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Chapter Text

Gansey was decidedly not in a good mood, and he had an inkling that everyone else who occupied the seemingly limitless space of Monmouth Manufacturing felt similarly, if for different reasons.

The day before had been perpetually humid, which was as per usual for Virginia in the height of summer, making Gansey’s hair stick to his forehead in sweaty clumps, the dry air leaving a cloud of highly unpleasant odor over Gansey and his four teenage friends.

More like three, though, Gansey supplied, since Noah can’t really smell— and technically isn’t a teenager anymore.

The kicker, Gansey thought humorlessly, was that the putrid conditions bled into the night, and Monmouth had turned into a giant hotbed of stink.

This, coupled with Gansey’s still-rampant bouts of insomnia, made for a sleepless night filled with rancid smells that distracted Gansey from doing anything useful with his time.

So, in place of researching Glendower, going over his notes on Glendower, or planning out where to follow more leads on Glendower, like he should be doing, (because Noah is flickering in and out, there aren’t many, if any, leads, and everyone is counting on Richard Gansey III, not Gansey, with his fears and insecurities, who can never do anything right, whose still afraid of bees for goodness sakes’--), Gansey is on the floor, stewing in a stench that he realized, with an upturn of his nose, was undoubtedly clinging to the orange fabric of his sweater, (and would stick to it even after it rolled around in Monmouth’s finicky laundry machine), adding small touches to his diorama of Henrietta.

The model stretches across the long expanse of the floor, washes of moonlight casting an eerie glow over the small buildings, as well as Gansey himself, making his glasses glint, reflecting spots of the glare onto a replica of Boyd’s Auto Mechanics, where Adam had just been working the nightshift.

Adam, who Gansey just knows he’s royally fucked up his friendship with. Well, maybe not yet, but in time, it will. Because Gansey is in love with Blue, who Adam used to date. He isn’t one-hundred percent sure, but you're not supposed to date your best friend’s ex, right? Gansey’s also pretty sure it’s very incriminating if you do all that, plus the fact that Adam is basically Gansey’s brother, multiplied by the fact that Gansey hasn’t told Adam that he’s in love with, (and dating?), Blue.

Breathe in, and out. Come on Richard, no need to overthink.

Gansey sighs, it’s a loud, choked-up thing, and he really is glad none of his friends are around to hear it. He loves them all so very much, and he’ll be damned if he can’t wish Noah better, get it right with Blue, mend his not-yet-broken friendship with Adam, find Glendower, and Ronan. Well, he has a lot he needs to do with Ronan.

Ronan, who Gansey now realizes is suspiciously absent from their one-in-the-morning ritual of meandering around the expanse of Monmouth. Ronan, who usually hears Gansey’s mutterings about Glendower, the whirring of the fan that the boy in question had dreamed up just the other night, equipped with the ability to run on the power of egg yolks, and joins him. Ronan, who’ll sit by Gansey’s side as he glues together the various shops and diners of their town. Ronan, who uses a fine-point sharpie to replicate all sorts of graffiti onto the model buildings.

Ronan, who is conspicuously absent from the usual routine.

“That’s odd,” Gansey mutters, a thing he only lets himself do in the confines of his home, as he stands up from his crisscrossed position on the floor, shaking out his leg as he walks toward Ronan’s bedroom.

He knows, logically, that Ronan is probably just asleep, dreaming deeply within the confines of the infinite space of his mind, even more spacious with the addition of the magical forest that speaks Latin, something Gansey doesn’t fully understand yet.

He knows that Ronan isn’t obligated to stay up with Gansey when a sleep-less spell hits him full force, for days, sometimes weeks, on end.

Knows that he should let Ronan be, that a dreaming Ronan is a potentially dangerous Ronan, that, in reality, the chance of Ronan dreaming up a horde of killer bees on accident, equipped with more than enough venom to unequivocally end Gansey a hundred times over, isn’t even close to zero, and he should just ask what’s going on in the morning, when Ronan is awake, and bruises stain the lightly tanned skin underneath Gansey’s eyes.

But, inner-Gansey reminds him, Jane always says I’m a top-siders wearing moron, may as well fit the bill, hm?

And Gansey is worried, Ronan is his best friend, (his brother, practically, in the same way that Adam is), and the door is already wide open, humid air mingling with humid air, and a low whine has already left Chainsaw’s beak and reached Gansey’s ears, telling him that something is very, very wrong.

Ronan, Gansey registers, is laying on his bed. Which, really, should be obvious.

But now, Ronan, with his glacier-eyes and sharp teeth flashing white as he smiles viciously, who has a pet raven that he literally dreamed into existence, seems small.

Larger than life Ronan, appearing small. Somehow dwarfed by the very bed that his ankles hang off of, childlike in the way the covers are pushed down to his ankles, forearms, (and the lingering scars that are still hard for Gansey to look at, all these months, years later), scratched raw with angry red marks.

Ronan, having a nightmare.

For normal people, people who can’t even conceptualize something like a cow-sized boar with needles for fur and eyes a color that no one's ever seen outside of dreams, a nightmare is, frankly, a nightmare.

It’s a horrible experience. Reliving old frights, pushed into new ones.

(All your worst fears shoved down your throat, all your worst fears being vomited back up into the toilet as you wake up, in the dead of night, on the off chance you do dream. A lingering buzz in your ears, making you fidget and swerve your head ceaselessly, until you hear Noah watering his plants, as well as Gansey’s own mint bush, you feel more than hear the tell-tale sound, more a barbaric yawp than yawn, erupt from Ronan, the ding of Blue’s early-morning texts erupt, just to top it off, and you finally calm down. You remind yourself that no, you're not okay, and yes, you need to get your shit together, Richard.)

For normal people, a nightmare is just that. A horrifying ordeal, surely, but still only your imagination. For dreamers, a nightmare is a petrifying, bleeding thing. A living terror.

Because then the monsters have the chance to become real, because all your worst fears have the chance to become tangible things that will rip you in half and slurp your intestines like the slushies you can get for fifty cents next to Nino’s Pizza in the summer.

For Ronan Lynch, a nightmare could very well be a death sentence.

And right now, Gansey watches as he curls further into himself, eyes scrunching, murmurs words Gansey can’t hear.

Chainsaw squawks, and Gansey takes that for what it probably is, and limbers over to the other side of Ronan’s mattress from where it’s positioned on the floor, watching him wince, gripping the sheets with a white knuckled grip.

“Dad,” Gansey makes out, just barely, and the word is filled with so many emotions, horrible, debilitating emotions, far too many for a seventeen-year-old to have laced in with their words. And he’s crying, something Gansey has seen, many times, but not recently, not since Niall Lynch died and Declan ‘stopped’ being Ronan’s brother and he was banned from the Barns. “Fuck, I’m so—hic, sorry.”

Tears strain down his eyes, and Gansey crawls onto the mattress, quietly, as to not startle Ronan into waking up, bringing something from the horrible scene of his father’s murder with him, and lays on the sweat-slicked sheets, not fretting over his favorite sweater, (a bright-orange-abomination, Blue had supplied once), anymore.

