pick up a snack for you from the store on the way over, or to be the shoulder for you to cry on when your date breaks your heart, he always stuck to his word, big or small. You know your heart is safe with him.

Noah fixes your hair, straightening it out and tucking it behind your ear. “I hate to let you go, but I think we need to check our phones just in case anybody needs us.”

You nod in agreement, leaning your forehead against his shoulder but make no moves to let him go. Neither does he. You cling to each other for a while longer, even after your legs begin to ache and your unclothed skin catches a chill.

Eventually, you lean back. Sighing, you run your hands up his arms, “okay,” sliding off his lap. You run your hands over your face and wipe away the remnants of the tears for hopefully the last time today. Swinging your legs off the side of the bed you look around the room, realising quickly the only clothes on the floor from last night were your’s and Noah’s trousers and underwear, Your shirts abandoned—along with your phones—in the front room.

“Wait,” Noah calls before you stand, sliding across your bed to perch next to you, pulling your face close with a hand on your cheek. His eyes fixated on your red and puffy kiss-stained lips, meeting them with his own in a gentle caress. “Okay,” the smile on his face is contagious. 

“I’m going to put some clothes on and go to the bathroom real quick. That is if I’m allowed now?” You cock an eyebrow at him teasingly.

“I think I can permit that,” he chuckles, “I’ll get our phones from out there.”

“You still have clean clothes in the top few drawers over there, remember?” The dresser in the right hand corner naturally became home to more and more of his clothes over the years and nights he spent at yours. A similar feature could be found inside his dresser at his place too.

“Thank you, love,” he pecks your shoulder before standing and heading over to his designated section in your room, missing how your skin flushed at the endearing nickname that felt like it held a whole new meaning now. 

You stand quickly, scooping up your sweats from the floor, grabbing clean underwear from a drawer and yanking a random t-shirt off its hanger before slipping into the bathroom and pressing your back against the cold door. 

Dropping your clothes on the ground and heaving a quiet sigh, the gravity of the situation felt overwhelming. In a good way this time. The weight lifted from your shoulders left you feeling dizzy with excitement at the prospect of being with Noah. Really being with Noah. You told him you loved him and the world didn’t collapse around you. You told him you loved him and he told you he loved you back. Shaking your head to clear your mind, you splash your face with cold water in the sink, turning around to feel for the towel by the mirror, gazing upon your reflection once your face is dry. 

“Oh my God…” you whisper, making eye contact with yourself. Littered all over your body were deep purple marks left courtesy of Noah. Covering your throat and down your neck, across your collarbones and dusted across your breasts. Remembering the beginning of the night you look down at your legs and sure enough, matching plum-coloured bruises mark a pathway up the inside of your thighs, leading to your centre. Your cheeks burn at the memories, praying to anyone who’ll listen that you’re not needed in person for anything for the next few weeks.

You finish using the bathroom and dress, coming out to see Noah, fully clothed now in a hoodie and his own sweatpants, sitting cross-legged on your bed, phone in one hand, steaming mug in the other. He smiles sweetly when he sees you, nodding to your bedside table, “made you coffee.” 

“Thanks,” you flop face down on your bed, landing him a playful smack on the thigh.

“Ow! What the fuck was that for?!” he exclaims, eyes wide with shock.

“Covering me in fucking marks again! No make-up on the planet can cover all of these,” your tone lighthearted, voice laced with amusement as you pull down your shirt collar for dramatic effect.

“Oh,” he cracks a smile and sips his drink, “I mean you said you didn’t mind, you insisted, matter of fact.”

Groaning and resting your head on your arms you mumble a “fuck you,” that makes him laugh beside you. You’re glad things didn’t change for the worse. Being able to laugh and joke with him like you normally would being a precious, invaluable treasure.

“Get up and drink your coffee before it gets cold,” he teases, smacking his phone on your butt.

Turning to cast a glare at him, you sit up and reach for the mug, seeing your phone on charge sitting next to it, “thank you.” You tap the screen and cradle the mug in your hands. The time reading 11:47AM, and your notifications rammed with messages. “Fuck, what did we miss?”

“Oh, the guys wanted to play games with us but when neither of us responded they correctly assumed we were together.”

“Ah,” your ears burning at the idea of all your friends seeing right through you both and your flimsy deceptions. “We weren’t very subtle, were we?”

Noah shook his head, tossing his phone to the bed, “nope. Well, to everyone except each other, I guess.”

“Fooled the wrong people,” you joke and sip your coffee—made exactly the way you like it.

“I was thinking,” he started, “do you want to- I mean. I think- I- Fuck,” he shakes his head, hiding behind the red patterned mug he chose.

You can’t suppress the giggle that escapes you, “try again?”

“I just- Okay,” he steels himself and focuses on you, “I would like to take you out. On a date.”

“Noah,” Grinning from ear to ear, you put your cup down as carefully as possible, sliding closer to him on the bed and taking his free hand in yours, “I’d love to.”

He puts his own mug down, taking your other hand and lacing your fingers together in one of your favourite affectionate gestures. “I should’ve done this years ago, I’ve thought about it so many times. I think I have a lot of time to catch up on and I intend to make every single second of it count.”

There he goes, tugging on your heartstrings again. You raise his hand to your lips, kissing the back of it squarely on the flower tattoo that adorns it. “You don’t have to make up for anything. And I’d love to go on a date with you, no matter what it is.”

“I was thinking dinner and a movie tonight? I was just looking at some good restaurants nearby and there’s the new A24 movie still in theatres that we haven’t seen yet, there are still tickets available.”

“That sounds perfect. They don’t need us though, do they?” you ask, nodding to his phone meaning the group chat with all of your friends.

Noah shakes his head, “already told them we’re busy today.”

“Good,” you grin. Coming up on your knees you shuffle closer, letting go of his hands to tangle yours through his hair instead. His hands coming to rest on your hips. You capture his lips in a tender, sweet kiss, stroking your thumb across his cheekbone as you both sink into it. You can taste the residue of his green tea on his lips. 

Pulling back just far enough to speak but still close enough for your breath to ghost softly across his face, you whisper “I love you,” against his lips, instinctively smiling when you feel him smile too.

“I love you,” he whispers back. “I have for a long time, and I know you have too. And I’m going to tell you, and show you every day. Forever.”

“I’m so glad you stayed until morning.” 

