Chapter Text
The sun is still rising as Gansey turns his Camaro into the long, winding driveway of the Barns. He stops and grabs the mail from the day before and the newspapers that had been thrown beside the mailbox that morning. The newspapers he’d subscribed to and that Adam and Ronan still receive and read while he’s away. He drops what he’s retrieved onto the passenger seat through the open window and then, tucked back into the driver’s seat, Gansey continues on his way up the drive. It dawns on him that this is nearly ten years to the day that he stumbled onto this farm and into Adam and Ronan’s lives.
A decade that had started with a downtrodden Gansey, lost and adrift following his separation from Blue, wandering far afield from his home in Georgetown looking for something to give him purpose again, something to give him fulfillment, something so he wouldn’t be trapped with his own thoughts. Then he’d found the Barns and things had begun to, ever so slowly, look up for Gansey. The ache of missing Blue, of being alone as he approached middle age, had gradually subsided as he spent more and more time with Adam and Ronan. Then, halfway through a decade that had started as one of the worst in Gansey’s life, everything took a complete one-eighty when he’d finally stirred up the gumption to act on something he had been feeling for quite a long while.
Since that night he’d kissed Adam and Ronan in their kitchen, everything has been coming up roses for Richard Campbell Gansey III. He has a new lease on life, a new home in the Barns, in Ronan, in Adam. Every time he comes back to the Barns, it gets harder and harder to leave. This place and these people have so consumed his heart that a day doesn’t go by Gansey doesn’t think of them. Even if he’s on an adventure of his own that has him thoroughly entranced, he thinks of Adam and Ronan and the Barns. They’re all such a large part of Gansey’s life that he feels like part of himself has been left behind each time he goes.
There’s a familiar swoop in Gansey’s stomach as the Camaro passes out of the tunnel of trees that surrounds the first part of the driveway. Like always, when he first sees the farm, the spread of fields, the house, every shred of anxiety, every miniscule bit of timidity he still harbors that he won’t be welcome this time, falls away and is replaced with an overwhelming sense of calm.
A tractor in one of the fields lining the driveway kicks up dust and Gansey slows and stops, excited to come upon Ronan out working in the early morning. Climbing out of the car, Gansey walks towards the field with pep in his step, but he starts to slow as the tractor makes a turn at the end of the field and starts coming back in Gansey’s direction. Because it’s not Ronan in the seat, imposing and tall and fair and dark at the same time. It’s a young woman with short white blonde hair atop the tractor, wearing far brighter colors than anything Ronan would ever be caught in. When she notices Gansey, the girl changes gears to slow the machinery, idling about thirty feet from Gansey.
“This is private property,” she calls out over the mixed thrum of the engines of both the tractor and the Camaro.
Gansey has to laugh at how this phrase is the start and the end of his ten years of coming to the Barns. He ambles closer to the tractor so he doesn’t have to shout quite so loud, “I know. I’m Gansey. I’m a-- friend of Ronan and Adam.”
The young woman assesses him for a moment before something seems to come together for her. She looks at the Camaro, then back at Gansey, finally speaking. “They said you’d have an ugly car.”
Gansey laughs again, because those words would have never left Adam’s mouth in regards to Gansey’s car. “Ronan said that.”
The girl just makes a non-committal noise. “They’re both up at the house.”
Gansey thanks her and returns to the Camaro, taking the rest of the drive slowly to appreciate the view. He parks among the cluster of vehicles in the parking area, noting the addition of a beat up hatchback he assumes is the girl’s. No one comes out to greet him, which Gansey thinks is off, because Adam and Ronan usually hear Gansey’s approach in the Camaro and are waiting for him on the front steps, if not walking down the driveway to meet him.
Leaving his bags in the car, Gansey walks up the porch and suppresses the urge to knock that always rises within him, even though he hasn’t knocked in years and has a key of his own. He lets himself in through the screen door, and as it clatters shut behind him, he hears Adam call out from the kitchen, “What’s up, Opal?”
“While that’s a lovely name, I’m certainly not Opal,” Gansey replies and Adam almost immediately pokes his head out of the kitchen.
“Gans. Jesus, I didn’t even hear you pull up.” Adam meets Gansey halfway down the hall and then they’re in each others’ arms. Adam, usually a hard hugger, clings to Gansey like a life raft. “I thought you’d be showing up soon.”