Gansey, not really thinking about anything but Ronan, Ronan is sad, he’s having a nightmare, I need to help him, just like I always do, lays facing his friend, carefully prying his hands from the sheets, not holding them too tight, as not to alarm Ronan, and carefully unclenched each of his fingers from the fists they had turned into.

“It’s alright, Ronan,” Gansey whispers into the now silent room, the raven quieted, finally appeased now that her dreamer is safe, “It’s not your fault.”

Gansey repeats that phrase, over and over, until Ronan’s palms reveal crescent-moon's, and Gansey envelopes Ronan into a hug, he tugs him closer, hooking his chin over the other’s shoulder, running his hand, in what Ronan had once told him was a soothing gesture, down his back.

…

By the next morning, Gansey had not slept a wink.

Sometime between when Gansey climbed in the bed and now, Ronan had reciprocated the awkwardly positioned embrace, wrapping his arms around Gansey’s upper ribs, effectively strangling him. (Gansey will admit, he’s exaggerating a little on the ‘strangling’ bit, but not much).

And Ronan, in a strangely koala-like fashion, had tangled their legs together, which usually wouldn’t be a problem. But, as Gansey confirmed with the thermostat the next morning, the temperature had peaked at ninety-one degrees, and the extra heat of Ronan and his gorilla-lock, combined with Gansey forgetting the fan, he was effectively covered, head to toe, in a thick sheen of sweat, not all of it his. Enough that if not for his genes, Gansey was sure his face would’ve broken out into a record-braking display of blackheads, pimples, and general acne-mania.

Did bruises decorate Gansey’s undereye when he looked in the mirror that morning? Undoubtedly. But did Ronan not summon the scene of his father’s murder? Also, undoubtably, yes.

And instead of a bloodbath, Gansey had been met with Ronan, still unapologetically clutching to Gansey, muttering about how stupid Gansey was, sounding a lot like blue, and under his breath, barely audible, was the word sorry, and Gansey just sighed, a small thing, nothing like the heaving exhale that had leapt out of him that night. Instead, it was one of sincere frustration.

”Still not your fault, Ronan.”

Chapter Text

Blue thinks that this is what happiness is. This being an abstract construct, sure, but something all the same.

This being late nights at Adam and Ronan’s Boston apartment, equipped with its own equally as fucked-up security system that had been at the Barns, drinking way too much, laughing at every other word out of Ronan’s mouth, not because he’s a funny drunk, but because his words slur together and the usual baritone voice he has becomes significantly higher pitched and cracked, making his sound like puberty had struck him full force all over again.

Early mornings with Gansey, of course, when Blue can let her fiancé, (yes, fiancé, past-Blue would be so disappointed in her, she already knows. But at least Blue’s the one that proposed, so she thinks she’d be forgiven, eventually), sleep in, proud that Gansey can sleep more than four hours when he’s with her, delighted at his frankly disastrous bedhead, and the goofy smile he sends her way, without fail, over the breakfast table every sunrise. They’ll watch the light pour over the cityscape, (They’ve both been staying in Richmond, lately, taking a break from their globe-trotting adventures because of--).

This being Blue, living her life with the wind tussling her hair and color filling her cheeks, being able to kiss the love of her life, whenever, wherever she wants to.

Blue had never considered herself a romantic, (never wanted to), but after the whole Gansey dying thing, (the dying thing that still had Blue waking up in a cold sweat, periodically (i.e., always) betraying her mother's wish for her and Gansey to sleep in separate beds, climbing in with him anyway, playing with his hair, resting her lips just above the pulse point on his neck, to make sure he’s still breathing, still laughing, still alive), she realizes she gets slightly nervous whenever Gansey and her are separated, just a little thrum under her skin, barely noticeable but there nonetheless. She finds herself savoring every lingering touch, hanging on to every word they share.

Once, Blue caught herself waxing poetics about how pretty Gansey’s eyes were during a seminar she took about the importance of self-expression in art, effectively making her miss some of the more important beats of the instructor’s lesson. Afterwords, she had elbowed Gansey in the juncture of his ribs, because really, it was completely unfair that he kept that lovely hazel color, that distracted her thoughts and glimmered in the mid-morning sun, all to himself.

To put it simply, Blue thinks, she’s just plain happy. All the time, recently.

Except for when an Absence occurs, but Blue strives to not let them put a damper on her mood, no matter that they have been happening more and more, enough that Gansey has tried to convince her to visit the women at 300 Fox Way, more and more often, to see if her spells of not-quite-unconsciousness are related to something supernatural. Something a psychic could handle, specifically Blue’s one-hundred-percent legit psychic family in Henrietta, the same family that Blue had planned not to see for quite a while. Not because she disliked them and their company, quite the opposite, actually. She loved them ceaselessly and missed them like a missing limb at certain points in her and Gansey’s, (with the addition of Henry, occasionally), travels.

But Blue had lived with them for the better part of two decades. The never-ending string of phone calls, three in the morning vigils, and, at the end, the devouring of all her favorite snacks by Artemis was something that Blue was ready to take a break from, especially since Mr. Gray had moved in, permanently, and his incessant nagging on her driving etiquette was as distracting as it was annoying.

So, no, Blue was not eager to get roped back into Tarot cards and magic and dead kings, no matter how much Gansey still liked to go on Glendower tangents, with literally anyone who would indulge him, which was usually Blue, (curse her weak heart, as well as Gansey’s big, hopeful doe eyes), or librarians that already had a pre-Gansey, ancient history obsession.

No matter how, sometimes, Blue spaced out more than normal.

No matter how Blue would lose herself, on occasion, and feel the thrum of the trees around her, how she could, somehow, feel her deadbeat father from halfway across the globe, know where he was, (in the cupboard of 300 Fox Way, usually), what he was doing, (eating, almost always), and what people, mortal or otherwise, were around him, (Maura, Calla, and Orla were common, in passing. With Gwenllian being a near constant fixture on the other side of the cupboard door, though Blue guesses it’s not because she wishes to have a peaceful conversation with him).

Never mind the slight need Blue had, the one she hasn’t told Gansey about just yet, to assimilate into every forest she comes across, the subtle want to climb into the trees, to just exist in their trunks, for however many days, years, or millennia. (Like her father, Artemis, had done, which was enough of an incentive to not do that).

Blue knew, distantly, exactly why she was having these Absences, times when her eyes would go unfocused, her brain going on a one-way-track, whispering climb in, climb in, climb in over and over until all she could feel was Artemis, the trees, and every single fucking blade of grass on earth’s surface.

Hyper aware, yet unconscious. Feeling, not seeing.

She knew it was on account of her being half tir e e’lintes, or tree-light. But she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

She was with Gansey, her literal true love, (who she could hug, love, and kiss, for goodness sakes’), and she was taking online ecology classes, as well as learning most of the official languages for every place she lived. Blue had an abundance of friends that she loved, irrevocably, without fail. A whole, full life ahead of her.

She didn’t want to worry about leaving them behind, for thousands of years, just because her father’s genes were all the way fucked up. She didn’t want to waste a moment.

(Deep down, the bowels of her stomach churned and the chambers of her heart clenched whenever she thought about that. But she would never admit it, because she was fine, she was okay, she wasn’t going to let something so trivial ruin her newfound brand of happiness.)

So, here she was, in Richmond, Virginia. A trip to Henrietta looming.