[iwasntstable]

n.s. | never just friends

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NEVERJUSTFRIENDS [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ fear-of-failure | nightmare | [never-just-friends]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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summary: your best friend had a bad day, you know how to help fix that. but are these hook-ups too much for your heart to bear when you desperately want more? content tags: best friend!noah, descriptive smut, he edges her like once, multiple orgasms, praise, body worship, aftercare word count: 5.6k. note: gonna write a sfw part 2 (that can be read as a standalone) where these two IDIOTS talk about their feelings :)

+[MSG : second part available now - stay 'til morning.]

+[WARNING : this work is 18+. minors do not interact. NSFW content below cut.]

Your friendship with Noah had to be one of the strongest and longest-standing friendships you ever had. It was a given that you’d be with each other all hours of every day, that he’d come with you wherever you were invited, and that you’d go with him on the wildest outings and music video shoots. Joined at the hip, you two were a package deal.

It got to the point where people stopped asking you if you were dating, or if something was going on between the two of you. The insistent ‘No!’’s every time just made people more confused when they’d then see you pressed against each other in the corner, or thinking you were being subtle teasing each other in public or sleeping wrapped up in each other in the same bed.

You had no idea what you would label your relationship with Noah. He was your best friend, but calling it friends with benefits didn’t feel right. It was something different when you’d get tangled on the sofa, it was different when he’d fuck you better than any of your past boyfriends had, it was different when you’d suck his dick so good his legs would shake and he’d see stars. It was special between you two, but it wasn’t love. It couldn’t be.

It wasn’t love but you’d stopped dating people just after the hookups started. It wasn’t love but he insisted he wasn’t ready for a relationship with how busy he was with work. It wasn’t love but he comes straight to your house every time he has a bad day.

And that’s where he is now, coming in through your door at just past 6pm after storming out of the studio in a huff. He takes off his shoes and leaves them next to yours by the door. Shedding his coat and bag, tossing them over the back of the sofa and finding you in the kitchen after just finishing unloading the dishwasher.

“What’s up?” you ask, instinctively knowing by his demeanour that something was wrong.

He comes straight to you, seeking comfort. Long arms wrap around your waist with his face nuzzled into your neck. You automatically loop your arms around his shoulders, running your fingers through his hair in an easy and natural motion, reflective of just how many times you’d done it before.

“Nothing’s going right,” he mumbled into your neck, words muffled, “Jolly’s pissing me off ‘nd I can’t get my vocal takes right. Support band pulled out of the fuckin’ tour,” he sighs out his frustrations, caressing your waist with his thumbs.

You can tell what he wants—what he needs—but you want to hear him say it.

“What can I do to help?”

“I’m just so worked up. Honestly, I just want to fuck you,” he sighs again, hands sliding under your shirt. “I need to get this energy out and I can’t stop thinking about making you come on my cock over and over again.” 

You feel your heart rate accelerate as he begins to brush his lips against the skin of your shoulder and neck. “Okay,” you whisper.

He pulls back, standing up to his full height and looking down into your eyes, “are you serious?”

You search his eyes for any signs he was joking and find none, you nod, “yeah, I’m serious.” You scratch your nails against the back of his neck, feeling his hair—which had grown longer over the past few months—between your fingers as you pull him in. “I wanna help you feel better.”

Noah can feel your breath against his lips as you speak and he can resist no longer, pulling your hips flush against his and crashing your lips together. He pushes you back against the wall and wastes no time taking your shirt off, your bra following immediately after, allowing him to grope at the flesh roughly while his lips work against yours.

You can't help but breathe out a sigh against him, allowing him to deepen the kiss further, slipping his tongue into your mouth and biting at your plush lower lip. You kiss him back with just as much energy, pulling him hard against your body by his shirt, lifting it and indicating to him you want it off. 

He breaks away for just long enough to rid himself of the garment and you instinctively move your hands to the next piece of clothing. Making light work of his belt and the buttons on his jeans, you slip your hand inside and slide your palm over his already sold erection.

It was his turn to moan into the kiss now as you pushed his jeans and boxers down, allowing just enough access to let you pump him with your hand. He, in turn, slips his hand past the waistband of your sweats and underwear, immediately running his long fingers through your folds. Noah breaks the kiss to rest his forehead against yours as you both pant.

"So wet for me already," he teased, "have you been thinking about me?" Your breath catches in your throat as he begins to circle your clit precisely where you like it with two fingers. "Hm? You been thinking about how good I can make you come?"

You already feel the heat building between your legs, squeezing your thighs together and trapping his hand, trying desperately to grind down harder on his fingers.

"Does that feel good, baby?" he brushes your hair back behind your ear and cups the side of your face, tilting it up to meet his. You feel his hot breath against your lips when he speaks, "Are you gonna come for me already?"

You can only whine and nod, the hand that was gripping him slowed to broken movements. Noah pecks your lips lightly again, and again as he continues rubbing your clit.

Until he jerks his hand free from inside your pants, denying you the release you were so close to achieving.

"A-ah, fuck! Noah," you whine.

"Shh, it's okay baby," he pulls your face to his and kisses you deeply, "I want you to come on my tongue first." He picks you up with ease, and instinctively you wrap your legs around his hips as he carries you to your bedroom. He barely even needs to look where he’s going to navigate his way through your home, thinking you need to start charging him rent with how much time he spends here.

He nips and bites at your bare shoulder before lowering you to the bed, climbing over you and moulding your lips together once more. You can't help but run your hands through his soft hair, scratching at his scalp and down the back of his neck again.

You’ve been in this position with Noah more times than you can count. You told each other it didn’t have to happen again after the first time, hurriedly dressing and anxious to get back to life as usual. But then you couldn’t stop thinking about him, and you ended up back in his bed, then he ended up in yours. Unbeknownst to you, he couldn’t stop thinking about you either. You both should’ve known that the agreement wouldn’t last. He longed more than anything to feel you that close to him again. To feel your breath against his lips, to touch your skin and hold you, to make you feel good in ways he prayed nobody else could. He was determined to ruin other men for you, and if he’d ask, you’d tell him he was successful.

He told you he was too busy with work for a relationship, that’s why there were no new girlfriends introduced to the group, but that was a lie. He didn’t want to go out on dates and get to know any new people when the only person he wanted to devote himself to and dedicate all the love in his heart to, was you. But he couldn’t pursue it. You were his best friend. He couldn’t bear the risk of losing you, so he resigned himself to only having part of you. It was enough. It had to be enough, he had no other choice.

Noah groans into the kiss, his desire to have you reaching a critical peak. He peppers kisses across your cheek, then down to your jaw, your throat, all the way down your neck and across your collarbones, down your chest where he stops to tease your nipples with his teeth, kissing firmer, harder, until he’s sucking at the skin hard enough leave dark marks all over the tender flesh of your breasts. He peppers kisses down your stomach and across your hip bones, to where he pulls your sweats down the length of your legs, your underwear along with them.

