they wish they were us | conan gray

20. idiot

a/n: noah's pov narrated by me. If u r autistic or deal with sensory overload, please read with caution. also short filler chapter. 

*****

"Do you think I am an idiot?" Noah asks.

The other boy whips around like a knife as if slicing the air around him. Noah backs away a little in fear that he might get hit. It's just like how Alice shoved him off his chair.

"I wasn't-" Conan begins and Noah wonders why he even likes him. A shitbag, that's what he is.

"Save it. First you read them in my room and now you're doing- this?"

Conan's lips move around but make no coherent noise. Noah grabs his binder from his hands and clutches it to his chest. How much has he read? Is he gonna tell someone? Noah despises whatever soft corner he has for him in his heart. He is a fool for believing that Conan was different.

Dumb. Noah is so fucking dumb for trusting and believing him and Conan is so freaking shameless for going his stuff that he is not comfortable sharing with him. Or anyone in this world. This is stuff he wishes his dad would let him send for him to read someday, responses to each letter.

"I told you, the fan in your room-"

"I believed you then but I highly doubt it now-"

"Noah," he protests, "I wasn't reading them-"

That's not an explanation and he isn't falling for it. "I literally saw you reading- them!"

"The teacher-"

"I don't want to hear it," Noah cuts him off. 

"I swear No, this is-"

"Do not call me that," he snaps and the math teacher enters the classroom, immediately fired up for today's lesson. They look into each other's eyes for a second. Just as Noah's about to melt and let it go again, he snaps himself out of it. 

He finds himself another desk. One far away from the other's gaze. 

*****

The worst part about crying is that he doesn't know why. He has been sobbing into his comforter for God knows how long. It could be a minute or even hours.

Ironic he doesn't know the time because the ticking of the clock has been ringing in his ears. He wishes the clock would shut the fuck up. He wishes the whole entire world would shut up. SHUT UP!

It doesn't shut up. He can't move his hands. He is so entirely drained. Anything outside his bedroom feels daunting. He can't tell if his head is spinning or if the world is. Which one is it? Last it felt like I was so maybe this time the world is.

This is his third breakdown this week so the next should be better, shouldn't it? Noah wishes the world would follow the patterns his head made, align to his brain but the more he wished, the more foreign it became.

He is curled into a ball. Everything feels so overwhelming. Too much. Too many people staring. Too many people talking. And the smells, don't even get him started on that. His throat burns and Noah swears the only reason he breathes around them is because he doesn't want to die. In hindsight, he would be fine with that, it's just his body's reflex.

Another tear rolls down his cheek, irritating him. He hates the texture of it after they dry up. He grits his teeth and pulls the comforter over his eyes where no light can reach him. During these times, he absolutely despises the sensory input he usually likes. He bets he would sob and breakdown if he were to see the stars on Conan's ceiling he usually adores.

His mind can't even stick to his usual distractions right now. The freaking clock won't stop ticking loudly like a bitch and of course the neighbor had to mow his lawn now. It's too much. It's hurting. It's hurting. It refuses to stop. It feels like it won't. It feels like a death march except death would be a mercy. It would be silence forever. Darkness forever.

Pathetic. That is what he is. Who squirms at kitchen oil getting on his skin? What kind of a freak plays with clay at the age of sixteen? Hunter was right. Conan doesn't like him. It's a straw house, too fragile and- tick, tock, tick, tock.

Every time he thinks he's left behind the sounds, they come back overwhelmingly so. He would give anything to shut down his brain. When he had first gotten diagnosed, he had the firm belief that it would get better with time. It just stayed. Like a constant and never-ending line cutting through what could have a peaceful life.

The sounds form an odd and disturbing visual in his brain, like a blinking bulb.

The clock stops ticking after a while but that doesn't make him feel better at all.

*****

"I thought you had plans with Conan," mom says, wiping the kitchen counter in a smooth arc that makes Noah flinch. "Is it overstimulation?"

"He was reading through my unsent letters to dad," Noah states dryly. The rubber band smoothly shifting from his pinkie to thumb floods his chest with wooziness. "I left my binder next to him in class and he was flipping through it with a smile on his face. I am not talking to him."

"Noah-"

"He was reading through my letters and lied to me-"

"Okay, that is a very mean thing to do but," she says in her motherly tone, "curiosity is not the worst vice to have and friends forgive each other."

His chest sinks a little at that. Did he lash out on him? But why was Conan reading his letters? He presumes he didn't exactly say that Conan couldn't read through them. Still, he is hurt that Conan would poke his nose into something ever so personal, the place where he is most vulnerable and bizarre are his letters.

"He isn't my friend," Noah shrugs. "I have plenty of other people to talk to. I am not a recluse and I don't need people who're gonna end up ditching me anyways."

The light that passes through the kitchen curtain, filters through his mother's hair and the blinking bulb in Noah's head is turned on again. He averts his head and drops it back to the floor, observing the flecks of Mica on the tiles and imagining a giant chessboard. He'd love to play human sized chess someday or maybe he just wants his whole palm clutch the smooth wood of a chess piece.

"He isn't gonna ditch you, No-chan," his mom sighs. "And he's your first friend you didn't make on the internet."

"I fail to understand how him being an IRL friend gives him more credit."

"Of course, you don't," she says in exasperation. "You still wanna get your piercings?"

"Some other day where I won't run into him but I really wanted to get them today. I could use a clean needle and do it myself, like how you got your piercings as a kid. Must be fun."

"Right," his mom exhales, leaning against the counter. He hopes it doesn't break or fall off. The house is just so old. "If you get an infection, I won't drive you to the doctor's. Just a warning."

"Is that a yes?"

"No!"

"That's my name, yes," Noah blinks at her sudden outburst. She shouts very rarely, it's as though she wasn't born with those vocal cords. "Oh! Like not No as No-chan but No as in don't do it. I get it."

"Did you text him to cancel your plans?" she asks and Noah's ears ring with the sound of a car's engine pulling in their driveway. His chest can feel it's vibrations. Shelly? "I think he's here."