Blue was pouting, she knew, but Gansey was having none of it.

“Jane, there is something wrong,” Gansey started for the umpteenth time that evening, just after Blue’s umpteenth attempt at talking him out of visiting home, “You know it, I know it, heck, even Artemis knows it. Maura gave us a call last week, remember? Saying he was practically ‘climbing up the walls’ muttering about you.”

And somehow, Gansey saying anything even remotely close to a curse word, something that rhymed with hell, made Blue see the severity of the situation, in his eyes, anyway.

“Gans, you’re overreacting, I’m literally fine.”

As if to demonstrate, Blue stood from where she was perched on the end of the bed, walking circles around Gansey, (who was stuffing his copious amounts of journals and notes back into his suitcase, something Blue, in any other situation, would love for him to do), scowling all the way.

Gansey sighs, locking his suitcase’s double-latch closed. “Yes, you're alright now, but what about the next time we travel over a ley line? When snapping you out of your ‘trances’ doesn’t work? How about--”

“--Gansey--”

“I don’t know, what if you’re driving when you space out, and you crash and die and--”

“Gansey,” Blue nearly yells, making Gansey stop short, his jaw shutting with an audible click as his eyes dart to his socked feet, the pattern on them, small bumblebees, (it’s for exposure therapy, Gansey Boy, Henry had said when he gifted them to Gansey last Raven Day, a celebration all her boys celebrate even after they’ve long graduated, to commemorate the two of us bonding for the first time. It had earned Henry a few squints of disproval, but Gansey himself had declared it a wonderful idea. It was probably a coincidence, but since then, Blue had noticed Gansey fearing the small insects less and less), opting to distract Blue for a moment.

“I apologize,” Gansey whispers, “I believe I’m just... extremely worried. Sorry if I frightened you.”

“Pshaw, you didn’t even raise your voice,” Blue picked at a stray piece of string from her t-shirt, “I don’t think you’d be able to scare a finicky rabbit, Gans.”

Gansey exhaled, letting himself fall backwards onto the bed the two of them had been sharing at the hotel, spreading his arms and closing his eyes. The reading glasses that had been pushing up his bangs were abandoned, letting his hair fall around his head.

“You mean the world to me, Jane, truly. I don’t know what I’d do if you were hurt.”

Blue scoffed, then, despite how the words made her feel warm.

“The feminist in me is screaming.”

“Mm. Whatever will we do?”

“We’ll have to break up, it was inevitable, really.”

“Oh?”

“Obviously. I’ll have to be the only one worrying about my significant other’s safety, thank you very much.”

Then Gansey started to giggle. It was quiet at first, low in his stomach, barely audible.

Then, his breathing grew labored, and his neck arched, showing the long line of sun-kissed skin from his jaw to collarbone, letting Gansey’s laughter invade the bedroom’s every pour. His eyes were crinkled shut, crow's feet forming as he smiled, wide and revealing all his pearly white teeth.

Blue thinks it might have nothing to do with her being funny or their bickering, and more so due to the absurdity of their situation.

“I love you, Blue Sargent.”

“Likewise, Richard.”

…

Blue was rarely ‘baselessly optimistic’. It was a concept that she believed only a few people could experience, never mind her.

Ronan’s little brother, Matthew, came to mind when she envisioned people who were ceaselessly hopeful, as well as Gansey when he was particularly invested in investigating some phenomenon or another, but never Blue, who reserved her hope for big things or small things, as long as they were somehow attainable.

She hadn’t been all that hopeful when Gansey was dying, (dead, her head supplied, rather unhelpfully), because the cards were laid out, the clock had hit zero, his lungs weren’t expanding, and every scientific paper anywhere would have disproved of even the idea of Gansey being able to wake up, after.

Did he wake up? Yeah. Did she want him too? There wasn’t, in any circumstance, a world where she wouldn’t. But did Blue really believe, really hope, that he would? Of course not.

And yet.

In a similar fashion, Blue knew that Gansey wouldn’t drop the subject of going to Henrietta, to 300 Fox Way. Because he was Gansey, and she was Blue.

Though, in a wholly unlike-Blue way, she hoped, truly, that he would. And unlike the time Richard Campell Gansey III defied fate, the laws of the universe, and the Saint Marks Day, set-in-stone death date, he just couldn’t leave it alone, and Blue’s hopefulness backfired tenfold, right into her face.

“Jane.”

Gansey murmured in the dead of night, (the suitcase that Gansey had begun packing long abandoned at their feet), right into Blue’s torso, from where his arms are wrapped around her midsection.

“Gansey.”

Blue fiddles with Gansey’s hair, the locks slightly damp from his nightly shower. Blue’s own dark hair is multi-colored-hair-clip free, leaving it unrestrained against the pillow.

“Are you scared?”

Blue swallows, and wills Gansey to not be able to feel the motion. “Of what? Your face?”

“No. Of your Absences,” Gansey says, looking up at Blue, “Of finding out more about them, seeing what could happen to you.”

Blue glances away from Gansey’s eyes, letting her gaze rest on a freckle, just below his hairline, one that’s usually obscured by his bangs.

“What makes you think that?”

“I know you.” Gansey starts, and after Blue made a show of huffing, he amended; “And you were stress cleaning earlier.”

“How’d you know I was ‘stress cleaning’, and not just, I don’t know, normal cleaning?”

“It’s my turn to clean this week, and I don’t believe the feminist in you is alright with women doing all the cleaning, right?”

Blue sighs, carding her fingers through Gansey’s hair, watching as he leans into the touch, like a housecat. A clingy one.

“You got me,” Blue admits, to Gansey and herself, “The tree-light part of me is really freaking me out. I just, I don’t know where I am, sometimes. I guess I wanted to ignore it, ‘cause that’s easier, and I’m so happy, visiting all these places, hanging out with you, Henry, Ronan, Adam. Everyone. I finally get to be normal, have a nice, magic-less adventure. But then, oh, whoop-dee-doo, guess what? You’re going to have random, unavoidable blackouts, where you aren’t really there and all you want to do it jump in a fucking tree! I get roped back into another round-a-bout, exhausting cycle of dead guys and murderous dream-dealers and tir e e’lintes!”

Blue bites her lip, finally meeting Gansey’s gaze after feeling it burn a hole into her cheek. Blue doesn’t know what she thought she’d find in Gansey’s eyes, judgement, maybe. Confusion, possibly. What does reflect back at Blue, though, through the light in Gansey’s retina, is understanding. Unrelenting support, Blue thinks.

She takes it as permission to keep talking, venting.

“Like, there’s just this new chapter in my life, with all of you, and then some seemingly inconsequential thing drags me back. Adam and Ronan are in their own gross little romance bubble, and you and me are in ours, and sometimes we come together to make the ultimate gross squad, and Noah is probably watching us from the great beyond, like, oh my goodness, they’re so gross, and I enjoy it so, so much.”

Blue inhales, letting the lavender-milk scent of Gansey’s leave-in conditioner wash over her, “I don’t want it to end.”

Gansey unhooks his arms from Blues waist, shuffling up so he can kiss the crease Blue knows just formed between her eyebrows during her rant, and rests his forehead against hers. “Me neither, but that’s okay.”

“Is it, though?”