“So beautiful,” he whispers so quietly into your skin. You barely heard it over the sound of your heavy breathing. He kisses your calves and across your knees, he kisses over your thighs and around, into the sensitive skin on the inside, up towards your burning core where you need him the most.

"Spread your legs for me. That's it, good girl," he praises, resting your thighs on his shoulders, a place they've been many times before as he kneels before you at the edge of the bed. Ready to worship you like an idol.

Teasingly, he kisses everywhere except where you need him most, and you're just about to complain when you feel his lips press to your clit. Your hands instinctively go to their place in his hair, running through the dark strands as he intensifies his motions. Working his lips harder against the little bundle of nerves before teasing you slightly with the tip of his tongue.

The sensation makes your hips jerk, but they can't move far. Noah has his arms wrapped around your thighs, palms spread over your hips, pinning them down and holding you so tightly you can feel the muscles of his biceps flex beneath you. You feel him smile, before sucking harshly and unexpectedly on your clit.

"Fuck, Noah!" you cry, your hands tightening in his hair, already highly worked up and close to the edge from earlier.

But he doesn't relent. He continues sucking and expertly running his tongue over the bundle of nerves, repeatedly, rhythmically, until your breathing is laboured and you feel a sweat break out across your skin.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck Noah, don't stop." You move one of your hands to where one of his rests on your hip, entwining your fingers together.

Desperately you try to rock your hips against his face to no success as the heat burns and builds rapidly, hotter and hotter. More intense with every passing second.

"Fuck, Noah! I'm getting clos- I- Ah, fuck!"

He doesn't relent even when your words become incoherent cries. You tighten your grip on his hand and he squeezes back, knowing you’re about to fall apart. Just the last few swipes of his tongue across your clit and that's it. You can't stop your hips from jolting and shaking when you come, the pleasure washing over your entire body like a cool breeze on a hot day. Noah holds you there as you ride it out, slowing his movements gradually until he pulls away, peppering wet kisses to your inner thighs.

He busies himself as you catch your breath, sucking deep red marks into your skin. Ones that'll turn an intense plum purple by morning, but that's alright. The only person who would ever see them is him. You feel your heart rate slow, and your breathing returns to a more even pace. Your hand still holds onto Noah's at your hip. 

Satisfied with the marks he’s made on your inner thighs, Noah trails more kisses higher up, back towards your core.

Just now you realise exactly what you’ve gotten yourself into tonight.

He wastes no time diving right back in, licking a stripe from your drenched entrance all the way up to your swollen and red clit. Automatically you flinch when his tongue makes contact again. Noah however, is not deterred. He goes right back in, lapping at your entrance and teasing you with the tip of his tongue.

You grip the sheets by your head this time, circling your hips against his face as he probes inside deeper and deeper. With your heart pounding again, high-pitched cries slip past your lips and your breath catches every time his nose brushes your sensitive clit.

He pulls back to leave open-mouthed kisses against your entrance, "I've missed this," the sounds he’s making obscene, "missed the way you taste." He drags you down closer towards him, gripping one of your thighs and pushing your legs wider to give himself more space. 

"Oh fuck! Noah!" you cry when you feel his tongue enter you, the hot muscle teasing your walls in ways only he knows. You grip the sheets tighter, pulling on them and grinding your hips down, trying so desperately to make his tongue reach deeper.

Noah’s breath is hot between your legs, and a sweat breaks out over your skin once again. You pant desperately as he builds your second climax, tongue rhythmically stroking your walls, and his nose—the perfect shape—bumping and rubbing against your clit. His hand holds onto your thigh in a grip you were sure would bruise, and you could hear him moaning against you as he worked. 

He was so hard but he resolved to get you off at least once more before making you fall apart with him inside. 

“Oh, Noah… Fuck, don’t stop. Please I’m so close again, I’m so-” You gasp and can’t speak anymore, the heat becoming too intense. You feel your muscles tensing again, twitching uncontrollably against Noah’s face as your climax takes over your body. He loves hearing you cry out his name while you’re at the mercy of his control.

“Come for me,” he moves so fast you barely feel the absence of him against your body.

Everything tightens and tightens, reaching an apex until there’s nowhere left to go, and then you finally snap. You cry out his name as your orgasm wracks your body, thighs trembling, Noah holding you through it. His hand, still holding yours tightly.

He helps you ride out your orgasm again, tongue easing in and out, lapping up your arousal unabashedly while you catch your breath a second time. Noah eases your thigh down, smoothing his inked hand up and down the soft skin, rising from his place on the floor to join you on the bed, covering your hips in sweet, affectionate kisses.

“Good girl,” he praises between pecks, “you did so well for me. So good. My beautiful girl.” He kisses his way up your body until he reaches your lips, pecking them gently before deepening the kiss and allowing you to taste yourself on his tongue. He kisses down your jaw again to your neck, biting and sucking marks that match those on your breasts and thighs. Knowing he wasn’t yet done.

You card your hand through his hair, enjoying the feeling of being so close to him. His lips on you, feeling the solid muscle of his bicep flex under your hand and his soft hair between your fingers. You want to feel this all the time, you think. You want to kiss him every day and have the privilege of touching him like this whenever you want.

But that's not what best friends do.

This isn't what best friends do.

Unwillingly, you think of him doing this with someone else, and your heart seizes at the intensely bitter envy you feel. Someone else running their hands across his skin like you do, someone else being marked by him, someone else coming undone under his touch, someone else folding at the feel of his lips.

You can't bear it.

But then, really, you were never just friends.

"Hey," he says softly, leaning over you, "what're you thinking about?"

You shake your head as though to shake away the picture of him with someone else, "nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

He chuckles and kisses your chest, "you can't be completely brainless already, I haven't even fucked you yet."

"Why don't you fix that?" smirking and raising your eyebrows teasingly. A grin spreads across his face, his bad day at the studio already long forgotten.

Noah kneels up in front of you and wraps your legs around his hips, his length resting against your abdomen. You can see just how far inside you he'll reach like this, and the thought makes you clench in anticipation. He leans down and captures your lips again, taking his length in hand and guiding himself through your slick folds, you gasp into his mouth every time the head of his cock bumps your now oversensitive clit.

He poises his head at your entrance and pushes in slowly, teasingly, inch by inch until he bottoms out and holds his hips still, pressed against yours.

