Chapter Text
~~~
Noah wasn’t used to waking up at seven in the morning during summer break. He liked to sleep in, most prefered until noon.
Yet here he was. Awake. Not long after the sun rose.
He covered his ears as another loud noise pierced through the air. Everyone must’ve been awake by now- there was no need to keep making all that noise. He was probably doing it for fun. That, and-
His train of thought was cut off by another loud siren. Then a much quieter crash in the distance. For the sake of his own sanity, Noah ignored it, getting out of bed.
Coming here was a mistake.
~~~
He sighed to himself, standing beside Owen.
Chris had forced all of them to gather beside the cabins, wanting to tell them about and start the next challenge. Knowing him, it would be something as insane as the last. He mentally prepared himself for whatever horrors they’d face in this time. Noah took a look at everything around him.
Wawanakwa Island was a total dump. He'd been hoping it wasn’t as bad as it looked, which turned out to be true. It was worse.
From the corner of his eye, he noticed Cody, the residential geek, smiling as he tried to sneakily snatch Eva’s mp3 player. He raised both eyebrows.
Is he an idiot ?
As soon as Eva noticed, she bit at his hand, literally growling at him. Cody immediately pulled his arms away in fright. Noah snorted at the scene.
He knew she’d get mad, but growling? That was another reason not to mess with her.
Cody smiled at her as if she hadn’t just tried to bite all of his fingers off.
He is.
“Morning! I hope you slept well,” the host finally spoke up. Noah rolled his eyes. There was no way he had meant that.
“Okay, I hope you’re all ready because your next challenge begins in exactly one minute!”
“Oh, excuse me!” Owen suddenly interrupted, “I don’t know if that’s enough time to eat breakfast.”
Breakfast, Owen says. Noah scoffed to himself. The trash served here was more likely to give you more diseases then licking the bottom of your own boot.
“Oh, you get breakfast, Owen,” he spoke, weirdly ominous. “Right after you complete your twenty-kilometre run around the lake!”
“Oh, so you’re funny now.” Eva practically growled, making anyone near her tense.
Noah glanced around at the people beside him. It seemed like he wasn’t the only one who found this insane. a 20-kilometre ore breakfast?
“You know what I think would be funny-“ She growled out, about to pounce on him.
She was immediately held back by three people. Even then, they struggled to keep her from knocking Chris, who looked pretty terrified by now, out.
He watched in slight amusement as Courtney whispered to the enraged girl, trying to calm her. The bookworm kind of wished Eva had gotten to their horrid host.
Maybe then they wouldn’t have to participate in this stupid reality TV show any longer.
“Eva! Try to control your temper,” the ‘cit’ warned, almost glaring at her. Eva spun her head back towards Chris, still glaring.
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?!”
“A little,” he smiled, before pointing at his watch. “You have thirty seconds.”
Chris started instructing the camera men on where to go as Eva angrily stomped off- probably so to punch a tree down.
The rest of them go ready. What else did they have to do, anyways?
And soon, they were off.
~~~
Going on runs wasn’t something Noah did regularly, if it wasn’t obvious from the way he panted only five minutes into their run.
His legs were already shaky, arms sore, even though he’d run not even half a kilometre by now.
Not having the so-called-breakfast, waking up at an ungodly hour, and running for the entertainment of Chris and whoever else was watching, on top of the insane challenge of jumping off a cliff the host had made them do the previous day…
Chris Mclean was an evil, evil man.
Feeling as though he would pass out if he stayed up any longer, Noah slumped against a tree. Resting for a moment would be fine, right? It’s not like this was being timed or anything.
Just as he leaned his head back, figuring he might as well take a nap while he can, when he heard the sound of two people stumbling in.
“This cannot be happening to me.”
Noah could hardly recognize the worried voice- Trent, was it? Whoever it was seemed pretty distressed.
Maybe he shouldn’t eavesdrop.
“As much as I wish it wasn’t happening either, Elvis, it is.”
They both went quiet.
”No one can know about this.”
”You think I would tell anyone?”
Trents reply was incredulous. The noise of something being shoved resounded through the trees. Duncan had pushed him.
”I don’t care what you have to say. But if you tell a soul about this,” he must’ve been pointing to something, Noah guessed. “- We are both screwed.”
“I won’t.”
“You better not.”
So much for not hearing a thing.