“I think so. I mean, nothing ever really ‘ends’, it just changes, right? And whatever’s going on with you, Artemis, all this tree-light business, it doesn’t mean we must end this chapter of our lives. We can keep going, keep being gross and in love, while also finding out what’s going on with you, and then we can go on, not the same as before, but different. Better, even.”

Blue smiles, then, her lips curling. The pool of dread in her stomach hasn’t drained, and the taunt muscles of her body haven’t loosened completely, but it’s enough. More than enough, for tonight.

“Now, when did you get so damn smart?” Blue beams at Gansey, because even though she might lose herself to the pull of the forest, one day. Maybe she’ll have to witness Gansey’s third death. Maybe she’s going to see the world end. Maybe.

But what she knows for sure, is that she is in love with Gansey, she loves her friends, her family. She knows she trusts them with her life, with everything she holds dear. She knows that Gansey is right, that nothing ever truly ends, and the doubt that has been growing in her head since her first set of recurring Absences shrivels, just a bit.

But it’s enough.

“What can I say, I learn from the best.”

Gansey’s lips upturn into a soft smile as he speaks, and Blue kisses the corner of his mouth, then lets her eyes slip closed, the exhaustion from their emotionally charged conversation making her dead-tired, “You win. Looks like we’re visiting Henrietta tomorrow, hm?”

Gansey makes a contented noise, and a small huff of breath caresses Blue’s cheek.

“Yes, and I’m driving, we’re not having a repeat of last time.”

Blue mock gasps, feeling the dredges of sleep clinging to her thoughts as she speaks, “Never mind, we’re breaking up. I’m leaving you for that hot cashier lady in the hotel kitchen.”

“Mm,” Gansey hums, “I wouldn’t blame you, she was very attractive.”

A pause, and Blue smiles, wide and open.

“Love you, Gans.”

Goodnight, Jane.”

Chapter Text

Gansey usually didn’t have any summer plans, nothing predetermined or exact, anyway.

He knew, vaguely, what he would like to do, of course. Continuing his search for Glendower, obviously, as he was unbidden by the restraints of Aglionby’s rigorous schedule in the summer months, as well as unbound by his mother’s expectations on his appearance, behavior, and studies. He would work on his model of Henrietta, which wasn’t a priority, but calming, nonetheless.

Adam had mentioned a diner he had wanted to visit just outside of town just before school ended, and Ronan had promised Gansey that the two of them would tidy up Monmouth, as well as the frankly potentially dangerous shrapnel sticking out of some of the beams and ceiling.

Gansey never had made it his mission to know exactly what he was doing this summer, and even though the well-received arrival of Blue Sargent, turning their group of four into a quintet, and the murder plot that became evident during their search for Glendower, (as well as a stumbling into a magical forest that speaks Latin, finding out one of your best friends has been dead for seven years, and that psychics, at least some of them, are one-hundred-percent legitimate, even if they can be not-so-trustworthy).

So, yes, Gansey and his friends have had lots of surprises preceding the summer, things he never expected would, or could, occur.

He even exhumed Noah’s dead body, reburying him afterword's, which he could except. Which he did except.

The thing is, though, that Gansey had never thought it possible for him to bury not just one, but two whole bodies, (that used to be alive, breathing people, who swam and ran and studied for final exams). The body of his friend, and of his previous Latin teacher.

The difference, Gansey reasons, is that Noah is still living at Monmouth, moving, laughing, living, a smudgy dent in his face with a pallor akin to a vampire, while Barrington Whelk is collecting dust on Cabeswater’s forest floor.

Gansey prides himself on his ability to suspend his disbelief, and really, he has done more ‘suspending’ than most will do in a lifetime these past few months. But the line has to be drawn somewhere, and the second body Gansey buried was just that.

…

It all started a few weeks into summer break, and Gansey was not having a pleasant time. He had gone into town that morning, his hair only half-combed, socks unmatching, with his glasses still on his face, to get some emergency sustenance for the newest tenant at Monmouth Manufactuing. A raven, a raven that Ronan dreamed into reality. An impossible raven, with crimson-purple wings and a face that somehow gave off the impression of an unimpressed, far too all-knowing glare, despite only consisting of a small, downturned beak, dark, beady eyes, and feathers that were surprisingly soft.

Ronan called her Chainsaw, because of course he did.

Ronan also made Gansey pick up food for the bird. Well, he didn’t force Gansey, per say, but may as well have, because Ronan fed Chainsaw human food, or random bits of shrubbery he found growing up the walls, which cannot be good for any bird’s health. So, Ronan’s in-action caused Gansey to have to go out and buy, well, whatever domesticated ravens were supposed to eat.

And thus, began the start of Gansey’s very bad, very unpleasant day, (and soon, he would discover, very therapeutic day, just not for Gansey himself).

It was humid, as Virginian summers typically were, the heat sweltering and crawling into Gansey’s every pour, making the short drive to the pet store unbearable for any car, more so for the Pig, with its stuffy interior and decided lack of air-conditioning.

It’s all for the bird, Gansey thought to himself as the Camaro's engine huffed like a man starved, the metal body of the car seeming to shift on the axis’ as Gansey parked it into Terry’s Animal Supply, Ronan would be sad if the bird died, I would be sad if the bird died.

And, truly, Gansey would be. Sad, that is, if the raven passed. Despite her flaws, Chainsaw made an excellent night guard, and was intimidating enough that Declan had a conniption fit when he saw her perched languidly on Ronan’s shoulder, (which was just as hilarious as it was worrying), which was worth the occasional excrement-clean-up.

Gansey regulated his breathing, inhaling and exhaling in time with the tap of his topsiders as they struck the pavement, shutting the Pig’s driver’s side door behind him.

Terry’s Animal Supply was less a pet store, and more an amalgamation of tuna cans, rusted crates, and supposed ‘good deals’ that ended in the buyer having three boxes full of litter for a cat that they, for one, do not have, and two, certainly won’t be using themselves. (Yes, the last example is very specific, and of course, that is because Ronan is, in Adam’s words, a temperamental idiot, and did exactly that.)

Gansey himself had only been to the place a couple of times, when Noah had picked up a gerbil from who knows where, and wanted to keep it, as a mascot of sorts. (Kept it they did, for two whole years. Though, in reality, Gansey just went to Terry’s every time the gerbil died, got one that looked just close enough, and replaced them before Noah even woke up. Gansey refuses to feel bad about it.)

As Gansey walks into the store, the smell of hot food pellets and dried meat assaults his nose, making him splutter, just a bit.

Terry, the owner himself, sits behind the counter near the entrance, napping, his sleep undeterred by the bell that had just been rung by the door opening.

The last time Gansey had spoken to him, Terry had sported a rough, warbling accent that was more prominent than Adam’s (when he got emotional, at least). So much so, that Gansey had a hard time understanding him, and, in a move that Blue would berate him for, just left a sum of money on the counter, that he himself admits, was far too much for a gerbil and some dried fruit.

Gansey walks past him, his hair sticking up from the humidity in a way he knows looks atrocious, and positions himself at the left-most shelf. He pointedly ignores the cages of various rodents, the small rats rubbing their small noses, mice huddling together, and picks up an array of cat and dog pellets, peanuts, and an array of small cans of seafood with little snails with comically too-big eyes and unproportionate claws, before walking back up to the counter.