"Fuck," he groans, his head tipped low, face shrouded by his hair. You notice his breathing has become laboured already. "You always feel so fucking good around me," he leans on one hand by your head, holding your hip with the other and pulls out achingly slow. Pushing back in, and pulling out again. You can feel every ridge and vein against your walls, your mouth falling open in a silent cry, gripping onto his forearm to ground yourself. Despite the numerous times you two have connected, you feel like you’ll never get used to the stretch as he enters you. Noah pulls out once more, almost all the way, before thrusting back in sharply, with enough force that the sound of his skin connecting with yours resounds throughout the room with a SMACK.

"Ah! Fuck!"

He sets a steady pace, leaning back on his knees and holding you by the hips with both hands. He can’t help but stare at where your bodies connect, watching shamelessly as he penetrates you over and over. Groaning out a string of curses and ‘oh God’’s, and feeling a surge of pride that goes straight to his cock. Already so close from entering you alone, he knows he needs to slow down or he won’t last.

Noah’s eyes trail up your body, becoming fixated on the way your breasts move with his rhythm, realising now just how many marks he’s made across your body. He hopes you don’t mind. He loves to see you covered in the evidence of him, be it love bites left across your skin, or your make-up ruined and running down your face from him fucking your throat. You’ve never complained, never stopped him, but he can’t help but wonder.

“Oh my God, Noah…” you breathe, gasping for another breath sharply and gripping your sheets in your hands.

His eyes flit to your face, twisted in pleasure with your eyes squeezed closed. But Noah is selfish, he knows it. He wants your eyes on him. 

He bows his head and leaves hot, open-mouthed kisses in the valley between your breasts, pushing your thighs further apart as he bends to reach deeper inside, the steady rhythm of his hips never faltering. His hands trail up your sides, pausing to caress the plump flesh of your breasts, rubbing his thumbs over your nipples and smiling to himself when you arch into his touch with an unabashed moan. Trailing his kisses higher he meets your lips again, briefly, before leaning down on his forearms over you. Your face is so close he can feel your breath fanning across his as you pant beneath him.

He calls your name, “open your eyes, baby.” You obey instinctively. Trying to smile—as best you can with his dick pumping into you—when you meet his eyes. You tip your chin up towards his face and he reciprocates instantly, crashing your lips together in a series of passionate kisses. You lock eyes again when he pulls away, knowing he likes it when you look at him.

“Good girl. So good for me.”

You loop your arms around his neck, hands gravitating back to his hair. He leans his forehead against yours, eye contact maintained when he pulls out of you slowly, enjoying the tight squeeze of your walls as he goes. He wants to stay here forever, tangled up in you. Noah thrusts back in, fast and harsh, enjoying the way your eyes widen when he hits you deep. He does it over, and over. Your legs jolting and tingling every time the head of his cock impacts your cervix.

You’re struggling to keep your eyes open, desperately wanting to squeeze them closed and tip your head back, to cry out his name and arch back into the bed. But the desire to be with him runs deeper. Your mouths are barely an inch apart as your breath falls against each other. His eyes—the deepest most beautiful brown—concentrated on yours, like he’s seeing the very essence of you. With the heat between your legs intensifying and you writhing back against his hips, you feel a deep pang in your chest, like something was squeezing your heart tightly in its grip. 

Noah’s chain sways above you, tapping against the skin of your chest with every stroke of his hips. Rhythmically bumping above your heart. It’s him. Of course, it’s him. The thing that holds your heart in a vice-like grip. It’s always been him.

Needing him closer still, you pull on his hair, and dig your nails into the skin of his shoulders, arching your back into him to chase the high. He bumps his nose against yours, fingers tenderly brushing your hair. “You close again?” his voice low.

You nod quickly, foreheads still pressed together, fingers grasping for any purchase they can find against his body, “kiss me,” you whisper. 

And there’s no way he can resist when he sees the pleading look in your eyes. He obliges and immediately closes the gap to crash his lips to yours, tongue automatically exploring your mouth, pressing against your own, teeth nipping at your lips. Your soft cries encourage him further.

“Noah,” you whine desperately into his mouth.

“I know, baby. I can feel you,” Noah groans, “be a good girl and come again for me.”

He grunts as he maintains his pace, the building ache in his thighs and lower back burning tighter than any leg training day in the gym, but he does not stop. Sweat drips from his hair onto yours, droplets rolling down his back, and crawling down his silver chain to drip onto your chest. The coil tightens and tightens inside you, the pleasure building higher and higher as your cries grow louder and louder.

“Come for me, I wanna feel you come.”

Until a jolt shoots through you, and your release washes over you with a cry of his name. Back arching drastically up into his body, your hips rolling and spasming against his.

Noah slips his hands underneath your arched back, holding you to his chest and flips the two of you over. He rests upright, his back against the headboard, gripping your hips and bouncing you ferociously on his cock, giving you no time to come down from your post-orgasm high.

"N-Noah! Ah!" you don't know where to put your hands as he hammers into you; holding your breasts as they bounce with the force of his thrusts, gripping his arms, holding onto his broad, stable shoulders, opting finally to lean backwards and grasp onto his thighs.

"That's it, baby," he grunts, "come for me again, I know you can. Come on beautiful."

You feel your climax building rapidly, following on from the last one like rocks tumbling down a hill in a landslide with nothing to stop them from crashing into the ground. The friction of your clit rubbing against his hips is enough to push you over that edge, with your voice choked back in your throat, your legs shake as this orgasm—your fourth—wracks through your entire body.

"Good girl," Noah's soothing voice a sharp contrast to the relentless nature of his fucking. "Good girl, that's it. So good for me. Feel so good…"

You lean forward and rest your hands against his chest, coming down from the intensity of your double high.

"C'mere," he pulls you into him, looping your arms around his neck and holding you by the waist.

You’re unable to stop yourself from crying out into his shoulder when he holds you up by the strength of his arms and thrusts up into you from below, unrelenting as he chases his own high. "Oh my God, Noah!"

"'m so close baby," his voice muffled into your neck, "I'm so fucking close, just- fuck," he whines and pants into your skin, his hips snapping up relentlessly as though he'd never run out of energy.

The burn between your legs never felt so good. You reach a hand down to circle your clit, knowing you can push yourself over the edge again and wanting to come with him. Just one more time.

Your grip tightens on the back of his neck, your chests pressed together and sticky with sweat. Feeling your peak, your walls begin to uncontrollably clench around him. Noah curses under his breath and grips your waist tighter, hips still snapping up into yours and never once faltering.

Your breath hitches in your throat as you come again. Feeling your walls spasming around his length one more time all the stimulation he needed to push him over the edge. Noah slams you down against his hips once, then again, then pinning you down against him a final time, holding you tight as your hips grind back and forth against his.