~~~
Noah let out an exhausted sigh, slumping against the tree beside him. He sleepily rubbed at his tired eyes.
Aside from that quick chat with Cody, the run had been horrible. Seeing as he was the most unathletic teen to have ever existed, he fell to the ground out of exhaustion ten minutes in. Owen had luckily come across him and hurriedly carried him the whole way back.Although he had woken up soon after being picked up, he felt too exhausted to think, let alone walk.
Plus, why give away the chance of letting someone else do the work?
A pathetic attempt at CPR later and they won the challenge. Or so they had thought. Turns out, it was only the first part. The buffet seemed like a good idea to most of them, and they ate as much as they could. It was definitely the only normal food they’d get for weeks. He had a feeling that something fishy was going on.
Unfortunately, due to all the running with his unathletic body, he was famished. Which led to him also eating as much as he could get in his system.
When Chris announced the awake-a-thon, it all added up.
Just a few minutes ago he had been peacefully resting on the ground. It wasn't comfortable, but from how exhausted he’d been, Noah could've fallen asleep on a bed of rocks. Even the small sticks and leaves now stuck in his hair hadn't woken him from his slumber. But what had was a mix of sand and sticks being dumped on top of him.
Duncan, one of the only other people awake, had been entertaining himself by pulling pranks. First, he had messed with Heather's hair, leaving it all muddy and her screaming. Next, he left a small trap in Chris's tent which made it somehow catch on fire. And more recently, the criminal set his eyes on the poor innocent nerd asleep on the ground. He wiped his glasses in annoyance, getting most of the sand off of them before putting them back on.
Just his luck. Sleep was something he valued, and if that punk freak ruined it for him again, he might just-
The sound of a familiar voice and footsteps halted his trail of thought.
"Hey."
Talking about wannabes. Cody, the self-proclaimed "ladies’ man", stood in front of him, in all his sleep-deprived glory.
Noah, noticing something from the geek’s usual outfit was missing, raised an eyebrow at him.
“Where’s your polo gone, Codester?”
Cody let out a laugh, looking down at his shirt awkwardly.
"Oh, uh, Duncan got to me," Noah looked at him for more information, making him sigh. "...paint balloon, think? I was barely awake when it happened. Can I sit here?"
He looked the other up and down. It was obvious Cody was likely to fall asleep from the way he was swaying. He didn’t even seem to be fully focused on Noah, half awake.
Resisting the urge to sigh again, he patted the spot beside him.
"Make yourself comfortable, geek."
Cody sits down but gives him a surprised look.
"Pfft- what! I'm not a geek."
That earned him a raised eyebrow.
"Oh yeah? The Star Wars pin on your backpack says otherwise."
Cody started heating up and wow. He blushed pretty hard. He got so red so quickly that Noah could only blink at him in surprise. Cody scratched his neck awkwardly.
"How did you even...I thought I was being sneaky."
"Oh,” was the only reply he could muster. “Well, you weren't.”
"...I get that now." the brunette mumbled, smiling slightly.
He sat there silently for a moment, enjoying the cool air. The other let out a yawn, leaning against the tree bark.
He sniffed, eyes half closed. Noah watched him get comfy beside him, wondering why he was still awake. It wasn’t as if they were still in the challenge or anything. On top of that, why had Cody come to him?
Noah pondered on this thought for a few more moments, only getting more and more lost. It’s not as if they’d never talked before- Noah didn’t quite consider them friends yet, but Cody was pretty fun to hang out with. On top of that, he’d always felt some sort of connection with him. Kind of like-
“Hey? dude? Anyone home?"
Snapping out of his thoughts, he realised the boy on his mind was also right in front of his face. A little too close, even.
"So....any hobbies?" Cody questioned, turning back away from him. He seemed a little more awake, oddly. “…uh. Besides reading, of course. I know you like that- I’ve just seen you reading this book. It was... uhm... fahrenheit then a number, right?"
Noah blinked. He had been reading it earlier in the week. Due to certain circumstances that he won’t explain, he ended up shoving any book that would fit in his suitcase without a second look. It shouldn't have been a surprise when random books he hadn't read in years we’re all he had to read. Not that it didn’t annoy him- it did.
He turned back to Cody. The dude was clearly nervous, for whatever reason, it became increasingly more obvious as he kept fidgeting with his hands. Noah decided to save him the embarrassment and replied.
