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Adam was used to Fox Way being an ever-revolving whirlwind of aunts, cousins, and various pets that shouldn’t be. But this… whatever this gathering was supposed to be, was just excessive.
“Fuck me,” Ronan hissed, jamming his hands into his jacket pockets. It was already unbuttoned and disheveled, a scotch stain at the corner of his lapel. “I’m gonna kill that little vole.”
Adam scratched at the side of his neck, skin crawling under some invisible presence. It’d been bothering him for the last hour. Probably allergic to rubbing elbows with all of Gansey Senior’s guests.
“Don’t start a fight, please,” Gansey begged.
“Yeah,” Adam added, “Calla will break you in half.”
“Like to see her try,” Ronan said. And knowing Ronan, he’d probably prefer that to their halting progress through cackling laughter, sticky drinks being jostled, and a thousand homemade shawls covered in a thousand different perfumes.
“Blue!” Gansey cried in delight.
Adam couldn’t see her yet, but that was normal. He’d find her eventually. They weaved through elbows and clouds of hair, and found themselves in the big kitchen filled with crock-pots and trays and crystal bowls of various chilled and steaming liquids. Some of them somehow both.
“There’s the riffraff,” said a throaty voice.
Orla: curls like a halo and dripping in metallic gold fabrics, so much bronzed skin out and criss-crossed in endless looping chains of jewelry. He swallowed, eyes flickering down and then back up faster. Scratched at his neck.
He was sure the gold meant something, but he wasn’t inclined to find out.
“Hello Orla, happy holidays,” Gansey said, hand out for a shake.
Orla simply gripped the tips of his fingers, smiling when he took the hint and kissed the back of her hand. “A Happy Yule to you. And you, pet.”
Ronan bared his teeth.
Adam pushed them both past her, but was stopped himself with a long-nailed finger tracing down his neck to his shoulder.
“Hmm,” she said.
He batted her hand away, shoulder jacking up. Scratched at the tickle she’d left.
“You’re late,” Blue said.
“The silent auction ran long,” Gansey said. “Forgive me?”
“Never.” She still handed him a cup of something steaming. Glanced at his side, face scrunching in horror. “What’s that.”
“Presents.” Gansey brightened, lifting the bag bulging with soft wrapped packages, all mostly the same shape. Gansey had been awfully pleased with himself—and uncharacteristically tight lipped—about it for days.
“I don’t want your charity. Take it back to Tiffany’s.”
“It’s not from Tiffany’s. That’s jewelry, nothing would be in a package this large. Well, unless you were Orla, I suppose. I’m sure she could find—”
Blue huffed a laugh, flicking his nose. “I know what Tiffany’s is.”
“Please don’t be mad,” Gansey begged, already desperately out of his depth.
Adam smiled, relaxing some. There were still too many people and too many twinkling lights, but his friends made their own bubble, and he breathed a little easier to melt into the crowds. And the banter was normal; softer than whatever Ronan always did in the BMW after a Gansey Event, knuckles white on the steering wheel and Gansey disapproving in the passenger seat. Even if they weren’t fighting, it was an uncomfortable familiarness to sit in the back under the passing lights, both seventeen and seven at once, the same dreadful anticipation curdling in his throat.
“Can I have some?”
Adam jumped, torn from his thoughts by both the voice and the cold hand to his wrist. Noah, whole and bright, and staring beseeching at the napkin-wrapped mini pie of some sort in his hand. He didn’t remember picking it up; didn’t remember being handed it either. That was the magic of Fox Way, hundreds of women like generators, and a house humming heavy with domestic energy that tugged his mind into complacency.
He took a bite of the pie.
“It’s spiced fruit and nuts,” Adam told him. Admittedly, very good. He wondered who had made it. “You can’t eat.”
Noah pouted, looking forlorn between him and pie. And then leaned in to press their lips together.
A tongue, decidedly tangible and cold, swiped into his mouth and muffled his embarrassing noise of surprise.
“The fuck?” Ronan snapped.
Dazed, Adam could only kiss back, something in his tired brain shorting and misfiring and only responding to warmth, to tongue, to want.