With his head thrown back, it's your turn now to mark his neck with deep, dark bruises as he groans while he finishes inside you. You feel him twitching deep, his thighs tensing beneath your own, and his abdomen flexing against yours as he comes. Both of your chests heaving, you continue to rock back and forth against him, helping you both to ride out your highs.

Noah cups the back of your head and brings your lips to his once more, kissing you with a slow intensity. One that said 'Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for looking after me.' You kiss him back with just as much fervour, not ever wanting to separate.

You love him. 

You know deep down you've always loved him but now you feel it with such an intensity that you might just tell him. But you can't. You can't ruin the precious friendship you already have so instead, you kiss him.

You try to show him how much you love him through the kiss in the hopes that he'll realise it too and tell you he loves you back. He wraps his arms around you, gently caressing the soft expanse of your back and pulling you close as your hips maintain their rhythm against his. You can feel he’s still hard inside you.

Noah takes your hips in both of his hands and encourages you to move, grinding up into you. He kisses you deeply, sucking and biting on your lower lip until it’s red and swollen and he’s moaning deeply, breathing heavily, against your lips.

For the sixth time since he walked in through your door tonight, you feel the heat building between your thighs. This time it spreads out gradually, throughout your entire body, spreading out from your core until you feel it tingling in the extremities of your fingers and toes, seeping throughout your chest where your heart hammers inside your ribcage like it’s trying to break through to reach his, and when you come, it feels like falling softly onto a plush, down bed.

Noah buries his face into your neck and thrusts up into you, with stuttering hips and hands holding you firmly, tipping over the edge easily and coming with you for a second time. Finally relaxing all at once after the rush passes.

He kisses your shoulder as you hold his head tight to you, tangling your fingers in his hair which is now soaked through with sweat, "spend the night?" you whisper.

He nods, hugging your waist tightly, arms wrapped entirely around you, holding you as close as he possibly can before you merge into one person. 

Your breathing slows, and you feel a chill run down your spine as the sweat evaporates from your hot skin, allowing the cool air of the night to tickle you. You stay there though, in his arms with your eyes closed, running your fingers through his hair and dreading the moment you have to leave the comfort of his embrace.

Noah’s chest heaves against yours, the dopamine surge making him feel lightheaded. He’s glad you asked him to stay the night. He has before, many times, but always sneaks out of your bed before you wake up in the morning. He hates it, he doesn’t want to do it, but the guilt that comes from denying the fact that he loves you when he wakes up tangled in your embrace and yearning to press kisses all over your face eats him alive. He’s finding it harder and harder every time though. Scared these indulgences may have to stop altogether if his soul gets any weaker. Trying to convince himself again that having just a small part of you was enough. It’s enough.

“Noah,” your voice comes hoarse and quiet against the skin of his shoulder, “can we move? This feels nice, but it’s too much,” the overstimulation from being pressed against him crossing the line into uncomfortable territory.

He nods again, trailing his lips across your skin much like he did in the kitchen earlier. Kissing your collarbones he rolls you both over, lowering you gently into the sheets, continuing to press his lips across your skin as he pulls his length from you slowly. Your nails dig into his arms with a groan at the loss of contact, with him sighing deeply.

Through his kisses he murmurs, “I’ll be. Right. Back,” crawling off the bed and taking a moment to stretch out his long limbs, before heading into your bathroom. You hear the tap run briefly, and then he returns with a towel, damp on one side. He kneels back over you, spreading your clammy legs with soothing hands, cleaning the mess from between your thighs with the damp side, then drying the area with the other. He bundles it up and throws it into your laundry basket after wiping his hands, pumping his fists in the air when it lands perfectly in the centre of the basket. 

You chuckle lightly, watching as Noah stretches out on his stomach beside you, laying his head on his arms, watching you breathe through heavy eyes. You roll over onto your side to face him directly, brushing a damp lock of hair from his forehead and caressing his face. He closes his eyes to relish in the touch. It’s moments like these that blur the line between friend and lover for you both, even more so than the sex.

“You feel better?” you ask quietly, trailing your fingers through his hair and down the side of his face again, taking note of how much more visible his freckles had become from the recent sun exposure.

He hummed and nodded, enjoying your affections.

“Good, I’m glad.”

Noah cracks his eyes open, feeling the insatiable urge to be closer to you. The lines can be blurred just for tonight. He rolls over onto his back, shuffling higher on the bed and pulling the sheet out from underneath him. He slides down beneath it, holding it up and patting the bed beside him, “c’mere.”

Eagerly, you crawl closer to him, curling into his side as he pulls you closer, holding you with an arm around your waist. You rest your head against his chest, trailing your fingers up his abdomen to his chest and back down, following the linework of his tattoos.

“Thank you,” he whispers, sighing and pressing a kiss to the crown of your head, “are you okay? Wasn’t too much?”

“Hmm, no. No, it was good,” the fatigue catching up to you quickly now that you were relaxed against him.

“I know it was a lot, and you never complain but I want to make sure you really are okay,” his hand trails up and down your spine.

“I’m okay Noah, really,” you gaze up at him from where you lay, his expression saying something you can’t quite read. “I don’t complain because I like it. I like everything you do. I’d tell you if I didn’t, even if it’s something small.”

He smiles down at you, pulling you close and kissing your hair again. “Okay, I’m glad.” You sigh again, struggling to keep your heavy eyes open. “Sleep. I’ll stay right here,” he whispers into your hair.

You feel that tug on your heart again, knowing he’ll be gone by morning like he usually is, but grateful to have him in your arms tonight. You snuggle closer, trying your best to savour the moment. To file it away in your mind with all the others. It’s all you have. It’s all you’ll ever have of him and that has to be enough. To be the best friend he can turn to for whatever he needs, whenever he needs it. Even if you know deep down, you were never just friends.

[iwasntstable]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ fear-of-failure | nightmare |never-just-friends 　　　 stay-til-morning | new-neighbour | see-more...

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/FEAROFFAILURE

◾title; fear of failure. ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 2.7k. ◾tags; #angst #emotional-hurt/comfort #fluff #poor-mental-health

summary: You don’t know why, but Noah has been withdrawing into himself again, and you’re worried this steady decline will end in disaster. You resolve to pull him out again, knowing he can’t continue like this much longer.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NIGHTMARE

◾title; nightmare. ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3k. ◾tags; #emotional-hurt/comfort #fluff

summary: You experiences an intense and terrifying nightmare, luckily Noah is there to bring you round and make sure you're okay.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NEVERJUSTFRIENDS

◾title; never just friends ◾rating; nsfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 5.6k. ◾tags; #smut #fluff #descriptive-smut #multiple-orgasms #aftercare

summary: Your best friend had a bad day, you know how to help fix that. But are these hook-ups too much for your heart to bear when you desperately want more?