“Tarot? I thought you didn’t deal in specifics.” Gansey takes a step back and leaves his hands on Adam’s shoulders. Gansey’s smiling and Adam is, too, but it’s not the open and amiable one Gansey’s used to seeing when he comes back.
“Not this time.” Adam shakes his head. “Just got your postcard from Papua New Guinea and you wrote you were wrapping things up, so it was only a matter of time before you came home.”
The way Adam’s words sound rings true with Gansey, that the Barns is his home, more so than Washington, D.C. now. Gansey has always understood that home doesn’t always need to be a physical place. And the Barns, while Gansey does consider the house his home, is more of a home because of the two men that live here. After all his years of wandering, even after all his time with Blue, now, at the end of the day, this is where Gansey wants to be more than any place else. Ronan and Adam are his home. He’s home whenever they’re all together.
“You hired someone?” Gansey nods over his shoulder to the trail of dust from the tractor that can be seen through the open front door.
Adam shrugs, glancing out to the fields before looking back at Gansey. “That’s just Opal. Her parents own the apiary that sells honey at the farmers’ market. We needed an extra set of hands for a bit and her parents wanted to keep her busy.”
That gives Gansey a peculiar feeling in his gut. Between the two of them, Adam and Ronan have always been fully capable of handling the operations of the farm. They were by no means young anymore, but they were both still physically fit, certainly in better shape than Gansey, who, though an adept hiker, also indulged in local cuisine when he traveled. So if Adam and Ronan needed help at the Barns-- “What happened?”
Adam has a pained look on his face, like he knows this was inevitable but that he wanted to put it off as long as possible. He finally says, “Ronan had a heart attack,” and registers the utter dismay on Gansey’s face, because he immediately follows up with, “He’s fine, Gans. I promise. He’s fine. He just has to take it easy for a little while, so we hired Opal to help a few days a week.”
Gansey feels like his heart has sunk out of his chest, through the floorboards, and is barreling towards the core of the Earth. “When?”
“Just under a month ago.”
Just under a month ago, Gansey was in Wañelek in the highlands of Papua New Guinea without access to communication of any kind as he ventured through some of the earliest agricultural sites on the planet. And Adam and Ronan had been here, together but alone, dealing with something that could have ended tragically, and they wouldn’t have been able to get in touch with Gansey, even if they’d tried. Ronan could have been lost forever and Gansey wouldn’t have known for weeks. “You could have called me. You should have called me. I would have gotten the next plane back as soon as I got a message.”
“Which is why I didn’t want him to call you.”
Gansey wheels around as Ronan speaks from behind him. Ronan looks healthy, and far less haggard than Adam does, and Ronan’s the one who had a heart attack. Swiftly closing the gap between them, Gansey pulls him into a fierce hug. “Jesus, Ronan.”
“I really am fine.” Ronan wraps his arms around Gansey and hugs him in return. “Just going to have to start acting my age, which fucking stinks.”
Pulling back, Gansey starts patting all over Ronan’s chest, arms, and shoulders as if assessing for damage. “What happened? You’re really alright? Did you need surgery? Can it happen again? Shouldn’t you be lying down or something? Why are you up and about? You need rest.”
Ronan laughs and chooses which question to address first. “I did have surgery. They put in a stent. You can barely see where they put the cardiac catheter in.” Ronan holds out his right arm, still a bit mottled yellow with bruising, and he points out the merest sign of an incision near the inside of his elbow. “I don’t even get a kick ass scar.”
“We’ll take the small scar over a kick ass one anyday,” Adam states blandly, but then he’s at Ronan’s side, reaching up and stroking his fingers through Ronan’s hair. “He should be resting, but you try telling him what to do. It usually doesn’t turn out well.”
“I listen,” Ronan replies obstinately. “Most of the time.”
Gansey laughs and folds them both into his arms, and they stay like that in the hall for a good long while.
Once Ronan is situated in the sitting room again with a stack of photos and Gansey's journal from his trip, Gansey follows Adam into the kitchen where Adam resumes putting together a late breakfast. Gansey watches as Adam prepares the French press, then he steps in to help, slotting bread into the toaster as Adam heats up a pan for eggs. When everything's going, Gansey stands beside Adam, resting his hand gently at the other man's elbow. “Are you alright?”
Adam looks almost surprised, like no one’s asked him that in quite some time, but he nods. “I am. Thank you. I know it could have been worse, but it still scared the piss out of me.”
“I can’t imagine,” Gansey replies softly as they lean against the counter in the kitchen, side by side. "I'm sorry I wasn't here."