“Oh,” Noah sighed, pulling back and licking his lips, watching Adam’s with pupils too dark and wide. “Oh, that’s delicious, you’re right.”
“Huh?” Adam said, with all of his 4.0 grades.
“I’m getting better at borrowing energy,” Noah said, still staring at Adam’s mouth. “Borrowing senses from living.”
Adam’s heart tripped and ratcheted faster, feeling cornered and with it that inescapable hunger he tried to shove back down with the old and calloused grief at Noah’s fate.
“He’s getting very good at it,” Blue said proudly, but even she was staring at Adam’s mouth. Or maybe something below it. “We’ve been practicing.”
Gansey whined—terribly betrayed and pathetic about it—and was ignored.
“Keep it in your pants, Casper,” Ronan snapped, pushing at Noah. Brightened when he actually could, and did it again.
“I can’t even take off my pants,” Noah argued.
“Boo-hoo.”
“You’re all so dumb,” Blue said, rolling her eyes. “C’mon.”
“Where?” Gansey predictably asked, but followed her all the same. And the rest of them followed as they always did.
But Adam couldn’t stop thinking about the fuzzy and cool press of ghostly lips. Noah, corporeal and ephemeral at once. Boy and not. Both of them wanting, for very different things that converged at just the right point.
Blushing furiously and furious at himself for blushing at all, Adam slid away and slipped through people until he was well and truly lost in the house, which meant he found Persephone just fine.
“Hi,” he said, slumping into the fraying armchair beside hers. The round, wobbly telephone table was covered in cards, naturally, and the sight was enough to calm his nerves.
He reached for one, and blinked when Persephone’s hands moved and the cards seemed to slither away from him.
She began to shuffle, hands a mesmerizing smear of color.
“Anything for me?”
“I’m not Santa,” she said breezily. “I believe your king has a present. And the rest of them, of sorts. Gifts, boons, blessings, however you feel about it.”
Adam squirmed, but reached for a card anyway, managing to sneak one from her despite her best efforts.
“It’s… It’s blank.” He showed it to her. Tried to give it back, tried to pull again, but she slapped his hand with the fan of cards.
He’d never pulled a blank card before. Didn’t even know that was possible. That decks came with them.
“It’s yours. Keep it. You are making your own future tonight.”
He flushed again, grimacing automatically. She sounded like Orla, ugh.
“Thanks, I guess,” he mumbled. “The hell am I gonna do with this?”
“That is your problem, not mine,” Persephone said, winking at him.
He inclined his head, closing his eyes for a blissful moment, and then hauled himself up with a groan. Maybe he could beg off early and get some sleep.
He slid the card into his back pocket, and scratched at the itching side of his neck again. His skin was dry and flaky, detritus building under his short nails. No wonder it itched. He’d have to find that lotion Ronan gave him.
“Adam!”
Adam wrestled back the sigh, wrestled up a careful smile, and turned in time for Maura’s hands to his shoulders to pull him in for a kiss to both cheeks.
Beside her Calla narrowed her eyes. It was at odds with her sage green sweater that was hideously drenched in tinsel.
“Hullo, M’s Sargent,” he said. “Have you seen Blue and them?”
“Would’ve thought you’d know best,” Maura said, “merged skin and hands in pockets and the like.”
“And that disgraceful collage of hickies on you,” Calla said, pointing at Adam’s neck.
He slapped a hand over the spot, alarmed and confused—
—before remembering he hadn’t been necking with anyone. (Thought of Noah in a flash, thought of the sweep of Blue’s hair against ear, thought of Gansey’s bright eyes beseeching, thought of Ronan—)
“It’s—it’s not a—not that,” he said. He didn’t remove his hand. Hitched one shoulder up, pressing tight when it itched fiercer and he had no idea how it looked now.
“No?” Calla said. She stepped forward to pry his fingers away easily. “Hmm,” she said, identical to how Orla had.
“A rash then? You really should let me put something on it,” Maura said. “I’m sure we’ve got something. And if not I’ll whip something up.”
“Think it’s more than that,” Calla said. “Looks like flora.”
“What?” Adam said, clamping a hand back over it. He felt Cabeswater enough. He didn’t need to… become it, or something.