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/STAYTILMORNING

◾title; stay 'til morning ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3.8k. ◾tags; #best-friend!noah #fluff #emotional-hurt/comfort #idiots-being-stupid

summary: Noah never stays until morning, lest the guilt from lying about the depth of his feelings for you destroys him. But the lies both of you tell yourselves are beginning to crumble under the weight of your yearning for more of each other. What will happen when, for the first time, Noah stays past the sunrise?

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ASK/NEWNEIGHBOUR

◾title; new neighbour ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; ask from anon - one shot. ◾word count; 3.1k. ◾tags; #fluff

summary: Noah as your neighbour in an apartment building.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/IFIMTHERE

◾title; if i'm there ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3.8k. ◾tags; #angst #emotional-hurt/comfort #poor-mental-health #mentions-of-disordered-eating #discussions-of-food #self-destructive-behaviour #fluff

summary:  When things start getting bad, you withdraw. ignoring calls and texts, and descending into bad habits as you self-isolate. But Noah knows what you're like and he loves you too much to let you suffer alone.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/HAPPYBIRTHDAY

◾title; happy birthday ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 2.5k. ◾tags; #fluff #fluff #fluff

summary:  Sometimes lying is okay when it's planning a birthday surprise for the birthday-hating man you love.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/ISITTRUE

◾title; is it true? ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3.1k. ◾tags; #fluff #a-smidge-of-angst #slight-miscommunication

summary:  Always stubborn, Noah refuses to take a break when he's sick, but everyone's convinced you can persuade him.

[READ] | [AO3]

+[MSG : keep up to date with my >> in progress << list.]

[iwasntstable]

n.s. | fear of failure.

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/FEAROFFAILURE [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ all | series | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　﹂ [fear-of-failure]

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌╌

summary: you don't know why, but noah has been withdrawing into himself again and you're worried this steady decline will end in disaster. you resolve to pull him out again, knowing he can't continue like this much longer.

content tags: angst, emotional hurt/comfort, poor mental health, fluff.

word count: 2.7K.

note: god i need this for myself.

Noah has been hiding in his studio for three days now. Even going so far as to sleep in there on the couch last night. He's no stranger to long stints of studio work, bursts of creativity that absolutely have to be channelled into a new project, but even if the hour is late, he always comes to bed. To you. 

Last night, when you woke up alone at 3AM, you crept down the hall to find him there, curled up on the couch with the hood of his sweater pulled up over his head. Deciding it best to leave him be, you carefully took the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over his sleeping form. Hoping he would find some comfort in it and at least achieve a fulfilling rest.  

You’ve worried for a few weeks now that he’s been overworking himself again. Dirty bowls in the sink and empty cups of ramen in the trash are the only indication he’s been eating, and even then, it wasn't typical behaviour for him to just leave dishes unwashed. The times you tried to coax him out of his studio over the past couple of days he’s brushed off your concerns by insisting he’s fine. 

I just need to finish this.  I’ve been stuck on it for a while but I think it’s finally coming together.  I can’t stop just yet. 

You decide you’re going to pull him away from his screens at any cost, just for a short while. He can't continue like this much longer. 

Entering into the dim room, Noah is exactly where you expect him to be. The hoodie he wore somehow managed to swamp his large frame, with the hood, held in place by his headphones, pulled over his head covering his hair. His fingers deftly float across the keyboard as he works. Editing tracks note by note, adjusting things then changing them back, adding a sample, making it his own, then deleting it and searching for a new one. 

You approach his desk from the side, letting him see you coming so you don’t startle him since he can't hear for the headphones. Feeling a pit open up in your stomach when his face comes into view; deep, dark circles have formed under his eyes, which are bloodshot with fatigue and he seems paler than usual, his stubble also becoming visible from the lack of maintenance. He offers you a smile you know he means from his heart, but doesn’t quite reach his eyes. You tap your ear and he takes the headphones off, dropping them to the desk with very little care. 

“How’s it going?” you ask sweetly. 

He closes his eyes and sighs, shrugging, with his hands poised back on the keyboard and mouse, like they’re a part of him. 

“How about taking a break, hm, step away from the screens? We can make something to eat and sit outside. It’s pretty cloudy so it’s nice and cool out.” 

“I can’t,” his voice remorseful. “I really need to keep working on this. We can when I’m done, okay?” He tries to convince you but it seems to you the first person he should be trying to convince is himself. 

“Noah,” you come closer, standing as much between him and his accursed desk as his legs will allow, with your arms crossed. “You’ve been working on this for days straight without so much as a break. I promise you the world won’t end if you step outside for half an hour.” 

“Babe, I know you’re worried, but you don’t have to be. I just really need to finish this,” he insists. 

“What’s the deadline date?” you ask, standing closer and resting a hand on his shoulder. An attempt to coax him away from work and back into you. The effort of which proved to be futile. You knew there was no deadline, knew he wasn’t undertaking any commissioned work. This was a personal project. Something with the potential to morph into a new Bad Omens track; but you wanted to catch him out. 

He was silent for a moment, and as your palm smoothed over his broad, taut shoulders you could see his eyes dart side to side while the thoughts raced in his head. “It’s something- Jolly needs something more than just a demo to work on-” 

“And when does Jolly need it by?” Cutting him off, reiterating the question you knew he couldn’t answer. 

“Ah- he,” Noah stumbled over his words and sighed in resignation. “He doesn’t need it by a specific day or anything. I’m just- I’m just anxious to get this done, you know? I don’t want to think about it longer than I have to.” 

You push his shoulder back against his chair, the force spinning him around to face you clearer. Noah’s tired eyes meet your own for only a moment before he breaks the connection to dart around his setup in front of him; the monitor, the keyboard, the microphone, anywhere but you. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, looking everywhere but not seeing.  You found it was often difficult for him to see. 

“But you’ve already been thinking about it, nonstop, for three days straight. Confining yourself to this room, I’ve barely seen you!” 

“I’m sorry I can’t just stop working whenever it suits you!” he all but cried, voice raised in defence and thinner than its usual smooth tone. Noah takes in a sharp breath, hands at last separating from his keyboard and mouse, cracking his knuckles. 

You say nothing, do nothing, except continue to watch him directly while he struggles under the weight of your confrontation. 

