Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

“Adam?” says Gansey, and then he swallows a wince. He is always doing that—calling Adam, expecting Adam, saying Adam and knowing Adam will be at his elbow—and he imagines it is Adam’s least favorite thing about him. That Gansey treats him like an Encyclopedia, a squire, his triple-A car service.

Still, Adam hums proof of his attention. It makes Gansey feel at once bolstered and an unflinching desire to climb out of his skin.

“I was thinking,” says Gansey.

“What else is new.”

“Har har.” But Gansey finds himself refreshed. “I was thinking we should do something. Before the spring is gone, before summer is here.”

“You have new coordinates?” Adam says, methodically unwrapping his chicken sandwich, every movement decisive. Henry comes dancing over with two lunch trays and three chocolate milk cartons. He falls onto the bench so lightly that the table doesn't so much as shift. Henry is an expert in the dance of harmony like he’s attuned to a higher level of universal attention. The second tray is shoved at Gansey; he presses his foot onto Henry’s in thanks, even though he hasn’t the stomach for it. “Something new to look for?”

Gansey feels his jaw tighten. “No,” he says. “None of that.” Not since his second death. He has no wherewithal. Not for any of it. All the nervous energy he expended before has dissipated into a great inability to do much of anything. It is his immense fear of imminent separation driving him to action now. “I mean for some sort of vacation. A brief sojourn. A last hurrah.” He rolls the Rs because he thinks it’ll make Adam’s lips twitch into a smile; he’s rewarded with a private grin for his effort. “The whole gang. The lot of us, with nothing to do but waste time.”

“My mother has a place on the Vineyard,” Henry offers. “It’s totally haunted, but it’s also privy to the most insane view of the island possible, so it balances out.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Adam says. “A little ambience, a niggling threat of death by means of plummeting scenically to our doom.”

“Can we have a normal day for once in our lives,” Gansey says.

“It’s not that deep, Richard,” Henry says. He pats Gansey’s hand with his free one. With the other, he forklifts a curly clump of kale salad into his mouth. “It’s a cool ghost. Peaceful, comparatively. Besides, you like old stuff.” The last is said with the unintentional shudder of one who has both seen Gansey’s collection of tweed jackets and has sifted through his collection of 90s shoegaze cassettes.

“This life,” Gansey says. “This life we lead.”

“Eat your orange slices,” says Adam, mouth full. He waits until he’s swallowed until saying, “I’ll do some planning and see if I can make time around work.”

“Adam, I could kiss you,” Gansey says.

“I could, too,” says Henry.

“You won't,” says Adam.

“But I could,” Henry says, satisfied in the way of a cat. “Gansey’d like that too much, wouldn’t he?”

“Anything for Gansey, huh,” says Adam. He puckers his lips and makes an obnoxious smooching noise, which has Henry laughing, loud and light, eyes shining.

Gansey grumbles something incomprehensible and shoves an orange slice into his mouth to muffle it. He likes that it makes them smile all the more.

That, he can still do. He doubts he’ll ever be too tired for that.

“You need help with that, Maggot?”

Blue sends a withering glare Ronan’s way. Blue is more than capable of lugging all at once her beach chair, a hardtop cooler, a packed tote bag, her most auspicious patchwork denim bucket hat, a long-necked shovel, and a massive water bottle swooshing with chopped fruit. She could add to this haul if she wanted. She could drag a train with her teeth.

“This is supposed to be relaxing, you know,” Henry comments, swishing his way past them with absolutely nothing in his arms. His modus operandi seems to rely on the understanding that his own presence is all he’ll ever need to get by. “The king and his court having a jolly ‘oliday with Mary and so on and so forth.” He clicks his heels a la Dick Van Dyke. “Let someone help you.”

“You offering?” she says.

“Me?” Henry points at his own chest and gives her an incredulous look over the frames of his sunglasses. “Mi amor. How you make me laugh.” He smacks a hand atop the Pig, gives a perfectly haughty “Ha ha ha,” and slinks gracefully into the passenger’s seat without calling dibs.

“He really is a sit-com,” Adam says. Blue startles; she hadn’t heard him approach. He rolls in like a fog at witching hour, even when laden with beach gear. Brown skin and brown hair and deep sense of disquiet, perhaps he is more dust bowl than midnight fog.

“When one is in the company of Henry Cheng, one's life becomes a situation comedy. No Netflix subscription required.”