Maura clucked her tongue. “Adam, you should’ve told me. I have plenty of experience in boys-who-are-trees. Famously.”
“Tragically,” Calla said.
“I’m not,” Adam said, strained. “It’s. Something else.” Twisted to rub his ear with his shoulder, skin crawling with the itch, wanting to scratch so bad it was an animal thing.
Acknowledging it—learning what it might be—only made it worse, the burn persistent and pervasive.
Vein-thin branches pressed against his hand, tiny leaves unfurling and stretching as soft as feathers, pushing against his fingers, wanting out.
He tasted copper on the back of his tongue, mineral rich soil, and shivered at the tickle of blood around split skin.
“Begging to be kissed, then,” Calla said, scathingly. “Subtle, you are not.”
Adam didn’t know what that meant, and his pulse was too erratic for him to focus on trying to untangle it.
“There you are—what—”
Adam turned to Blue before he thought better of it, knowing his eyes were wild and wide, knowing he probably looked a nightmarish mess.
She stepped closer, no regard to his state, no fear or disgust in her deep eyes. “Is that… mistletoe?” Up came the curious fingers and Adam flinched badly.
“It’s nothing,” he said. “I’m fine. Go back to Gansey, I’ll meet you.”
Had to figure this out first. Had to take a trowel to his neck and dig out his damn wanting by the roots before it overtook him entirely.
Blue, who’d never in her life done what she was told, crowded in and kissed him hard. Took charge of it immediately, and Adam—panicked and traumatized—folded under the familiar press of it without thought. It was just like before, and even if he knew nothing else, he knew that Blue still kissed the same and she smelled like dusty potpourri and she still lead with her tongue as if today was going to be her very last kiss.
It was good, still.
And then she was pulling away, peering at him and his hand, nose wrinkled under freckles in thought. “Hmm.”
Like it was merely a blip to her, while he was panting and having a hard time remembering how to breathe and open his eyes and other useless human needs.
“Huh?” he said.
Blue, her cheeks only a little pink, shrugged. “I thought maybe that would make it go away. Sorry, I tried.”
“It’s fine, thank you,” Adam said weakly, instead of trip over himself reassuring her that she need never be sorry for anything again if she’d kiss him again like that.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said, casual as if it were a missed flashcard, taking his hand (sweaty) in hers tightly (small and sure), and tugged. “Maybe if you’d followed in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened.”
“You’re not that powerful,” Adam grumbled, but let himself be led without a fight.
“Not powerful at all.”
“Too powerful for your own good,” Adam argued immediately, jumping to the other side of the argument. “You would’ve just made it happen faster.”
She threw a vicious look over her shoulder at him. “Oh? Is that right?”
“Yes,” Adam lied. Thought of her amplification. Thought of her lips firm against his. “No,” he lied.
“Hmm,” she said.
He scowled at her. What an annoying family.
Blue led him through three dining rooms, one parlor room full of tasseled everything, up the stairs, down two halls, and into a library that was half space for a giant loom, thousands of colored threads intertwined taut and making the idea of a picture.
Adam didn’t have time to examine it, didn’t have enough knowledge of the craft to even begin understanding what it was. The Monmouth Trio were waiting for him as they always were: Ronan a sharp tangle on a chair with his heel propped up, Gansey gesturing fast with his hands as he spoke faster, and Noah with a vaguely confused and distracted expression on his face as he looked elsewhere entirely.
It filled his chest with warmth like spilling sunshine on brick walls. It choked him. He wanted it every day.
“Adam,” Gansey said in delight, breathy as he always was at the end of a tangent.
“The fuck happened to you,” Ronan demanded.
Adam remembered all at once his ailment and slapped a hand over his neck. Glared. “Shut the fuck up.”
Ronan looked like the very sight of Adam was distasteful.
The mistletoe grew a little more, snaking between his knuckles.
“It’s just a weird blip,” Blue said, rejoining them. “We still don’t know the extent of Adam’s bargain with magic, I’m sure it’ll go away.”
“When Cabeswater gets what it wants,” Adam said. Hoping.