Fiercely independent from a young age, Noah has never been the type to just roll over in the face of adversity. He expects too much from himself to allow his ego to take a back seat. Though in recent years, you’ve seen him discover the value in being humbled—not as often needing to prove his value to himself—but it seems this time his struggle is greater.  

He blinks rapidly as your gaze burns into him, and curses before he pulls his hood down further in an attempt to hide from the reality you’ve brought into his studio. You couldn’t miss the unmistakable glint of tears in his eyes before he sinks down into his chair. 

This man has brought so much joy and light into your life, happinesses you never thought you’d feel again, new highs you didn’t even know existed. To see your beacon in the dark dimmed like this cuts you deeper than any knife could. 

You crouch down by him, seeking out again those eyes that you always found to be more intoxicating than any aged bottle of whisky, from where he was trying to conceal them.  But Noah continues to hide. 

Your voice adopts a more serious tone, one that Nicholas once called your ‘mom voice’. That comment earned him a throw pillow projectile to the face. “Noah, your health is going to suffer if you continue like this. Physical, mental… both?!” You throw your hands up and drop them to your legs with a muffled slap against your sweatpants. “I don’t want you to burn out. I can see you falling from the outside and I’m trying so hard to catch you before you hit the ground.” You rest a hand on his thigh. “Talk to me. What’s going on? Why is finishing this piece so important that you can’t take even a small break?” 

His breath shudders and his shoulders shake. The glow from the desktop monitors, the only light in the room, cause his tears to sparkle as they drop to his chest. 

It was barely audible, you swear you’ve never heard his voice sound so defeated, “I can’t fail.” He’s silent for a moment before continuing. “I can’t stop until it’s good, or all this time I’ve spent locked away working on it will have been a waste,” his voice cracks and he covers his face with his hands, inked fingers blocking his broken façade from your prying eyes. 

You never see Noah cry like this. Usually he’s so stable, always fixed in place and ready to hold up everyone around him; you, the band, the crew. Letting out a deep breath, you brush his knee with your thumb. Taking a moment to think before speaking, wanting to be careful with your words here. You know all too well that holding back your emotions can only last so long before the dam breaks and threatens a catastrophe, but you’re determined not to let him get washed away in the flood.  

Clearing your throat, you tap his leg gently, “are you listening?” 

Noah takes a shuddering breath and nods, still hiding behind his hands. 

“Okay,” you quickly shift position to ease the strain on your legs as they start to ache, resting one knee on the floor with the other pulled to your chest. “Not everything you make is going to be good, but it isn’t all going to be bad either. And the time you spend working on the things you consider bad is definitely not time that you’ve wasted. Even if what you were working on never becomes anything more than a draft on your hard drive, or if you decide it’s not good enough to see the light of day. The things you learned from it, those skills, are not a waste. And just because something you made is bad, doesn’t mean you’re bad.  “Noah, you can’t keep punishing yourself for your self-perceived shortcomings by overworking and cutting yourself off. None of us doubt your abilities as an artist, and we don’t expect you to be a hit-making machine. We expect you to do your job, yeah, but not at the cost of yourself. You could write total dogshit for a year straight and you’d still be our Noah. We still love you.”  

Both hands on his knees now, you continue to try to offer comfort. At least his shoulders have stopped shaking.  

His voice comes muffled through his hands, a rasp to it, “I feel like I don’t deserve this sometimes.” Noah sniffles, balls his hands into fists, wipes his face and finally drops them to his lap, playing with his sleeves. Eyes puffy and rimmed red. “The success. I think, what if it’s all a fluke? Or what if this is it for me, I never reach higher than this?” He takes a deep breath, holds it for a couple of seconds, then releases it slowly. Something his therapist once taught him to help with anxiety. “Not in terms of charts or anything like that. What if I can’t make something as good as what I've made before? What if I lose it?” 

“Lose what?” You ask, watching him swipe away fresh tears from his cheeks with the sleeves of his hoodie as soon as they appear. “The ability to create?” 

He nods, face cast down towards his lap. 

“Oh, my love,” you sigh and lean forwards, grasping his hands tightly. “That’s a reasonable thing to be afraid of.” 

His tears are warm when they hit the back of your hands. 

The fact that he could be feeling all of this, struggling with these thoughts and deciding he had to do it alone broke your heart. You've always been there for Noah, at least you thought you had. Maybe you needed to do more for him than you realised. Your own eyes were burning with the threat of tears, but you steeled yourself. He hated seeing you cry, and you needed to be his strength.

Both of you sit for a moment in the quiet, until something he told you back when you first met comes to mind. “I think there was a point in time, years before I knew you, where you were thinking this exact same thing.” 

Noah raises his head a little, brows narrowed causing a small crease in his forehead. 

“Am I right in thinking at some point there was a very young, teenage Noah Sebastian writing lyrics in secret, playing guitar in a band, self-publishing demos and thinking, ‘is this all there is?’” 

He at last meets your eyes again, focusing completely on you. 

“And would that kid believe you if you told him exactly where he’ll be in 10 years' time, exactly where you are right now?” 

“I don't think he would,” Noah smiles a little at the thought, the corner of his lips twitching upwards unmistakably on one side. 

He turns his hands over in yours to hold them properly. The way they surround yours entirely with no effort is something you don’t think you’ll ever get used to. 

You remember first time he ever held your hand in the beginning of the relationship and the sense of total security that washed over you when he did; in a physical sense, you knew it was a sign he would always be by your side, that he wanted to keep taking little steps forward with you and with this relationship, but also emotionally, an action so subtly intimate and comforting. You knew from then on, he was someone you could always rely on. Now you need him to see he can rely on you. 

“I'm sorry we all have to rely on you so much. That you feel the need to do this to yourself,” you tighten your grip on his hands and dip your head to make sure he maintained eye contact with you, which he did. “Will you let me help you?” 

Tears welled in his eyes again until he blinked them away, and nodded. 

You stand, stretching the ache out of your legs and pull him up to his full height with you. Relief floods your body as you wrap your arms around his middle and rest your head against his chest for the first time in days. Noah returns the affection, encircling your shoulders with his long limbs. He rests his cheek against the top of your head, and you sigh with content when you feel him sinking completely into you.  

“Okay,” you say, the sound muffled against his chest before you pull back just enough to look at him. “Let’s go make some real food to eat that isn’t cereal or instant noodles. Or order something? Then we can sit and just do nothing. Maybe watch a movie? Anything you want.” 

Noah nods, then pulls you back into him tightly and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead. “Thank you,” he whispers. 

