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Language:
English
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Published:
2019-09-04
Updated:
2020-07-03
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5,829
Chapters:
4/?
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17
Kudos:
114
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dark was the night, cold was the ground

Chapter 4: it's just

Chapter Text

Noel contemplated waiting around the playhouse after he had turned in his promotional piece for ‘The Harlot and Her Ways’. As if the scolding from West wasn’t enough, the stress of writing a promotion based on zero interviews with a deadline cut short by two hours also took its toll on him. To make due, he forged a couple quotations from Cody that weren’t 100 percent accurate. Noel figured he wouldn’t mind. 

The reporter steps out into the early evening, to a slightly cooler and more tolerable temperature than earlier. There’s a slight breeze in the air. It blows through Noel’s cheap shirt, and he makes a mental note of how the prickly shirt has one thing going for it, at least.

He sighs heavily as he starts walking down the street. He wishes it wouldn’t be too forward to seek out Cody already, he could really need a drinking buddy on this awful Thursday evening. There were just a handful of people he really knew in this city, but he can’t bear the thought of having to making stupid small talk with them.

Noel realised that it was chalking up to be a very lonely night. 

He enters his flat some thirty minutes later. The second he comes through the door, he kicks off his shoes and plops himself down on the mattress on the floor right beside it. 

“Fuck me,” he mutters.

Calling it a ‘flat’ might be an overstatement. It’s, at best, a human storage space. There’s no real kitchen or bathroom, just a bucket in a corner and a gas burner right by the room’s only window. But it was a kind of home, and Noel was just happy to have a space to call his own. The landlord was African-American and could relate to Noel’s struggle with finding a place to stay, so he gave him a good deal. 

Noel stares up at the stained ceiling as he wonders how he would pass the time. He tries to remember the lovely girl with the visible knees he saw that morning, but he can’t really remember her features. She becomes a blur.

Cody, however, is as clear as day in his mind. Noel shakes his head in an attempt to get rid of the image, but it fails. 

“Ugh. Fuck.”

Noel knows what it means. It’s not the first time this has happened. His thoughts drift off to the summer of 1919 again, as they so often do. 

Noel and Jack Lawrence, a boy from the neighbouring town, had both ended up working for Finn, the farmer with the best strawberries in the whole county. Together they had picked berries the whole summer long, and shared long conversations in the field. 

It was just the two of them. It was dangerous. Every time the conversation led to romantic subjects, the tension got weird, almost… palpable. It was, of course, Noel who couldn’t resist one day, and let their lips meet. It was a wonderful start to a horrible end.

The image of Jack hanging in the farmer’s shed a few weeks later would forever haunt him.

“God!” Noel instantly sits upright as he can see Jack’s bloated head and dangling feet over the kicked bucket again. “Fuck.”

Noel doesn’t fully realise, but he sits and stares into the same spot of frayed wallpaper for a good twenty minutes. 

Four days pass, and they’re all a blur. They’re all relatively the same - scorching heat, snarky comments from West about his work for the newspaper, alcohol free beer at Anne’s and silent nights at his flat. And Cody. Cody’s always present, lurking behind every thought. Noel hates it. 

He gives it a couple more days before it’ll pass. 

Tuesday evening’s another lonely one spent at his flat. A tepid can of tomato beans is on tonight’s menu, and Noel’s eating it straight out of the can with a spoon as he’s skimming the evening’s newspaper. 

Suddenly, a sharp knock hits his door.

Did I not pay rent? Noel thinks to himself immediately, before concluding that yes, he did, and the next rent isn’t due until another ten days. He gets up and opens the door cautiously, tin of beans still in hand. He about drops it when he sees the bright smile of none other than Cody.

“Hey, buddy!” smiles the actor.

“Hey, man - what are you doing here?” Noel sounds more annoyed than intended, and he catches it immediately when he sees Cody’s smile falling. “I mean - do come in, but how did you know I lived here?”

He moves to the side and motions for Cody to go inside, and the smile broadens again. Noel quickly places the tin down at the dresser by the door, hoping Cody didn’t notice.

“Oh thank you - I know it’s forward coming to your place. It’s just…”

Noel closes the door behind him and awkwardly darts his eyes around the place. Fuck, it looks really terrible. Books, clothes and newspapers are scattered everywhere, and the bin is overflowing with empty cans.

“It’s just?” Noel says and sits down at one of the two chairs at his flat, nodding for Cody to take the other.

“It’s just,” says Cody as he sits down. He looks into Noel’s eyes for a painfully long time. “I saw your piece from the play.”

“Oh. Didn’t you like it?”

“No, it was alright. I just… never said the things you quoted me on.”

Noel’s face pales as he nervously looks down and rubs the back of his neck.

“About that. I’m sorry, man, I should’ve ran it past you,” says Noel and looks up at Cody, who scoffs.

“It’s no worries, they were so generic anyway. But I just got so curious as to why, you know. Why didn’t you quote me on anything I actually said?” Cody almost sounds hurt. At the very least, disappointed. 

“You want the honest answer?” Noel asks with a half-smile. Cody nods eagerly. “I genuinely liked talking to you so much that I forgot to take notes. And I forgot asking you about the play. We just talked about, you know, you… and me. And like, how we are, and what we do? It ended up feeling more friendly than professional. That’s all. I didn’t have much relevant to use.”

Cody’s grinning in disbelief. 

“Are you kidding?”

Noel shakes his head with a smile. “No. Sorry, man.”

“No, don’t be! I’m so relieved. I thought you hated me, and that I said so much stupid shit that you had to make up something better. So I was almost offended when you chose such generic shit - like, was that really better than what I was saying?” laughs Cody.

Noel laughs too, and apologizes again, but Cody just brushes it off.

“I should’ve given you a heads up or at least explained afterwards. I’m sorry, man.”

Cody smiles and opens his mouth to say something, but stops himself. Instead, he shakes his head and smiles.

“Are you busy now?” he asks Noel.

“Um,” says Noel and gives his tin of beans a quick glance. “Fuck no.”

“Wanna go somewhere?”

“Fuck yes.”