a small part of noah realized that he was most likely making a fool of himself, but the majority of him couldn't care less. normally he wouldn't care anyway, having the low level of inhibitions that he did, the alcohol just took his whatever attitude to soaring new heights. nothing really mattered anymore; fuck shawn, fuck school, fuck his family, fuck all his stupid fucking problems. nothing mattered. for the moment, noah was genuinely happy. his world no longer included shawn, school, teachers, fucked-up family problems, homework, tests, friends, any of the things that normally stressed him out. all that was left in his tiny sphere of recognition was leah and the hefty amount of alcohol he'd already consumed and the alcohol still to come. he smiled slightly and downed the remainder of his third drink, casting it aside carelessly. he vaguely heard the bottle smash against something and ignored this fact. it was the next thing leah said that forced him roughly back to reality, causing him to screw up his eyes in concentration as he attempted to find a sensible answer.

d'yo-do you like, love the chick?

frowning, noah tried deeply to concentrate. did he...love...what? he squeezed his eyes shut and tried a bit harder, still failing to make sense of his own thoughts. when he finally managed to understand, an answer flew out of his mouth before he could stop himself. yeah, i do. almost as if he was in shock of his own response, his hands flew to his mouth, keeping it from blurting out anything else he didn't mean to say. i mean - no. wait. but i - i don't...fuck. aware that none of this made sense, noah shook his head violently. it was becoming more and more difficult to understand his own thoughts; there were far too many of them swirling around in his brain, making his sight go all fuzzy, so he ultimately gave up on trying to decode them. they were all conflicting with one another, some saying yes, some saying no, and others not knowing what the fuck was happening. it was a good thing that nobody was capable of reading minds, because the sorry person that got into noah's head would probably need extensive therapy afterward.

life used to be easy. go to class, ignore homework, go on prefect rounds and taunt younger students with shawn, go to dinner, ignore homework, mess around with other ravenclaws in the common room, quidditch practice, ignore homework, go to sleep, repeat in the morning. the second his feelings for shawn had changed, nearly his entire life had been flipped upside down, and things only got worse when he finally realized that shawn was never going to feel the same way. the player had finally been played, and it didn't feel good. moving on proved to be more difficult than noah could ever imagine. being hung up on one person sucked, especially when added to the fact that he could have anybody he wanted except her. the chase wasn't worth it anymore; degrading himself while vying for her attention had become too much to deal with and left him feeling pathetic each and every night before he fell asleep. he'd been sucking at quidditch, too, and nowadays the ravenclaw quidditch captain, bethany moinly, looked as if she wanted to slap him whenever they were within the same ten-foot radius. not exaggerating in the least, noah's life was falling apart. the ironic part was, it was all because of some stupid girl.

noah was used to being the heart breaker, not the other way around. he was used to girls freaking out on him because he'd wanted a one-night-stand and nothing more. he was used to encountering frequent breakdowns on account of messy breakups and cheating on girls. it was in his programming. noah simply was not a one-girl type of guy, yet he still wanted to have shawn exclusively as his. what made this time different? it wasn't to say that he wasn't going to go and cheat on her, because he most likely would. not that he could get her anyway, because he couldn't. he only wanted her, the one thing he couldn't have. noah forced himself to concentrate on leah, which proved to be easier said than done. when he brought himself back to reality and looked at leah, nothing else seemed to matter. all of a sudden, shawn didn't even exist. shawn who? all of a sudden, there was only leah. he wanted her, and he fully knew that he could have her if he wanted. but how to go about the task? noah's normal logic wasn't functioning properly, because he normally had a specific plan on how to do things. this time, however, nothing was complicated and tricky and precise. there was only one goal here: kiss the girl.

noah shrugged at leah's comment about the alcohol. she didn't know how much he could handle, which was normally a whole hell of a lot. for all she knew, he could puke and pass out at any moment, but he wasn't going to. by now noah could handle almost anything. a thought suddenly occured to him and noah inquired, hey, leah. can i ask you something? he paused for a moment, waiting for her response, but continued anyway. do you - he slurred, but as quickly as he'd come up with the question, he forgot it. his desire was nagging at him painfully, nearly screaming in his ear, JUST DO IT. so he finally did. without worrying about the consequences, thinking about nothing else but the girl in front of him and what he wanted, he leaned forward and kissed her. the seconds slowly passed before it dawned on him how creepy this must be to her. he drew back quickly and looked away, nearly ashamed of himself. i, i don't - he began, then forgot what he was going to say. once again, his mind had gone completely off-track, straying back to what he'd been considering just seconds before kissing leah. noah kissed her again, this time with a bit more force and authority. honestly, what did he have to lose? he'd hit an all-time low in his life and there was nothing he could do to help him sink any lower.

tags, leahsouuuup! <3
word count, 1 086
listening to, "lust be a lady," a kidnap in color.