Realising just how much you missed his touch, how much you needed it, you squeeze him back and hold him there in your arms as the time lingers on. Noah pulls back from the embrace this time, brushing stray hair from your face and caressing your cheek with his thumb, while the other arm remains looped around you. “I’m really sorry, for all of this,” he starts, but you shake your head and stop him in his tracks. 

You sneak your hands up towards his face, palms sliding over his chest to hold him by the cheeks. “You don’t have to say sorry to me. I know you are and it’s okay. Just let me help you, yeah? Or any of the other guys? You can pass on some of your burdens to us, let us bear the weight with you. You don’t have to feel this way.”  

“I will,” he affirms. “I promise you.” 

“Good,” you say with a smile. Looping your arms around his neck, you lean up as high as you can go on your toes—though still needing to pull him down a little— to place a soft kiss on his cheek, right at the corner of his mouth. 

He can’t help but smile too, a genuine smile that makes his eyes sparkle in the way you fell in love with. Leaning down after you, he captures your lips in a kiss equally as gentle as the one you gave him, stubble ever so slightly tickling your face.

Noah rests his forehead against your shoulder, holding you tightly by the waist when he whispers, “I love you.” 

“I love you too. No matter what.” 

[iwasntstable]

+[ERROR MSG : FILE LOADED INCORRECTLY.]

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[send error report?] ﹂ [yes] | no 　﹂ [error report sent to administrator] 　　﹂ [ok]

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🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NEVERJUSTFRIENDS [projects] ﹂ [my work] | in progress | favourites 　﹂ all | multi-chapter | [one-shot] | blurb | head-cannons 　　﹂ [never-just-friends]

+[MSG : the following content is NSFW.]

▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ [CORRUPTED]

▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ He, in turn, slips his hand past the waistband of your sweats and underwear, immediately running his long fingers through your folds. Noah breaks the kiss to rest his forehead against yours as you both pant.

"So wet for me already," he teased, "have you been thinking about me?" Your breath catches in your throat as he begins to circle your clit precisely where you like it with two fingers. "Hm? You been thinking about how good I can make you come?"

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"Does that feel good, baby?" he brushes your hair back behind your ear and cups the side of your face, tilting it up to meet his. You feel his hot breath against your lips when he speaks, "are you gonna come for me already?"

You can only whine and nod, the hand that was ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇

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[iwasntstable]

☰ 𝗡𝗔𝗩𝗜𝗚𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/SEARCH/TAG ⌕ search by; tag RESULT |　#fluff　#angst　#emotional-hurt/comfort　#smut

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ALL [projects] ﹂ [my-work] | in-progress | favourites 　﹂ [all] | series | one-shot | blurb | head-cannons | ask 　　 moodboards

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➔𝐢𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧𝐭𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞➔➔　𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘈𝘳𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘷𝘦!+　　[𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝐀𝐎𝟯]

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† please note;　　some of my writing—and therefore this blog itself—is nsfw and certain works may contain sensitive topics and darker themes.

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☰ ⇅ sort by; date | ascending

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/FEAROFFAILURE

◾title; fear of failure. ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 2.7k. ◾tags; #angst #emotional-hurt/comfort #fluff #poor-mental-health

summary: you don’t know why, but noah has been withdrawing into himself again, and you’re worried this steady decline will end in disaster. you resolve to pull him out again, knowing he can’t continue like this much longer.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NIGHTMARE

◾title; nightmare. ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3k. ◾tags; #emotional-hurt/comfort #fluff

summary: reader experiences an intense and terrifying nightmare, luckily noah is there to bring her round and make sure she's okay.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/NEVERJUSTFRIENDS

◾title; never just friends ◾rating; nsfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 5.6k. ◾tags; #best-friend!noah #smut #fluff #descriptive-smut #multiple-orgasms #aftercare

summary: your best friend had a bad day, you know how to help fix that. but are these hook-ups too much for your heart to bear when you desperately want more?

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/STAYTILMORNING

◾title; stay 'til morning ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3.8k. ◾tags; #best-friend!noah #fluff #emotional-hurt/comfort #idiots-being-stupid

summary: noah never stays until morning, lest the guilt from lying about the depth of his feelings for you destroys him. but the lies both of you tell yourselves are beginning to crumble under the weight of your yearning for more of each other. what will happen when, for the first time, noah stays past the sunrise?

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/HEADCANNON/CUDDLYNOAH

◾title; cuddly noah ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; head-cannon ◾word count; 330. ◾tags; #fluff

summary: cuddly noah that's it ♡

[READ]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ASK/NEWNEIGHBOUR

◾title; new neighbour ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; ask from anon - one shot. ◾word count; 3.1K ◾tags; #fluff

summary: noah as your neighbour in an apartment building.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/HEADCANNON/SIZEDIFFFLUFF

◾title; size diff fluff ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; head-cannon ◾word count; 518. ◾tags; #fluff

summary: size difference head-cannons but it's fluff.

[READ]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/IFIMTHERE

◾title; if i'm there ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3.8k. ◾tags; #angst #emotional-hurt/comfort #poor-mental-health #mentions-of-disordered-eating #discussions-of-food #self-destructive-behaviour #fluff

summary:  when things start getting bad, you withdraw. ignoring calls and texts, and descending into bad habits as you self-isolate. but noah knows what you're like and he loves you too much to let you suffer alone.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/BLURB/WHENIMISSYOU

◾title; when I miss you ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; blurb. ◾word count; 1.4k. ◾tags; #fluff

summary: The things you do when you're missing Noah while he's away.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/BLURB/ANYTHINGHUMAN

◾title; ANYTHING > HUMAN ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; blurb. ◾word count; 845. ◾tags; #angst

summary: Based on ANYTHING > HUMAN - Bad Omens & ERRA.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/BLURB/TIRED

◾title; Tired? ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; blurb. ◾word count; 574. ◾tags; #fluff

summary: When you're too tired to do your hair, Noah is more than happy to help.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/HAPPYBIRTHDAY

◾title; happy birthday ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 2.5k. ◾tags; #fluff #fluff #fluff

summary:  Sometimes lying is okay when it's planning a birthday surprise for the birthday-hating man you love.

[READ] | [AO3]

🗀 C:/PROJECTS/MYWORK/ONESHOT/ISITTRUE

◾title; is it true? ◾rating; sfw. ◾type; one shot. ◾word count; 3.1k. ◾tags; #fluff #a-smidge-of-angst #slight-miscommunication

summary:  Always stubborn, Noah refuses to take a break when he's sick, but everyone's convinced you can persuade him.

[READ] | [AO3]