Ronan and Gansey come barreling out of the Barns last, Ronan on Gansey’s heels, Gansey laughing like a maniac while Ronan swears up a storm. The door smacks behind them. They are an excerpt from The Goonies, from The Sandlot, Stand By Me, they look wild and ecstatic while grabbing at each other, swinging each other around by the shirts, the necks, wrists and knuckles and swelling rib cages—though the later may be Blue’s alone, thick with a waterlogged sense of peace as Ronan slings Gansey over his shoulder like a fireman rather than an arsonist and lugs Gansey—breathless with laughter—to Adam and Blue’s sides.

“Don't look at me like that,” Ronan says, as if to counteract the large amount of fond he has just inspired. “Fuck off, Sarge.”

“Sally forth,” she says. “Hup-two, left right left.”

“I’d follow her,” Gansey pipes, craning to peek over Ronan’s shoulder and around his own purple-and-green patterned swim trunks.

“Fuck the army, all armies, especially the one of the United State variety,” she says.

Gansey makes a very sincere sort of face and says, “You’re right. I take it back. I would not follow you into battle because you would not lead me there. I would, however, follow you into Penn Station, which may be an even larger assertion of your character.”

Ronan smacks Gansey’s ass hard enough that Gansey squeaks. “Can we fuck off already? Where’s Noah.”

“I’m right here,” Noah says, at Blue’s other shoulder, and Blue drops half her armful of crap with the fright. “Whoops,” Noah says. He hunches to help her collect it. Every time their hands bump, she gets a thrill; warm. He’s warm. Cabeswater has always been about equals. If Gansey came back, why couldn’t Noah?

Blue grabs onto his elbow and stands in tandem with him. Together, together. That’s what this day is about. They’re alive and the world is beautiful.

The car ride is long, but doesn’t feel that way. Ronan is behind the wheel—a rare Ganseyian allowance—with the windows down and their hair all whipping. Gansey and Blue share the passenger seat. Noah, Henry, and Adam squish together in the back, bumping knees, smiling thoughtlessly while Noah jabbers. Gansey’s hand around Blue’s thigh is like the clip on a hammock’s chain; he keeps her floating, he keeps her grounded.

When they’re there, Noah goes sprinting for the bathroom. Henry gives them the grand tour of the house—a massive edifice lifted on a hearty platform to protect from storm water, surrounded by lush green trees and looking down over a shallow cliff into an ultrablue cove. The inside is white and lofty, windowed, and spotted with fine rugs and tables made entirely of glass. There are leather armchairs that crackle when sat upon, and four plush bedrooms for them to disperse between. Henry’s haunted allegations seem to be unfounded—or founded in paranoia more than anything—because Blue feels nothing. There is no soul to this place. None.

She cannot picture Henry here. Not even a little. His shoulders hover near his ears even as he explains the art or makes lewd comments about bed-sharing and the thickness of the walls.

She leaps on his back and makes him lug her all the way to the beach, accessible through a private wooden walkway, sand-littered and crackling with half-shells underfoot. The air is brisk, but no match for the toothy bright of the sun. Blue blows on Henry’s ears. He rubs his thumb along her thigh. She feels smug and regal, Cleopatra on her palanquin.

“It’s nice,” Blue says, leaning her chin on Henry’s shoulder. “Empty.”

“It's a private beach,” Henry says. He gropes backwards and scrubs his fingers through Blue's hair. “That okay?”

“It’s strange,” says Blue. “I’ve only ever been on loud beaches. Sprawling with—kids, lots of kids, big families and all that. All my aunts. Big, busy days.”

“This won’t be like that,” says Henry, wistful. “Just us.”

“That’s good too,” says Noah, squinting up into the sun like he’s forgotten it burns. He raises his hands to the light like he’s groping up handfuls of it, like sifting through the shallows for the largest shell shards. “Just us is like my favorite.”

“Mine too,” Blue says. She blows a raspberry into Henry’s cheek. He squeezes her thigh. Ahead of them, Gansey, Ronan, and Adam are yanking on each other, scuffling in the sand. It is a beautiful, resplendent day, the sort that can’t really be described, and Blue feels, perhaps for the first time since that fateful St. Mark’s, perfect peace.

It is a honey-soaked and near-stagnant afternoon. They eat sandwiches. They drink tea and bottles of bitter beer that make Blue wince. Noah builds a truly edificial sandcastle. Adam naps sprawled in the sand as if he’s perfectly comfortable with his neck bared to them.