“Sir?”

No response.

Gansey leans forward slightly, so he’s closer to the conked-out form of the owner, who's wearing a large ratty jacket despite the heat, and a little louder, he repeats: “Sir?”

Terry stirs, and Gansey can hear a large clump of mucus being hacked up by the old man as he squints, and Gansey would swear he can hear his eyelid's pull apart, with how much crust seems to have accumulated in his lashes, if it weren’t so blatantly rude.

“Mm?” Terry’s tone is incredulous, despite how obvious the situation must be.

“I would like to purchase these,” Gansey says, setting all his items gingerly onto the counter, and then, “Please?”

Terry blinks once, twice, and Gansey cringes at the noise he’s pretty sure he’s imagining, “Sure, son.”

His voice is loud and boisterous as he talks, ringing up Gansey’s items simultaneously. His eyes crinkle at the corner, whether he smiles or not, and Gansey finds that fact quite endearing as he walks out the door, towards home, (and a problem, but Gansey doesn’t know that, not yet).

…

Gansey can hear the yelling before he even opens the door.

He wants to say it wasn’t yelling, just voices raised slightly louder in a moment of strong emotion, but Gansey doesn’t think of himself as a liar, so he doesn’t.

Instead, he turns the knob, and the once muted, all too familiar tones of three of his friends hits his ears full force, along with the mildew scent of their home.

Gansey wants to say it’s unexpected.

But Gansey wants a lot of things when his friends are concerned, wants that are only fulfilled half the time.

“You're such a fuckin’ asshole,” Gansey opens the door just in time to see Ronan round on Adam with this determined look in his eye, one that most people would mistake for anger or murderous intent, but Gansey knows that it’s just his I'm slightly maybe very worried about you face, not his I’m going to end you and your spouse, kids, and goat face. He’s seen both of them being used in various occasions, glad only the former has been directed at him, and has always been a bit confused about how they look so similar to each other, “Noah’s still grieving!”

Scratch that, actually, Gansey’s wants, the ones that concern his friends, are only fulfilled a quarter of the time.

He takes in the scene, and it doesn’t take long for Gansey to realize it’s not promising in the least.

Noah is standing near his bedroom’s opening, the door slightly ajar, standing hunched and blurry in that usual way of his, and his hair is messy where it hangs over his forehead, which is unusual, since it’s usually at least partially slicked back. He’s looking at Ronan with a face more expressive than Gansey’s seen him in a while, his brow furrowed, eyes glazed over with what would be tears if he were alive. Adam stands about five feet away, feet planted defensively, with Ronan standing between them, facing Adam with a look so venomous Gansey almost wants to look away.

Adam scoffs, his volume calculated, giving off a sense of level headedness. But Gansey, and Ronan, he’s sure, can tell by his glare that he’s far from in control, “Yeah, for the guy that murdered him.”

And oh, now Gansey sort of gets it.

“Sorry, Parrish, but some of us have actual human emotions,” Ronan goes on, sneering, and Noah steps forward just a bit, hesitantly, then stops, “And they don’t make sense, not all of us are robots who know how to deal with this shit. People die, and sometimes those people suck, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t dead, that we won’t see them ever again!”

Adam’s gaze flickers, and Gansey knows rather than sees him grind his teeth.

“Is that right?” Adam steps leans in, and there's something in his eyes that tell Gansey he’s going to regret what he says next, later, “Because I think you’re just projecting, Lynch.”

And there it is.

The room descends into silence.

Gansey steps forward, and Noah looks over at the movement, his eyes widening slightly. Adam looks over next, then Ronan. They both look a bit feral, breath going a little too quick, Ronan’s canines a bit too sharp, Adam’s hair mused from running his hand through it.

“Now what,” Gansey starts, glancing around from his friends to a broken glass of water on the floor, then back, “On earth happened here?”

Adam sighs, then, “Gansey--”

“--Adam was being rude,” Ronan buts in, his voice significantly lower than before, almost thoughtful, “And a brat, to Noah.”

Gansey raises his eyebrows, looking at them over the rim of his glasses, knowing perfectly well that he looks the perfect picture of a distressed parent about to lecture their children.

Adam levels Ronan with a glare then, and the whole process starts up again.

“No, I was having a perfectly civil conversation.”

“Sure, a ‘civil conversation’ where you were practically ignoring Noah’s feelings, and him.”

“And how was I doing that?”

“He asked us for help, and you just went on about how Whelk was a bastard, which is true, and said he should just forget about him!”

“I just don’t understand why he wants to go back there! For his mur-der-er, Lynch, he deserves to rot, just like I said back in Cabeswater.”

Ronan swears, rather colorfully, and if Gansey weren’t so distracted, he may have chastised him for the language, “And I agree, but that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“So, you agree, but you still want to argue?”

“Literally not what I said, Parrish,” Ronan says, his voice low.

“Ronan, I don’t--”

Gansey opens his mouth to intervein, (how, he hadn’t figured out yet, but was getting there), when Noah, whose fists were clenched, and in a way Gansey had never heard before, he raised his voice, beating Gansey to it.

Noah was always perfectly polite, if a little teasing, sometimes. He always was a bit quiet, content to fade into the background, sometimes literally. There always was a little undertone of something not-quite-charismatic, though, something that must have been more human-Noah than ghost-Noah. Gansey thinks he sees it though, now, as he interrupts what Adam had been saying.

“Guys?” Noah’s voice is a little bit hoarse, as he speaks, almost hesitant, but the sharp look he’s giving Adam and Ronan convey something much more insistent, “Would you please just shut up?”

And it seems that his outburst was surprising enough, because Adam’s jaw clicks shut, quite audibly in a way Gansey would find hilarious, in any other situation, and Ronan looks like he really is going to laugh.

Gansey takes their silence as an opening, “Okay. Ronan, Adam? Go cool off, have a nice excursion to Nino’s or other, and Ronan,” Gansey holds out the paper bag he’s been holding, “I got Chainsaw some actual food, so she might not die, so go ham with that.”

Ronan narrows his eyes, “She’s a dreamthing, Gans, I don’t think she needs food, anyway?”

Now, Gansey feels stupid. “Oh.”

“But, um,” Ronan peers into the bag, his nose curling a bit at the smell, “Thanks, I’m sure she’ll like it.”

Gansey hums sheepishly, and waves the two boys off, leaving him and Noah. Noah walks over to him, and he looks out of place.

He always looks a little off, blurry and fogged over, like he was the subject of a photograph taken decades ago, smudges of time warping his features and obscuring his undereye. Now, though, Gansey means it differently, not that Noah isn’t supposed to be here, just that he doesn’t match, that the nostalgic, calming atmosphere of Monmouth isn’t the place for Noah’s grief, when a cemetery or funeral would do so much better. He looks like he’s in mourning, and Gansey thinks he knows why.

“Are you alright?” Gansey asks, even though he knows the answer.

Noah blinks, even though Gansey is pretty sure he doesn’t need to, and then smiles, a bit wryly. “No, no not really.”

Gansey sits on the couch, that’s ratty and peeling, and doesn’t feel any dip when Noah goes to sit beside him.

“What happened?”

