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“You asshole!” Blue’s bewildered laugh permeates the warm atmosphere in Monmouth Manufacturing.
It’s a horrifically rainy day outside, unfit for fruitless trekking across the hills, and Gansey had suggested that instead, they all come to Monmouth and enjoy each other’s company. Video games, long conversations, historical documentaries, cheesy movies, and cuddles had been had all day long. Gansey’s heart, not for the first time, had swelled enormously as he watched everyone he loved love each other under his roof.
At Blue’s outburst, Gansey looks up from where he’s got his head ensconced into Noah’s shoulder, who’s currently letting Adam read his tarot, or “his fortune,” as Noah likes to call it.
He’s greeted by the sight of an unashamed Ronan holding two halves of an eggshell, and Blue, whose colorfully-clipped hair is sopping with egg yolk. Gansey raises a halfhearted eyebrow, too tired and happy to tell off Ronan, and Noah’s gleeful laugh breaks the silence.
“Oh, poor Blue,” he says, although everyone in the room can tell he’s teasing. Gansey’s head hits the couch as his pillow is cruelly taken from under him-- Noah gets up in the next instant to appear across the room, grasping Blue’s face in his cold hands and smacking two loud kisses onto Blue’s cheeks.
Gansey ignores the familiar spectacle in favor of looking at Adam (who’s now eye-level with him, as he had been seated cross-legged on the rug) and his uncannily beautiful face.
“Hey there,” Adam says, in his soft, dusty Henrietta drawl, and, God, if that doesn’t send a pleasant warmth straight through Gansey’s chest (and further south, if he’s being honest).
“Hi,” Gansey says, adjusting his position on the couch so that he’s lying comfortably, head propped up. Kissing distance.
Adam clearly reads his mind, if his quirked mouth and glance to his lips is anything to go by, but instead, he reaches up to brush a strand of Gansey’s hair out of his eyes.
His heart stutters.
Even though they’ve all been together for a little while now, and it feels so natural, like a continuation of their friendship, every time Adam or Ronan or Noah or Blue does something like this, he feels so romanced. So wanted.
Gansey, like all Ganseys before him, has been needed his whole life, but to be wanted-- this was something beautiful and new and so lovely. Sure, they have their disagreements, but this-- he didn’t want this to ever end.
“What’re you thinkin’ about?” Adam’s melodic, slightly rough voice breaks his thoughts, and Gansey watches as he absentmindedly shuffles his tarot cards. He can feel Adam’s haunting eyes staring deep into Gansey’s.
Gansey is suddenly shy, and he clears his throat, his cheeks coloring. He could never lie to Adam, or any of them, for that matter. “Well… this. You. All of you,” he offers, and is rewarded by Adam’s quiet smile.
Gansey, overcome with affection for all of them, closes his eyes for just a moment, which is a mistake-- the couch moves violently under him, and Noah’s excited, “Gansey Gansey Gansey” is loud in his ear.
He cracks his eyes open lazily, and Noah’s grinning face is right in front of him, cold hands pulling his shoulders up to greet him. Gansey realizes that Noah’s straddling him, and allows a brief wave of sadness to overcome him as he remembers that Noah is dead, he’s weightless-- before he chooses to live right here, in this moment, where at least Noah can still touch him, even if his hands are perpetually cold.
Gansey lets himself be pulled up by Noah halfway before he surges upwards in a burst of energy and hugs him close. He ignores Noah’s startled, pleased noise and the cold steadily seeping into his chest. He’d voluntarily freeze a hundred times over if it meant he could touch Noah just once. He doesn’t want to lose him. He doesn’t want to lose any of them.
“I know,” Noah whispers. He says, “Me neither,” and relief courses through Gansey. Noah can always understand him somehow.
Still holding onto Noah, he chances a look around Monmouth-- Blue’s gone, and Adam’s joined Ronan at the table. Ronan’s eating eggs straight out of a pan, offering what appears to be the occasional bite to Adam. By the way he’s divvying up the portions, Gansey knows he’s giving him at least half.
“Where did Jane get off to?”
Noah’s cool corpse breath whispers in his ear. “Taking a shower.”
Gansey’s struck with a beautiful, impossibly real image: Blue, naked, in his shower, soaping herself all over with his and Ronan’s bar soap, smelling of the two of them. Gansey’s face feels hot and he presses his cheek to Noah’s cold form, exhaling heavily. Noah giggles, all-knowing, and Gansey feels ashamed before Noah smirks, “Yeah, I think so too.”
Gansey clears his throat and tries to focus on anything else-- he sees Ronan bicker with Adam over something inconsequential-- but now that he knows that Blue’s in his shower, he can’t get that image out of his head-- and he can’t unhear the gentle sound of running water.