In the thrash of ocean water, Gansey is unmade; he is spitting mouthfuls of salt and blinking swollen eyes and flipping sodden, heavy waves off his forehead. He is under so long he must be dead. He is floating on his back with his chin to the sky like a compass point, excelsior. He is dragging his arms over the choppy surface. He is grabbing handfuls of wet sand and tossing them at Ronan. He is spotting crabs and jellyfish in the crush; they are not really there, but everyone moves over just in case. His skin grows golden, more golden by the hour, and his hair lightens, streaks, an ashy brown. He freckles. Not like Ronan, not all over, but on the bridge of his high nose, at the plateaus of his cheeks. A fever you can't sweat out; grave dirt you can’t shake off.

They can’t help but observe. Ronan has this funny grin on his face, this left-eye left-lip-corner tug all dusted with wonder and something hungry like Gansey is a match he wants to put out on his tongue. Adam, always ice, is inscrutable; pursed mouth and pale brows set low over his eyes. Noah giddily grins at Gansey, running his hands through the water like a splash fight that won’t start—not until Gansey finds the grounding to realize Noah is trying to start it.

Blue—Blue’s heart skips. Safe as life. No time like the present. Man among princes. Every quip come alive. That is Gansey.

“Hey,” he says, tripping towards her, catching himself around her neck. The weight of his fall buckles her knees. They submerge together and come up together and choke together and Gansey thumbs thick wells of water off her eyes for her. He is squinting to see her; it makes her stomach roll and roll, an earnest dog. He blows a raspberry against her cheek. She squawks, but can’t push him off, not when he looks like this. “Hello, Jane. Is this an adequate way to spend your afternoon?”

“More than adequate,” she says. “You talk so funny.”

“The trick of it all,” he says with the manic air of a mad scientist, “is to be stuffed full to the brim with horse shit. Poppycock. And then to let it leak unbidden out of the mouth hole.”

“You are insane,” she says. “One cry short of Alice in Chains.”

“I don’t understand your references,” he says, “but, boy oh boy, they sound nice coming from your mouth.”

“You know how Anne of Green Gables smacks a slate over Gilbert Blythe’s head and they’re soulmates then even though they don’t get together for years because soulmates transcend time and reason?”

“That’s us?”

Blue holds her pointer finger and thumb a scant millimeter apart. “Sorta.”

“I am terribly fond of you, Blue Sargent,” Gansey says.

“You’re having fun?” she says by means of return. “Your day out is treating you well?”

“Mhm,” he says. “It’s a veritable gallery of harmonious enjoyments.”

“I am so pathetic,” Blue says. “Your funny words sure do do it for me, Richie Rich. C’mere and let me kiss you.”

He obeys, impish and merry. Sometimes he is so well-meaning, so earnest and compassionate and unsure, that she feels monstrous in comparison. For having wanted so badly to despise him. For having chosen blindness over acceptance.

But then she reminds herself it was pragmatism; Blue is nothing if not careful, methodical, with her heart. It is not a bad thing to be, even if it makes her very different from Gansey.

She pokes her fingertip into his cheek. He smiles instinctively; her finger is swallowed by his dimple. It is a good metaphor, she thinks. For them. For this. The enormous loving that is held here. That they sink into, at their own invitation.

“Do you remember,” Ronan whispers, one hand in Gansey’s hair, one in Noah’s, the latter very much asleep and the former on his way there, cheeks amber and hollow in the light off the bonfire Adam built, “what you asked me for after K’s party? The one you came to.” Gansey-on-fire.

This very un-fiery Gansey’s brow knots for a moment, processing the request, then smoothens. A smile grows parallel to it. “Yeah,” he says.

“It’s like the only thing you’ve ever asked me for,” Ronan says.

Gansey wordlessly knocks their temples together. He smells, from this close, like salt and warm sweat and a sickly coconut after-sun lotion. The hood of his sweatshirt is snarled around his throat. There is a mint leaf in his mouth, but Ronan knows it is more habit than anything; even Gansey doesn’t fear wasps at the beach, and the burning sour stomach Gansey nurses when he’s stressed is obvious from the tight-jawed frown that accompanies it. Still, Ronan moves his hand to Gansey’s far shoulder and gives him a little shake, fortifying.

“You here?” Ronan says. “Where’s your head.”

“Here,” Gansey says, quiet, almost hushed. “Here, here.”

“Mm,” Ronan says. “Alright.”

Gansey is not truthful—not like Ronan tries to be. He is like Adam: a cultivated un-person, an un-self so fluent it seems to inhabit his shape beside him, a funny patter next to his heartbeat a second too late, a second too loud. A bad double, but a whole human.

Only an hour ago, he had been flirting around the fire, grabbing them by the cheeks and kissing them like the pope, and now he’s here, under Ronan’s wing, breathing at opposite beats with Noah. Gansey extinguished. Gansey smoldering embers.

“What about you,” Gansey says, squinting up at Ronan through one eye. “Where are you.”