"Your life doesn't revolve around us, Gans. You've got your own plans. Your own things to do.” Adam turns towards him and rests his hand on the side of Gansey’s neck, gently stroking his thumb over Gansey’s skin. “We never want to get in the way of that. You know that. We didn’t want you to drop everything and come back. We didn’t want to be the boys that cried wolf over this, have you come home where you didn’t really need to.”
Gansey’s plaintive in his response. “Let me help you with him, then.”
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, offering that.” But Adam’s smiling. “He’ll have two people waiting on him hand and foot. He’s already insufferable enough.”
“It’s a challenge I’ll willingly accept.”
Adam leans in and kisses his cheek lightly, and that’s all the acceptance Gansey needs. While Adam still handles the administering of Ronan’s new medication routine and providing guidance to Opal on the operations of the farm, Gansey jumps to help with everything else, cooking, cleaning, caring for the dogs, and other general chores. When it comes to Ronan, Gansey can’t help hovering, and Ronan doesn’t seem to mind because it gives Adam a break. It’s all almost normal, except walks are shorter, meals become healthier, and bedroom activities err towards the less strenuous when Ronan’s in the mood.
Throughout everything, all Gansey can think about is how close he came to losing one of the great loves of his life, and he can’t fathom his life without Ronan. He can’t fathom coming back to the Barns to only Adam, just like he can’t fathom coming back to the Barns to only Ronan. They’re so intrinsically linked, to each other and to the Barns, that Gansey can’t imagine things without either of them. Through quiet mornings, quieter afternoons, and often the quietest of evenings, Gansey thinks of finally doing something permanent. Over the month he stays at the Barns, he thinks of finally settling down, of finally growing roots, of not wandering so much, or if he does wander, wandering with Adam and Ronan. Gansey doesn’t want to leave them behind anymore.
When he finally does go back to Washington, D.C., for a few days to just check in, Gansey reaches peak loneliness, and he’s only been away from Ronan and Adam for less than seventy-two hours. It’s then that he makes up his mind. This multi-million dollar home in Georgetown is too vast for him, too empty of the things he looks for in life now. It had once been a home, full of love and life and good times, but now all those things reside two hours to the southwest at a farm just outside of Singer’s Falls.
So Gansey starts packing everything he thinks he’ll need for a very, very extended stay at the Barns. He fills boxes with books, with clothes, with gadgets, piling everything into the back of a Uhaul truck. The Camaro is loaded onto a trailer behind the truck, and not two weeks after he arrived in Georgetown, Gansey travels back across the Potomac, back across Virginia, back towards home. He has enough grace to call Helen and his parents as he’s passing Front Royal, letting them know of his intentions to leave Washington behind for the foreseeable future.
The drive to the Barns is muscle memory now. Even when he had arrived on foot, there was always a familiar draw that pointed Gansey in the right direction to get him where he was going. But now, it’s so easy as Gansey gets off at the exit for Henrietta and then takes to winding mountain roads to get him to Singer’s Falls. He passes through the barely-there town and tracks west through roads that pass first through farmland and then through woods, slowing as he approaches the familiar break in the trees that marks the driveway to the Barns.
Approaching the farmhouse seems to take forever. Gansey almost feels time slow as he passes the trees tunneling the driveway, then passes the only two fields left planted that border the dirt track nearly all the way to the house. When he stops in the parking area, he maneuvers the truck and trailer into a position that won’t block in the other cars, and when Gansey looks to the front porch, Adam and Ronan are already outside waiting.
Climbing from the cab of the truck, Gansey approaches the porch, stating simply, “I’m back.”
Ronan eyes the Uhaul. “For good, looks like.”
And then Gansey begins to think he's made a horrible mistake. He had been so caught up in what he wanted, coming here and making everything permanent, that he hadn't really given thought to whether Adam and Ronan would want this, too. He had made assumptions, terribly wrong assumptions it looks like. “It was foolish of me. I should have asked. I’m taking advantage of your hospitality by thinking--”
“You’re not, Gans.” The smile on Adam's face is broader and warmer than any smile Gansey has ever seen on him before and Gansey's heart skips a beat. “I'm just wondering what took you so long.”
The laughter that rises out of Gansey is the most joyous sound he’s ever made. “But you’ve never said anything.”
Ronan shakes his head. “We wanted it to be on your terms. We never would have asked you to stay.”