“When Adam gets what he wants,” Noah said, staring at him, at the mistletoe growing from the arch of his neck; staring through him at something only he would ever see and never took the time to explain.
“It’s nothing,” Adam said. “Can we just… just stay here for a while? It’ll go away.” He sat on the floor by the ornate fireplace, warmed immediately, and less surprised than he should be that Noah slid right off the ottoman onto the floor into his space, stealing both his own warmth and everything the fire was putting off.
“We can stay,” Gansey assured him, adjusting his glasses. “Better because now I can give you your presents.”
“Do we have to?” Blue asked.
Noah immediately held his hands out, near elbowing Adam in the chin.
Gansey gleefully passed out packages, cheeks rosy with the fire and excitement. “Nothing big, I promise, but it’s Christmas—”
“Yule’s first,” Blue said.
“Exactly right, Jane, it’s Yule, and I couldn’t help myself.”
“You never can,” Adam said.
Ronan was already tearing into the gold paper before he could convince himself to even slip a fingernail under a loose edge.
The paper fell away easily, and Adam’s calloused fingers ghosted and caught on the luxuriously fine satin. It was too nice for him. The rich, deep emerald green like moss under afternoon light, like stones deep in Cabeswater pools, like the breezy fields of grass he sometimes dreamed about.
And there, on the lapel and sleeve cuffs were little gold-embroidered vines. Small and inconsequential, but for him. Entirely for him.
“Gans…”
“They’re hideous,” Blue said right over him, holding up her own satin pajama top. Slightly tailored, sure, but old fashioned and several years out of trend, matching his. Except royal blue, her embroidered touches small enough he couldn’t see just then.
“I hate it,” Blue continued, but the corner of her mouth was tight and twisted against wicked delight.
“I knew you would,” Gansey said, enamored as he generally was.
“You expect me to wear these? Unbelievable—”
“Matching jammies, wow,” Noah said, laughing to the point of falling in a heap into Adam’s lap.
“You bought a fucking ghost fucking pajamas,” Ronan said. “Idiot.” It sounded a lot like affection anyway.
“—You’re telling me Ronan’s gonna accept these with grace and wear ‘em?” Blue continued.
Ronan sneered at her, which meant that he would.
“They’re nice,” Adam admitted, quiet, near choking on it. Even worse, burning in inadequacy, the mulled cider crawling acidic up his throat, “I… have nothing this nice for you.”
Gansey said nothing.
When Adam swallowed and chanced a glance up—fingers tight in the satin set—Gansey was already looking back. Open, wanting, eyes blown dark.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Gansey said.
The room was very quiet, save for the crackle of logs in the hearth.
Gansey swallowed, wetting his lips, looking to his eyes and then his mouth and then… lower.
The mistletoe twitched and grew up the side of Adam’s neck. A leaf tickled his ear.
“You wouldn’t?”
Gansey shook his head, sliding to the floor in front of him.
Adam forgot about Noah pressed close, he forgot about Ronan and Blue throwing wrapping bits at each other, forgot about everything except the garish gift in his lap and the garish Gansey before him—Gansey who had everything and Adam routinely worried himself sick over what he could offer someone like him.
But just then Gansey was looking at him with a hunger he’d seen in the mirror a thousand times.
Adam… did have something Gansey might want, and couldn’t buy. Couldn’t buy he thought viciously, as he leaned in over both their laps to slide a hand into Gansey’s hair and pull him in for a searing kiss. Kissed him fierce and fast before he could think better of it, dragging Gansey along exactly how he’d imagined a dozen times by then.
Gansey tasted like mint and scotch and desire as heady as any drink he’d ever had.
Gansey made a soft and weak sound. Satisfaction and greed surged in Adam, drunk on the satisfaction of finally. The power in it was dizzying.
Someone swore.
Someone choked on nothing.
Gansey exhaled shuddering and sweet through his nose.
Noah’s cold hand landed on Adam’s knee and pressed up and in, shivering and squirming in between them like a winter creature hell-bent on stealing warmth.
And he could, in a house made of magic and full of magical beings: stole the warmth and the life from Adam until his hand had more weight and he pushed in to steal Gansey’s mouth from him.