Noah chuckles a bit, faintly, and Gansey thinks it sounds a bit like he’s underwater when he speaks, “I asked them for help, burying Whelk’s body. They were both surprised, but... Ronan said sure, and Adam didn’t-- he didn’t understand. We got in a fight.”

Gansey truly doesn’t know what to say, because Whelk was his teacher, who taught them Latin and glared at them behind the wheel of his car and pointed a gun at Gansey’s head. He killed Noah, and Gansey had forgotten that Noah and Whelk had been friends. Good friends, at least.

He doesn’t know what exactly to say, never has, but he can sure as hell try, right?

Gansey stands, brushing off his slacks.

“Let’s go, then.”

…

Gansey never liked to plan his summers, it was more exciting to just have a vague idea, he always thought.

Even if he did plan them, though, he thinks burying a second body would not be on the list.

Gansey stands on a patch of land just outside Cabeswater, though, still deep in the woods and far from any semblance of people or their creations. Just him, Noah, a covered hole, and the dead form of his teacher under four feet of dirt, having done just that.

Noah has been standing, silent, for a while. And Gansey keeps his mouth shut, because what could he say? About a murderer, who hurt his friends? Who pulled a gun on a highschooler, muttering about how Gansey disgusted him.

Noah’s lip's part.

“You were a bastard, Barrington,” he says, crouching down so his face is parallel to the rumpled dirt, “I won’t lie.”

Gansey stays still, because Noah’s voice doesn’t sound like his, the usual tone, thoughtful and meticulous as his room, (like a nunnery, as usual, with the personality of a mental facility, Ronan had said, in different variations, on multiple occasions, and Gansey wasn’t in the business of lying, so he usually agreed), has been warped a bit. Now, he sounds a bit like he’s making fun, laughing a bit as he speaks, humorlessly.

“I remember when we first met. You were just as annoying then as you are now.” Noah traces lines in the dirt, absentmindedly, “I laughed when you told me your name, and you pronounced mine correctly, and it was one of the first times that had happened. I don’t think you liked me all that much, at first. You were such a snob. But so was I.”

Gansey can’t really picture it, Noah, who likes glitter and roughhouses with Ronan and talks to his plants in placating tones as he waters them, accosiating with Whelk, being a snob, as Noah says.

“I don’t really understand why.... Why I wanted to give you this. A funeral, of sorts. When you’re the one that killed me. I agree with Adam, on that front. And Ronan, too. It’s just, you were my friend. Best friend, really. And I, I cared about you. I looked at you ever day when I woke up and thought, this is it, this guy and I are going to know each other forever.

“I made fun, of your big ears and weird hair, but I actually though they were cute, you know? I thought, I want you to look at me, and drive passenger seat in the Mustang and make fun of each other’s names forever. But then, you killed me. You were my best friend, and you bludgeoned my head in with a skateboard, my skateboard, and you didn’t even have the decency to make it quick. I died asking you to stop, and you, you didn’t.”

Noah starts crying, now, but not really. His face is dry, but his hands still go to his face to wipe away tears, and broken noises rasp from his form as he stands, and Gansey takes a second before he realizes they were sobs.

“I’m going to miss you, Barry, and how fucked in the head am I since I will? I’ll miss you, but I’m just really, really glad that you’re dead. I have more friends, now. And they’re much better than you.”

Noah stops, looking a little embarrassed, and pushes his hair back out of his face.

Gansey goes to stand next to his friend, whose looking at the sky now, raindrops falling slowly. Gansey feels them slide down his face, soak into his clothes, while Noah’s Aglionby uniform stays dry.

“Thank you, Gansey.”

“No problem.”

As they stand there is the woods, Noah’s face a little less pinched, lighter than before, Gansey thinks he did something right, for once, and the sunlight that spills from the clouds seems like a reassurance of just that.

Later, when Adam and Ronan have reconciled, both hanging around awkwardly at Monmouth, Gansey smiles, because Adam gives Noah a hug, and Ronan wraps the dead boy into a headlock, messing up his hair in a way that makes Noah laugh.

And Blue is sitting near the maps hanging on the walls, looking relieved, and takes one glance at the state of Gansey’s muddles pant-cuffs and face, covered in smudges of dirt, and she full on giggles, making some quip about pigs or kids or something, but truly, Gansey doesn’t hear, because the laughter in his ears is his own, and his friends are all around him, smiling with mirth and warmth.

And Gansey thinks he doesn’t need to plan out his summers, because if every one of them is like this one, he doesn’t want to change it for anything.

Chapter Text

Adam didn’t like surprises, and he didn’t think that he was alone in that opinion. The unpredictability of it, is what usually got him. How the build-up, no matter how subtle, always sent a shrill spark of fear up his spine, through his flesh, and up to his brain.

Surprises short-circuited Adam’s brain, like a weathered lap-top that was barely hanging on, being shut down only to glitch back on in a week, overheated and slow on the uptake.

The twenty-something at the liquor store not bothering to ID him? Not a surprise. The kids at Aglionby being pricks? Gansey doing something innocuous and innocent, but getting under Adam’s skin despite knowing that Gansey hadn’t meant the connotation Adam got? Not. A. Surprise. Not one bit.

Gansey and Ronan showing up at the trial? Surprise. A big, unexpected surprise that made Adam more confused than angry.

(And oh, was he angry.)

It was a surprise because Adam had entertained the prospect, how ashamed he would feel, how his cheeks would turn red like they always did under the Virginia sun, just for a different reason.

Because he imagined Ronan bursting through the courthouse window on the back of a winged lion, roaring and biting the head of off Robert Parrish’s shoulders. He imaged Gansey, phone in hand, calling in the secret service to escort him back home, to his mother, who would cry and smile and serve divorce papers to Robert’s jail cell.

Blue, with her clipped hair and patchwork skirt, would stomp around the court room until everyone got up and left.

But that was only his imagination, Adam didn’t want them to actually show up. To see him, to let Robert see them.

(His weaknesses had been on full display, then, open for the entire world—that consisted of, to Adam, his friends—to see. Adam was white-trash, he was under-fed and over-worked, he was worthless. Useless to his most important people if he didn’t have this one thing. His strength, his unwillingness to break down.

He was fine with being a redneck in the newspaper, obituary short and bitter, but only as long as he could stand on his own, as well. As long as they didn’t see him crumble.)

Ronan and Gansey showing up was a surprise, one that Adam wishes never happened at all.

There are many facts of life, Adam has found. Concrete things that meld themselves into the fabric of the universe, that will stay constant as long as humanity exists.

(Adam likes them, the facts. Because he can hold onto them, even when everything seems pointless, and think: it’s okay, there are some things that won’t ever change.)

How the sun rises every morning is a typical one, so is the way water dries up under its rays. How everything that lives will, eventually, die, and that some creatures will do anything to try and prevent it.

Another one, debatably, is that Adam Parrish has the worst luck. 

One of these facts could be considered untrue to anyone that isn’t Adam. To those people, Adam will say sure, you do you, good day, and be on with it, but in the privacy of his mind he’ll think instead, you don’t know the half of it. 

Because for all the downright vile things that happen to Adam, it would be an injustice for anyone to classify it all as just bad luck.  

He has the worst luck, for some random hick from Virginia, anyway. No question. 

