Rue // Graveyard bouquet

1

——-——-—— Chapter 1 ——-——-——
Triggers: mentioning of attempted suicide

Rain wasn't exactly unusual in Akalo, especially in July. It also wasn't exactly unusual for Noah to randomly climb through the window of Caleb's room.
They have been friends for only a year now, but have grown close enough for nightly visits like that to not be an abnormity.
Noah just stood there, in lose drenched clothes looking at Caleb with his golden colored eyes, like he had done it yesterday evening or the evening before that.

But one thing was different from the previous days, something about him was different that night and it was more than just obvious. It was the terrified look in his face.

"I stole something from my father." Noah managed to whispered, pulling a slightly wet paper folder from under his hoodie. He quickly tossed it next to Caleb, not wanting to touch it for any longer.
Caleb raised an eyebrow and just looked at his friend with a mixed expression that definitely included worry.
"What exactly is that?" He carefully asked, his soft accent immediately giving away that he definitely grew up in the south of Akalo. He knew exactly what kind of business Noah's father was involved in and because of that he was sure that he didn't want to be involved in whatever Noah had gotten himself into that night.

Caleb wasn't afraid to admit that he was absolutely terrified of Noah's entire family, he had his reasons to be and one of the many reasons was how much fear Noah's eyes held in this exact moment.

He was sure that he no longer knew more than Noah, and he wasn't exactly sure if should be relieved about that or not. He didn't knew what Noah had seen today.

Caleb sighed quietly and picket up the folder while Noah started to explain what exactly happened. His voice sounded shaky and he tried to distract himself by rummaging through Caleb's closet to find fitting clothes for himself in order to switch out his wet ones.
At least for the telling part it was quite a short and easy story; he simply fell asleep on the couch waking up perfectly in time to hear his father talking about killing some small kid with some of his men.

At first Noah had believed it was some kind of bad joke, he knew his father had something to do with drugs and other terrible stuff but he would never kill anyone. That's what his mother had always told him but his mother had also told Noah that she loved him, and Noah definitely knew that she lied about that.

During the conversation Noah realized that maybe he simply had told himself his mother wasn't lying as a form of self-protection. It was rather obvious from the beginning; he had heard shots being fired in their house before. He literally was forced to sleep with a gun under his pillow.

So, when his father left to get something from his office, Noah did the only plausible thing he could think of as being the only unnoticed person who was in the room during the conversation.
He took the folder, which was to be specific a collection of the only information that several of his father's men were able to find about the kid in the last years. He shoved it under his shirt and started to run. Out of the house, onto the street, he didn't stop running till he had reached Caleb's house.
And now he was here.

"We can simply just warn them you know... and then I will put the folder back. He would never suspect me taking it in the first place..."
Noah looked at Caleb who didn't seem to be very convinced that all of this was a good idea. But Noah felt to much empathy and Caleb kind of understood how the taller one must feel right now, so he took a deep breath and nodded.

"Warn them. That's it, we will not get involved any further alright." Caleb watched as Noah quickly agreed before taking a seat next to him on the bed. It was quite a task to open the folder without ripping the paper or leaving behind any other traces.