Adam was left gasping and disoriented. His eyes almost crossed watching snow-white hair against warm chestnut, Noah’s cheeks turning rosy as he kissed the color out of Gansey—every seasonal winter card he’d ever seen in department stores.
“Huh?” he managed, like the kiss-drunk idiot he was. His lips were chapped, and he held a hand up to them, brushing the mistletoe growing ever wider, pulling against his split skin.
“Mistletoe,” Blue said. “Tradition. I guess?”
“Mint!” Noah said in a gasp of delight, pulling back enough to smile glittering at them both. And then directly at Blue, “He really does taste like it. I thought that was just a trashy romance novel thing.”
Blue looked between Noah and Gansey, something unfathomable in her dark eyes.
Ronan said nothing. Adam didn’t look, but he could feel the weight of his stare. At him. At them. At Noah nearly on top of him to reach Gansey.
“Oh,” Gansey said, adjusting his glasses and touching his own lips briefly and then clasping his hands in his lap in his sweater sleeves, for once lost for words.
“Nerd,” Blue said, oddly breathy. Like she was trying to laugh but it wasn’t the sound she maybe was going for.
Adam reached up and gingerly grabbed one of the slight branches, tugging—and winced at the white-hot lance of pain.
“Don’t pull!” Blue chastised. She crawled on her knees to slap his hands away, gently smoothing the leaves and firm berries back into place. “Be careful, idiot. That’s… not just mistletoe, it’s you. Be careful with yourself.”
Adam, stupidly, flushed as he pulled out of her hands.
“But it’s stupid,” he mumbled, brushing the leaves back again. “I don’t even know why it’s growing.”
“Don’t you?” Noah asked.
Ronan stood abruptly and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
Blue snorted, leaning back against the ottoman. “What’s his problem?”
Adam was on his feet before he consciously thought to do so. Rubbed at the sore skin around his mistletoe and followed quickly, no thought but the gut-instinct urging him fast.
The halls seemed to have rearranged himself, music floating from another floor, but there was something tied around his ribs that pulled him where he needed to go.
That was the back yard, apparently.
He stood on the threshold of the back door, gripping the trim tightly to keep from throwing himself down the steps. But Ronan had stopped at the bottom of the stairs, head tipped back and looking up at something.
Adam followed his gaze. Stars, brighter than usual. But just stars.
“Hey,” he said, softly.
Ronan’s shoulders hitched up. Shoved his hands in his front pocket. It was cold out, but he didn’t seem to notice even though his breath came out in frosty little curls.
“Go back inside,” Ronan said.
The mistletoe rustled in a slight breeze, tickling Adam’s ear. He stepped out onto the porch, the frozen wood creaking. And then down the steps.
“I said—”
Adam grabbed Ronan’s shoulder and pulled him around. Threw his arms around his shoulders and stole a kiss.
And then another. And another.
Kept close until arms came up around his waist and yanked him flush and there was no way to tell who was kissing who and where they started and ended.
Wiry hands gripped at his back like they were worried he’d disappear; like this was the only thing Ronan had ever wanted, and he had hold of it now with the desperation of a starving dog.
The want—to feel wanted so viscerally—was something he’d only ever felt when it was thundering in Cabeswater. Deep and moving and terrifying and heart-pounding all at once.
Leaves tickled at him, wood splintered and cracked, and Adam jerked back with a hiss of painwantsurpriseloss.
Ronan’s hands came up fast to catch the tangle of mistletoe as it fell from his shoulder. It was larger than it’d felt, bright and thick.
Adam felt his neck where it’d been, and slid over smooth skin. Not a cut or smear of blood left behind. As if it’d never been there at all.
But it had.
Ronan was holding it in his hands.
Adam suddenly felt terribly vulnerable to see it cradled in someone else’s hands.
He swallowed. His chest tightened. He didn’t know what to say.
Very softly it began to snow. He shivered at the flakes slipping down the back of his shirt. Looked up, but got caught on Ronan instead of the sky.
Ronan, holding his want between them.
“Let’s go back inside,” Adam hedged.
“They’ll wait.” An offer.
“I—I want to?” The word was bulky in his mouth, uncomfortable, but it felt right. So he said it again.