So, it’s not surprising, really, when Adam goes home after the trial, after he testifies against his piece-of-shit dad in the piece-of-shit Henrietta courtroom, and he gets a call from Boyd, telling him that no, you're not fired, Adam, but the shop’s getting closed for renovations and you can’t come in to work.  

Because when does anything work in Adam’s favor? Never, that’s when. 

So, Adam is in his apartment that isn’t really an apartment, just the spare room above a church that doesn’t have a working air conditioner, that is filled with all of the earthly possessions that Adam doesn’t keep at Monmouth—which, admittedly, isn’t many—Adam’s home, that stinks of incense and old people.  

Adam is crying.  

Not sobbing, not retching. He isn’t heaving apologies and grievances. Just crying, crossing his eyes to try and see the tears rolling down his cheeks, the droplets making his callous skin puffy and eyes red-rimmed.  

Adam doesn’t cry much, because when he cries it’s not ugly, he doesn’t yell or scream or curse. It’s not quiet, but contained, and was just evidence of another thing Adam couldn’t do right. Another way that Adam wasn’t normal, wasn’t right.

So, Adam didn’t. 

Robert was gone; a restraining order filed. Adam never had to see his old man again, not if he didn’t want to.

And God, he really didn’t want too.

So why was he sobbing, like a toddler with a toy hidden too high to reach, like someone who lost something, instead of gained more freedom than they ever thought they could have.

Adam leans forward from where he’s sitting, back to the front door of his apartment, face perched on his hands. Why, why, why—

“Adam?”

Goddamn Gansey.

“Go away,” Adam slumps further forward, clutching at the hair tangled in his hands.

He hears Gansey breath, on the other side. Heavy, like he spent a good while trying to start up the Pig, heavy like he was in a hurry to see Adam.

“O.K.,” Adam hears Gansey say, in that infuriating, placating voice he puts on, before Adam can feel the door creak from some additional weight, from Gansey leaning onto the other side of the door.

Adam leans back, the crown of his head hitting the wall. He moves his legs to sit, criss-cross apple-sauce, and lets his hands play with the cuffs of the loose-fitting jeans he changed into after he got home.

He breathes, deeply, in and out. Like Persephone was always trying to teach him.

In. Out. In. Out.

When Adam strains his ears, he can hear Gansey matching his breaths.

Goddamn Gansey.

“You’re infuriating,” Adam whispers, talking to his hands, voice cottony from the crying and his accent, stubborn even now, especially now—he wants to claw at his neck, yank out his voice box, he wants to sound normal, he wants to be somebody else, anybody else—and closes his eyes, “you’re a real annoyance, that’s what you are. Goddamnit.”

No answer.

Adam breathes, and he doesn’t know if he’s matching Gansey or if it’s the other way around, not anymore, and they sit like that for what could be minutes or hours, days or centuries.

When the tear streaks dry and his hands stop shaking, Adam clears his throat, ready to enunciate, and feels Gansey jerk awake through the door, “Wanna study at Nino’s?”

A beat. Then, a sigh. Good-natured.

(Relieved.)

“Don’t you know it?” Gansey chuckles, and Adam turns the doorknob just in time to catch a glimpse of worry sparkling in Gansey’s eyes. “That Latin quiz is going to Kick. My. You. Know. What. If you and Ronan don’t get me up to speed—"

Adam hates surprises. He still hates them, even though a surprise is what brought him to Gansey, to Ronan. To all of them. He hates them, especially so, because he doesn’t hate one.

Because if Adam hadn’t met Gansey, he’d be living a predictable life in a predictable trailer. He wouldn’t be subjected to half of the surprises he does now, if it wasn’t for that one particular one.

If it wasn’t for him.

(Thank God.)

Chapter Text

Standing on the stoop of his childhood home—the place he never wanted to step foot into again, after, and yet the house that he yearns to wake up inside every time his alarm goes off in any other place—Declan Lynch hesitates.

It’s not a common occurrence, no, but one that has been happening in greater frequencies since his brother ran off, since he met Jordan, since everything and nothing changed. Since he decided to be better.

And, apparently, being better entailed much more than being a better person. It meant thinking about every minuscule decision, it meant taking into account not only the safety of those he loved, but their desires, as well. Their emotions.

It meant times where Declan would stop whatever he was doing, whether it was work-related or if he was cooking—in the middle of boiling eggs or making rice or folding dough, delicate processes that require his full attention—and take a few minutes to decide what was the best course of action. It meant lapses in time when he knew he looked deranged, like Matthew did when the world he was born from pulled at his mind. It meant having patience.

And Declan? Declan had patience. He was so, so patient. All his life, he was patient.

He was patient when his mother left and another version of her remained, a version that cared for him but didn’t love him, not like Mor had. He waited for Aurora to love him with that depth, he waited until she left them, too. Sometimes, he feels himself waiting, still.

He was patient with Niall, who enabled Ronan and thought Matthew was made of metal—just because he was a dream, just because everything else he created was unbreakable—who expected Declan to be able to function without him, to take over his duties and his danger.

He was patient when Niall died, he was patient with Ronan when he acted out.

He was patient with everyone in his life, because that was what they expected of him.

Be patient, his father had said, when Declan was four and his mother was gone.

Wait for your turn.

Take care of them. They need you.

He’s young, Declan, be patient.

You’re so independent, Declan. Sometimes I forget.

Just be patient.

He was patient because if he wasn’t, who would be? Surely not Niall, even before he died, who was too carefree and too dangerous. Ronan couldn’t stand waiting for the elevator, never mind the tasks weighing Declan down.

Matthew deserved a normal, carefree school life.

So where did that leave Declan? Forever patient, never validated.

Always hesitant, these days. Because if he wasn’t patient, if he could just take what he wanted, then who would take his place? Who would keep order, who would protect them all?

In the end, Declan can’t even muster enough courage to knock on the door to The Barnes, as the decision was made for him.

“Gans, didn’t I tell you to just come in? You have a fucking key, dude—” It’s Ronan’s head that pops out from the open door, and it’s chipped-paint surface would slam into Declan if he didn’t take a step back, “—oh, it’s you.”

You. Declan Lynch, stingy older brother. Declan, who calls every other day only to exchange a few words, who cares and is patient, even though they’re both adults now, with lives and lovers and enough maturity to remember not to die.

Declan sighs, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together at his side, “you sound so disappointed.”

Ronan just cackles, three short, ugly bursts of laughter, before wordlessly stepping to the side to let Declan in.

“Say, Orbmaster, how’s life as a househusband? The chores giving you some time to think about how to improve your personality?”

“Ha,” Declan says, flat, as he makes his way to the kitchen, opening the fridge in search for some cheap beer.

Instead, he finds it fully stocked with an array of food—from all the groups, he might add—and no alcohol, something Declan has been trying to make Ronan do for years, to no avail.

Ronan leans over Declan’s shoulder, peering into the neon green light of the fridge with the same curiosity, “Opal has got me and Parrish on a health kick, can you believe it? It’s like we’re some Stereotypical American Family out here, or something.”

“Right, well,” Declan stands, moving to straightening the lapels of his suit jacket, only to meet to soft fabric of the Douchebag University sweatshirt that Ronan had gifted him for Christmas, “I…”

‘I’ what, Declan? Say what you mean.

