Work Text:
“Chocolate, please.” Noah said to the girl at the counter.
He watched her scoop the ice cream, he took it from her, he sat down as far from her as he could get and then he just stared at it. It was late enough that the shop was mostly empty, just like it had been when he’d first come here over seven years ago.
The memory of begging Welk to go get ice cream after a long afternoon of looking for leylines filled his mind. For a moment he was back in the lifetime where he was Noah Czerny, a loving brother and son, a perpetually late student, and a friend to Barrington Welk.
That memory brought on a flood of others.
He saw the halls of Aglionby blurring as he ran through them, he heard the teacher’s tired voice saying, “look who decided to join us.” Followed by a series of chuckles as the hurricane of a boy that was Noah Czerny half ran half tripped across the class room to fall into his seat and dig out a crumpled copy of his partially done homework to hand to the teacher; laughing the whole time, as if this was the funniest thing in the world.
And most of all he remembered Welk in the seat next to him shaking his head at his friend's complete inability to do anything quietly.
That memory slowly blended into one his earliest memories of Welk, when they had been partnered for a Latin assignment. “Barrington Welk,” Noah had said in the most posh British voice he could muster before dissolving into giggles, as the other boy glared at him.
He didn’t really remember how they became friends, only the endless giggle fits met with dead pan expressions.
He remembered perfectly the look on Welk’s face every time he said his full name in that goofy posh voice, he remembered the look when he drove them somewhere in the fastest way and not the safest way, and best of all he remembered the look when he gave Welk a birthday card so glittery it would make a christmas ornament jealous.
He remembered eating lunch together, when they bounced back and forth between talking about leylines and whatever Noah was thinking of at any given moment.
Those memories brought with them the strange lunch after everything went to shit when Welk kept looking away and wouldn’t laugh at any of his jokes. When Welk had asked him to drive them down to the forest, while resolutely staring at the table with a look that spoke of the decision he had just made.
Noah had agreed without a second thought, because he would have followed Welk to the ends of the earth if it meant getting back the boy his friend had been in the beginning.
But the boy Welk had been had died long before he brought the skate board down on Noah’s head.
That memory was enough to pull Noah out of his thoughts. Welk was dead and Noah was dead, and he wished he could bring himself to hate him for it.
But Welk was his friend.
His ice cream had begun to melt dripping down his hand.
Chocolate, Welk’s favorite.
He threw the still full cup away and left the shop, headed home.