And Gansey’s raw affection for these two men is boundless. Every time Adam and Ronan had said they didn’t want to hold Gansey back, to keep him from his adventures and wanderings while he found a way back to himself, they had wholeheartedly meant it. Gansey has always known that, but now he realizes that he’s the guiding star of their relationship, that he always has been. They have both allowed him space to make his own choices and have never tried to bend him one way or another. Adam and Ronan had let him find them and have let him come back to them over and over and over. And while Gansey had always thought Ronan would follow Adam to the ends of the Earth, it’s become clear that Adam and Ronan would be the ones following him.
“I love you.” It’s the first time any of them has ever said this aloud to one another, but Gansey can’t hold it back anymore as he climbs the porch to stand in front of Adam and Ronan. “I love you both so incredibly much.”
Ronan wears the smuggest expression possible while maintaining a smirk. “We know.”
“Ronan.” Adam elbows Ronan, but then he’s engulfing Gansey in his arms, speaking close to Gansey’s ear. “I love you.”
And, not to be left out, Ronan wraps his arms around both Adam and Gansey before echoing Adam’s sentiments in Gansey’s other ear. Putting his own arms around Ronan and Adam, Gansey closes his eyes and basks in all of these wonderful feelings for what feels like ages, but is probably only a few moments, until it’s too much and he needs to kiss one of them or both of them. It’s Ronan first, that Gansey presses against one of the support beams of the porch, then he pulls Adam to him, and then they’re moving into the house as a six-legged, entangled mess of men, only making it as far as the sitting room before clothes start being shed.
Later, Gansey lies with his legs draped over an arm of the couch as his head rests on Adam’s thigh, his eyes closed. Ronan is in a mirroring position on the other side of Adam, and Adam’s long fingers trace Gansey’s brow while his other hand strokes Ronan’s hair. They’re all sated into quietness and stillness, Adam’s hands their only movement, until Ronan breaks the silence. “Is it because of what happened to me?”
Gansey lets this settle in for a few moments before he responds. “Partially. I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to either one of you while I’m not here. I don’t want you to have to go through that alone again.”
“We’re not alone, Gans,” Adam says quietly, and when Gansey opens his eyes, he looks up to meet Adam’s.
“You are. You’re alone together,” Gansey responds. “You always have been. When things have been bad, you’ve only ever had one another. At Aglionby, everyone was absolutely awful to the two of you and you just bore it together. How many times were you tripped? Or ignored? Or had lunch trays of food dumped over you?”
Ronan pushes himself up and looks across Adam at Gansey. “You remember that?”
Sitting up, Gansey turns to face both of them. “I do. I know it’s part of why you kept to yourselves all those years. Because people are horrible. And I don’t need to tell you how people are around here because you’re aware. How many years at the farmers’ market did you have to pretend you weren’t in a relationship? How could you do anything, go anywhere, around here together? No one has ever been there for you when you needed it. I wasn’t here for you when you both needed me. And I can’t have that happen again. You both mean far too much to me for something like that to happen again and have to bear it together without me being here. And don’t think that I’m doing it out of a sense of obligation, because I know that’s what you’re about to say.” Gansey gives Adam a pointed look. “I’m doing this because I want to. Because I love you. Because you’re my home.”
By the end of this, both Adam and Ronan are staring at him. Adam is misty-eyed, like Gansey, and Ronan’s bright blue eyes are brimming with tears. No one says anything for a minute or two until Adam whispers, “The Four of Wands. You did the work.”
Ronan presses the heels of his hands into his eyes in an act to make it look like he hadn’t almost been crying, and when he drops his hands, he looks at Gansey and Adam with furrowed eyebrows. “Wait, that reading from eight years ago? Christ, Gans, you took your time.”
Laughing, Gansey shifts to take one of Ronan’s hands and one of Adam’s hands. “I always take the guidance I get from tarot readings. Whether I act on that guidance in a timely fashion is another thing entirely.”
Adam reaches for Ronan’s free hand and they sit that way, interconnected on the sofa, until the shadows in the sitting room start getting long with the setting sun. Ronan gets up briefly to turn on a light, but then he returns to Adam’s side and picks up Adam’s and Gansey’s hands again. It’s only when it’s truly dark outside that anyone makes an attempt to break the quiet calm that has blanketed the sitting room all afternoon when Gansey eventually asks, “So, what next?”
Adam presses his lips to Gansey’s forehead and then Ronan’s before standing up. “I’ll get my deck.”