I messed up, is what Declan wants to say, because it’s the truth, if pathetic. I messed up and I’m scared it might ruin everything.

I messed up and, besides Gansey and Sargent’s, you have the most stable relationship out of anyone I know.

It’s the truth, so that’s what Declan goes with.

“I messed up, Ronan. I think I might’ve,” Declan breathes in, out, and makes himself calm down. He will not break down in front of his little brother, he hasn’t before, and he won’t now, “might’ve ruined everything.”

Ronan’s eyes go wide, their ice-blue quality expanding into saucers, almost comically.

He’s surprised, and Declan thinks he knows why.

Because Declan hasn’t opened up to Ronan about his feelings since he was ten, and a miniature Ronan, a miniature Niall, had asked Declan why he was crying, and Declan couldn’t tell him why, but he could tell him how he felt like a black hole had taken his stomach’s place, and how it was devouring him from the inside out.

He could ask for a hug. For sympathy, and he had, then.

“Fuck, Deklo,” Ronan seems to sober himself, something he was incapable of, years ago, a time that feels like both eons and days ago, “what’s, um, up?”

Declan sits down in one of the three-legged chairs in The Barnes’ kitchen, looking at the designs on the backsplash tiles, “It’s Jordan. Well, it’s about Jordan and I.”

And that seems to surprise Ronan even more, but, like before, he’s showing just how much he’s grown, how much more restraint he has, by not saying a word. Just listening, as if, in return for all the years of parent-teacher-conferences and hear-me-outs, Ronan is taking his turn to be the problem solver.

Declan feels himself cringe, unable to think of more to say. Because, what is there to say?

“I fucked up,” Declan allows himself to curse, the frustration palpable despite the monotonous tone in which he says it, “I was being stupid, and she stormed out of the apartment, and the worst part is, I don’t even know what I did, exactly. Isn’t that just pathetic?”

Ronan’s face pinches, because despite how much he’s grown, he’s still shit at conflict-resolution. It’s a wonder, Declan thinks, how he and Adam have stayed together for so long. Then he remembers that Adam’s just as bad.

“Well,” Ronan starts, lifting himself onto the counter opposite Declan, pulling some trinket into his lap and fidgeting with it, “what did you do, or say? Usually, when Adam’s mad at me, it’s because I said something insensitive. Opal’s more complicated, she’ll get angry because of little things, or for no reason at all, but she’s also a child, so.”

Declan traces the purple doves depicted on the backsplash, their open beaks and beady, inky-black eyes, “reminds me of someone else.”

“Hardy-har,” Ronan intones, tossing the trinket—a saltshaker with two nozzles that expels glitter—at Declan’s head. “You’re not wrong, though. Raising Opal has... Opened my eyes, to some things.”

“Uh-huh?” Declan manages a small smile that morphs into a smirk.

“Shut up, asshole. Tell me about your girlfriend dumping you.”

Declan feels his lips purse, “she didn’t dump me. She just left; told me she needed some space.”

Ronan’s valiant effort not to laugh ends then, and Declan gives his brother a deep, brittle frown in return.

“I was... I was at the night market—no, Ronan, not for that—checking to see if there’s anything floating around about us, to make sure we were safe. And I, I didn’t tell her, about it, exactly?”

“Declan, bro, I think—”

A knock at the door interrupts Ronan, who groans.

“—that’ll be Gansey, Jesus H. Christ, he has a Goddamn key.”

Declan leans forward, leaning his forehead miserably against the cool wood of the kitchen table, “language, Ronan.”

As he hops of the counter to get the door, Ronan smiles, all teeth, “sorry.”

Declan leans forward to peer down the short hallway, watching Ronan open the door to a bright Richard Gansey III., who steps inside with his eyes bouncing off every surface, as if eager to take in The Barnes loveliness and loneliness, strangeness and mundanity, even after his numerous visits to the place. Declan can relate, he’s never not amazed, not while in The Barnes.

“Ah, Declan,” Gansey directs him a 1000-watt smile, and he does his best to return it, “fancy seeing you here.”

“And you,” Declan replies, not quite smothering the watery-ness in his voice.

And with that, Gansey’s curiosity is piqued—but when is it not—and he ambles over to sit in the seat across from him.

“You seem upset,” Gansey starts, oblivious to the groan Ronan emits, or just ignoring it, “is it Jordan?”

Declan narrows his eyes, unsurprised, but he still must ask, “how’d you know?”

Gansey has the decency to look a little guilty, “well, as you know, Jane and Jordan have started up a little ‘independent women of color against the white boyfriend agenda’—their words—and seem to share everything about us with each other. And, well, Jane shares everything with me. So, it seems inevitable that I’d—”

“—snoop around in my business?”

“More like, take part in gossip about your business, but yes.”

“Well, then, Gansey,” Declan says on a sigh, “any useful advice for me? My brother sure didn’t have any.”

“Naturally,” Declan hears Ronan from the other room, bustling about and making loud noises, as Gansey’s eyes sparkle, “just talk to her. Truly, she’s cooling off, but I assume she’ll come and find you soon. Just hear what she has to say. Honestly, Declan, once you two talk, this whole thing will be resolved.”

“Hm,” Declan exhales, “d’you really think so?”

“I know so,” Gansey smiles, “because she isn’t really angry with you, anyway. Just frustrated.”

Declan smiles something small, and thanks him and Ronan both before leaving The Barnes. While Ronan returns the gesture with a middle finger and some tired, snarky remark, Gansey gives him a double thumbs up.

In the end, Declan didn’t have much to worry about.

When he returned to the apartment at the half-way point between Henrietta and DC, Jordan was waiting for him on the couch. He joined her, sitting on the opposite end until she beckoned him over, guiding his head to rest on her shoulder, petting his hair—now longer than it ever has been, so much so that it curls behind his ears and fans over his forehead.

“You just make me so frustrated, Pozzi,” Jordan sighs, yanking lightly at a strand of hair hanging over Declan’s brow, “going off all on your own, leaving me behind. It makes me feel like you don’t think I’m… capable.”

Declan swallows, “I guess I never thought of it like that. I never—”

“—ever consider that maybe, just maybe, someone you love wants to help you, too? Functioning streets don’t go one way, Lynch.”

“That’s a very heavy-handed metaphor,” Declan blinks, focusing on the warmth of Jordan next to him, as well as the dirt still under his fingernails from burying the last scraps of evidence he could find, last night, the final traces of clues that could lead to his and his family’s demise. Gone, now. Forever.

“Shut up, Trust Fund,” Jordan shoves at Declan, and he laughs and laughs, low and not very loud, only a little warbling, and Jordan graces him with a smile, even though he doesn’t think he’ll ever deserve it.

“I’m sorry,” Declan allows, because it’s true. He’s sorry for making Jordan feel like he doesn’t think she’s the strongest person he knows, like she isn’t the only reason he’s enjoying life at the ripe age of late-twenty-something.

“I know.”

Thank you, Declan thinks, in the privacy of his mind, as Jordan and him make a late dinner of leftover lasagna and fruit salad, side by side, entirely silent except for their breathing, for the two of them, even though you didn’t say much, Gansey.