SHE BITES HER LIP AND TIPS HER BOTTLE. I TAKE A SIP BE
CAUSE THE TRUTH IS HARD TO SWALLOW. SEX AND WHITE
LIES, HANG ONTO THE ALIBIS. HER HEART BEATS RED WINE,
MY TOXIC VALENTINE. SHE LAYS HER HALO ON MY PILLOW.

stupidity was the one word that could sum up noah's life at this point. nothing had a purpose anymore, and even if it did it was conveniently ignored. noah had no rules, no limits, but also no real expectations from the world. he offered next to nothing and got the same in return. he was going nowhere, to be honest, and would probably be in the exact same place next year that he was now, minus the fact that he was at hogwarts. after the end of the year he was going to be alone in the world, and that was a scary thought. his parents didn't give two fucks whether he got a good job or not. hell, they wouldn't care if he went and threw himself off the top of a very tall building. they'd basically disowned him from the moment he went off to hogwarts. noah's parents were both ordinary, both non-magical, both muggles. how they'd turned out two wizards in the family they had no idea, but they'd been disgusted. noah, who had always lived in the shadows of his older brothers, had been thrilled that he was one of the two lucky ones who got to go away. he had four older brothers and only one of them became a wizard like noah. the rest took to pummeling noah whenever he was home for the holidays, mostly out of jealousy. his parents ignored him all-together, only acknowledging him at mealtimes when they were forced to feed him. life at school was slowly morphing into something identical to life at home, a fact that displeased noah greatly.

he was no longer even close to being at the top of his year, nor did he have all his former friends to distract him. his best friend in the world was toying with his emotions, confusing him so badly that he could hardly tell up from down and left from right. nothing was going right. now, on top of everything else, noah had his newts to worry about. he despised studying with a fiery passion, but if he didn't do any work before the tests he was going to be in a huge amount of trouble after graduation. he was going to end up as a hobo. yay. noah was brought back to reality by leah's comments about loving shawn and how he shouldn't be denying it. he shook his head stupidly, looking down. you don't u-understand, he choked out, pushing back a random wave of emotion threatening to overtake him. i don't...i don't want to love her. there. he said it. he loved shawn, there was no getting around the fact, but it was a feeling he wasn't used to. people like noah weren't meant to fall in love. he was designed for one-night stands and he would never be the perfect boyfriend, not even a remotely good one. he hated himself for loving shawn, for wanting her more than anything he'd ever wanted before.

does she love you?

noah froze. did shawn love him? of course not. don't even start hoping, he told himself. if he started wondering and hoping and dreaming that shawn, by some sort of divine miracle, loved him back, he'd be even more crushed when reality set in and told him that she didn't, nor would she ever. they were -- had been -- best friends, and nothing was going to change that. he'd been stuck in the friend zone for a long time now and there was no escaping it. best friends for life had taken on a painful new meaning. noah managed to look leah dead in the eyes when he replied simply, dull and void of any emotion, no. after that he found it impossible to hold her gaze any longer and looked away, almost ashamed of himself. he hated showing weakness, even if leah happened to be the one person he knew he could show it to. she'd been there when he'd fallen out of a tree and scraped up his knee painfully, and when he'd been trying to learn to ride his bike (not a happy experience). she understood perfectly how human noah was, and that unnerved him.

regret. depression. confusion. what the fuck was i thinking? all those points and more were going to be whizzing through his head tomorrow morning, noah knew, and probably dozens more. he was probably destroying the restored relationship he had with leah, and probably pushing the relationship with shawn to its breaking point, but he didn't care. fuck shawn, fuck what people thought, fuck good judgment. since when had noah been one to think before he acted? act first, think later, act as if the consequences don't exist.

with a final fuck you, shawn, the boy placed one hand on leah's waist and let the other get a bit tangled in her blond hair. maybe he wouldn't even remember this in the morning. hopefully. he'd rather not remember fucking his best friend because, facing facts, noah knew that that was what this was going to lead into. they'd both had their fair share of alcohol already and really had no idea what they were doing. they would never in a million years be doing this if they were in their right minds. best friends didn't do this sort of thing, no matter how long they'd been apart and how much they had both changed. once again, the thought of best friends drew him back to shawn, making noah want to kick himself. why did she invade every single solitary thought he had? he took this as a cue to move closer still to leah. if she minded what was going on, she obviously would have pushed him off already and probably punched him in the face, knowing her. not that he would mind stopping if she wanted him to, he would just rather not. it was a terrible reality, but leah was nothing but a one-night distraction from the pain that was still going to be there when all of this was over.

word count, 1 048
listening to, "toxic valentine," all time low.
notes, wow, i really love him.