Ronan leans their foreheads together, then slips his palm to cup the back of Noah’s neck. “Admiring the essentials,” he says, eyes flirting from Gansey to Noah, across the fire to Adam and Blue, to Henry. Blue sits between the boys, Henry toying with her fingers, Adam poking a stick into the fire. They’re smoke-smudged in Ronan’s vision, orange-skinned like sprites.

“You’re soppy,” Gansey says.

“You’re rotten,” Ronan says without heat.

“Chalupa,” Noah mumbles in his sleep.

“Alright, you,” Ronan says, thumbing the dip of Noah’s collar. “You sleep like a creaky door.”

“You’re poetic,” Gansey says. His voice is almost lost to the wave crush.

“You’re,” Ronan says, and then he can’t think of anything good to add. “Shut it, alright?”

Gansey hums, looking up into the cosmos, an absent grin on his lips. “Alright, Lynch. Whatever it is you desire of me, as always, is yours.”

Henry believes there is a degree of truth to the sentiment of saving the best for last. Grand finale. The natural beauty of culmination—sunset, orchestral resonance, the ring of a timer. A geyser. A pearl. Custard coating the curve of a spoon.

He was and is last, when it comes to his friends. He was last to join. He was last to know them. He was last to understand them. And he is an after-dinner palate cleanser, he is limoncello, he is sorbet. He is last, and he is so good.

“Scoot, scoot,” he says, patting Blue’s butt, prompting her to move. She groans, then drags herself closer to Gansey on the bed they're sharing. Her nose squishes against the steps of his spine. He hums, sleepily inquiring, and Blue presses a clumsy open-mouthed kiss-adjacent something to his neck. Henry, feeling warm and fond in a dozen ways, slips into the space she’s spared for him—barely wide enough to fit when he’s laying on his side. Still, he tosses an arm over Blue’s waist and scritches fingers against Gansey’s waist and listens to them grunt wordless, sleep-addled good nights. Their breath rises in their ribs in neat staggered patterns. In the dark, they are vague, shadowed, a stretch of Blue’s brown skin and a peak of Gansey’s wavy hair. Through the cracked window filters a cool breeze, sour and salty. Henry feels moved and unmovable. He feels momentous.

He has had so much in his life. He has lost so much in his life. In this moment, he has. He undoubtedly has. He has, and it is akin to catching a bird in his hands. It is like a mouth full of crushed ice. The bed is warm and he is warm and the water moving, the wind in the curtains, is a lullaby. In another room, Noah and Ronan and Adam are fighting over their blankets—Henry can hear them scuffling, muttering, a thump like someone (likely Noah) has fallen to the floor. More distantly, RoboBee patrols the hallways, a determined sentinel. He has, he has, and it is good.

“I feel like something is about to go wrong,” Henry says. “It’s due, isn’t it.”

“Shh. Let something go right for once,” Blue mumbles. “One calm day.”

Henry is quiet for a long moment. “You have a point, Gimli. A point, a good point even, but I am having understandable trouble believing it properly.” He sits up. As the bed tosses, Gansey and Blue whine. “Yes. It’s hit me. An idea. A massive idea.” He rises, then tugs the comforter off the bed. Once that’s draped over his shoulder, he yanks the top sheet free. As the chilled air rolls over them, Blue and Gansey hiss and shoot closer together, shivering. “Tres dramatique,” Henry says. He then marches into the living room, where he clears the couches away, then drapes the comforter across the rug. He strategically places pillows. He pretends he does not believe that there are ghosts in this house. (childhood, a ghost. old guests, an old life. apparitions.) He’s sure they’ll have enough room.

It takes prodding, but he wrangles Ronan, Noah, and Adam from their room. He slings Gansey’s arm over his shoulders and all but drags him, Blue pattering along at his side. They collapse to the floor with more room, more air, and a hodgepodge of dragged-along blankets for good measure. Spiteful kicks are angled across the group. Asses are pinched and shoulders are pushed. Someone curses loudly. Ronan laughs a manic rush of a thing. Then they start to calm, neat and quiet.

Henry climbs in last. On his left, Blue captures his hand and drops it limply on her cheek. On the other, Noah pets his hair, smiling absently, eyes navy in the dark.

Gansey, Gansey. Gansey, next to Noah, is dead asleep. He looks soft and young, snuffling softly, hair over his eyes. His leg twitches. His boxers are hitched up. Adam idly hooks a finger in the elastic strap, then lets it snap. Gansey mumbles something unintelligible. Adam rolls his eyes.

Henry sighs, pleased. Everything is just as he likes it.