"If you’re that curious, I like gaming”
"Oh! Same, dude! What type of video game? And what's your favourite?"
He wasn’t all that surprised.
”I can tell, you reek of techno-geek.” Cody snorted in reply, bumping their shoulders together
”Says the guy wearing glasses and a sweater vest . Can anything get any nerdier than that?” Noah decided to ignore that, smiling slightly.
"Well, I'm not picky on what type. I’d have to say my favourite game is Kosmic kaos, tho."
Cody turned to him again, stunned. Noah winced.
"No way, dude. You’re pulling my leg."
Noah faced towards the excited boy who was practically shaking from joy. he raised an eyebrow. Just as he was about to let out a sarcastic quip, Cody practically yelled in his face.
"i like kosmic kaos too!"
He blinked at that, surprised.
"Seriously?"
This was the first time he had even met anyone that had even heard of the game. It wasn't all that popular due to the graphics, but the game play and story line was worth it.
"Yeah! I haven't actually met anyone who's heard of it...well, asides from you, now. That’s super cool! How long have you liked them?" Knowing that Cody thought the exact same things about the game as him was…interesting.
"Since i was at least five."
"Woah…that's like, eleven years!” Cody stared at him in admiration, and Noah would be lying if he didn’t like the attention. Just a bit. “It’s kind of sad that a lot of people don't like it because of something as small as the graphics, but I think the plot line and all the well written characters make it more than worth it."
He lit up, happy to talk about his interests.
"That’s exactly what i thought. it's unfair to not give a game a try just because you don't like how pixelated it looks. Like, honestly. how many games do you know with world building in the same league?” as soon as he finished, he felt his cheeks warm up. maybe he should’ve kept his mouth shut.
Cody lit as well, completely over the moon. He didn’t have a problem with Noah rambling on at all.
Even though he knew all the aspects in the game, Noah let him rant about his favourite facts. He had been working for the company on the game for quite awhile after hacking into it and fixing a bug years back.There wasn't a thing Cody spoke about that was news to him.
But, oddly enough, he liked the sound of cody's voice. It was energetic somehow, even though they had been given practically no rest in the past two days. The way he moved his arms around wildly made it seem like he was running off of pure excitement.
At some point, he seemed to be running out of steam, mumbling gibberish into Noah shoulder.
He drowsily frowned. Cody was leaning on his side, face smooshed in his shoulder, and half asleep. When did he get there?
One moment, they were conversing about video games and the like, and the next…
Noah felt the world around him slow down as his eyes slowly blinked closed. He slumped on the ground, feeling a few twigs and rocks dig in his side. There was a faint noise of a body slump in front of him, but he felt too exhausted to do anything about it.
That was a worry for another day.
Noah woke up to the soft sound of the other campers awakening.
The sun was shining, the not-so fresh island smell was in the air, he was kissing someones ear, and the bed was kind of uncomfortable. What was he sleeping on? The ground? It was rough. He could feel a stick poking into his side and a rock in his shirt. Oddly enough, he also felt his hands holding onto something warm.
He wasn't ready for the back ache as soon as he fully got up. This definitely wasn’t good for him, and the stiffness in his shoulders were a good enough indicator. At least he felt oddly warm. like he was cuddling with a warm and somehow soft rock. He felt his lips moving, too, but no sounds came out. He had no clue why, not that he was complaining. Noah decided that maybe he could go back to sleep, never mind the fact his arms were around someone, cuddling them. He was comfy.
With a sudden halt in his thoughts, he abruptly pulled away from whoever he was holding onto. Cody- as it turns out- looked back, dazed. Distantly, he registered a swirl of colour all over where his lips had just touched- as in, Cody’s ear, which he had been KISSING!!
Noah felt a scream rip through his throat as he immediately stumbled up, horrified. Cody, in turn, panicked too. One confused and the other completely mortified. Screaming in unison, they ran off in opposite directions.
It was only after he ran at least twenty feet away from the “ crime scene ”, into the communal bathroom, and sat down for a good thirty five minutes that Noah fully processed what exactly had just happened.He had spooned a boy on international television, and even made out with his ear.
And now, he noticed as he looked into the mirror at his lips stained with a light yellow. It turned out said boy was his soulmate.
Something told him he’d never let this down.