Even though the five of them have been together for a little while, they haven’t all had sexual relationships with each other-- Gansey and Ronan and Noah have, both before and after Blue and Adam joined their relationship, and Gansey thinks that Noah and Blue have (and maybe Adam and Ronan, but he’s not so sure). Him and Adam have come close a few times-- they’ve made out after every resolved argument-- but he doesn’t want to mess anything up. Gansey thinks it’s a good idea to wait-- after all, they just all started dating, and they’re young, and their love matters more to him than their bodies-- but his teenaged, hormone-addled brain just can’t shake the concept sometimes.
Noah giggles knowingly again and disentangles himself from Gansey’s grip, grasping his hand instead and hauling him off of the couch. Gansey allows Noah to pull him across Monmouth, weaving him carefully through his mini Henrietta, and approaches Ronan and Adam at the table.
“Hey, man,” Ronan stops his banter with Adam to gently punch Noah in the shoulder, who punches him right back. Gansey normally would watch this interaction with indescribable fondness, but his head is filled with thoughts of Blue, Blue, Blue--
“Gansey is so horny right now,” Noah whispers loudly in Ronan and Adam’s direction, and Ronan bursts out into laughter, while Adam looks at Ronan’s eggs with multiplied interest.
“Damn, Dick, if you wanted mine, you should’ve said so,” Ronan quips, and Gansey knows he can never have enough of Ronan, but his thoughts can’t quiet of Blue.
“Not you,” Noah teases before Gansey can say anything, and Noah jerks his chin in the direction of the bathroom/kitchen/laundry room.
Ronan’s eyes widen in realization and he stifles a laugh behind his hand. “Wow, Gansey. You’re down bad.”
Gansey doesn’t have the heart to tell Ronan part of the reason why this affects him so much-- after all, it’s not his secret to tell. Blue has steadily avoided anything involving kissing with him, which Gansey understands-- he doesn’t want to die now, after all-- but it doesn’t mean that longing doesn’t spike through him whenever he sees evidence of her and Noah making out. A stray hickey just below her collarbone, her short hair impossibly tousled, her cheeks flushed-- all of it sends Gansey to an early grave. Though, he supposes, not as early as it would be if they did end up kissing.
Surprisingly, Adam seems to be the only one in tune to his turmoil, and Gansey recalls that he’s never seen Blue kiss Adam, either, even though they’d been in a relationship the longest out of all of them. He’d only ever seen her kiss Noah. Adam offers him a sympathetic sideways smile and two upright tarot cards: the Three of Swords and the Three of Cups. Gansey eyes the bloodied heart, the overflowing cups; laughs at the irony of it all. He doesn’t think he needs Blue or Adam to interpret that for him.
The water stops and Blue’s voice rings out through the door, “Noah?”
Noah smirks and winks at Gansey before disappearing.
Gansey sighs and tries to focus on anything other than the fact that Noah is most likely seeing Blue naked right now.
Ronan flicks his forehead harshly and Gansey rolls his eyes, but grins. “Stop moping, Dick.”
“Don’t call me that,” Gansey says without any heat, but resolves that Ronan’s right: he’d had a great day, the last thing he needed to do was mope about how he couldn’t kiss Blue. What mattered was that she knew he loved her, just as he loved the rest of them.
Ronan burps loudly-- Gansey winces-- and shoves his pan of eggs in front of Adam. “I’m full, Parrish. You finish it or else I’m tossing it,” he says before crossing his arms.
Gansey eyes Ronan but doesn’t say anything. He knows what Ronan’s doing. Gansey’s done it himself plenty of times. Adam won’t accept anything from anyone unless he truly believes that it’s no use to them anymore. Gansey pretends that it doesn’t hurt his well-intentioned feelings, and Adam pretends it doesn’t hurt his pride. Ronan pretends he doesn’t care otherwise. The three of them have mastered this back-and-forth dance over the years.
A flurry of noise interrupts Gansey’s thoughts as Noah appears in the doorway of the bathroom/kitchen/laundry room, Blue’s embarrassed expression peeking around the corner. Gansey can see a red towel wrapped tightly around the hint of her body that shows in the doorway. He flushes as he realizes it’s his towel she’s wearing. Noah winks at him knowingly and plops down at the table.
“Blue needs clothes,” Noah says, and Gansey clears his throat, about to offer, before Ronan rises from the table.
“C’mere, Sargent,” Ronan says, motioning for Blue to follow him, and she hesitates before stepping out of the doorway. Gansey quickly averts his gaze, and he watches as Adam does the same, his ears bright red. Noah’s pursed lips fill both of their views, and Gansey knows he’s trying hard not to laugh at the situation.
“Jeez, calm down guys, it’s just me,” Blue’s disembodied voice says from the other side of the room, but Gansey can hear the hint of nerves in her voice. He wonders if she’s ever let anyone see her this vulnerable before, other than Noah, and now Ronan.
Surprisingly, he finds that it doesn’t matter to him, only the fact that she has chosen to be with all of them now.
The motion of Adam checking his watch breaks Gansey out of his reverie and he watches as Adam slowly rises from the table.
“It’s getting late,” Adam says in that soft voice of his, and Gansey finds himself wishing that Adam would just move into Monmouth already instead of going back to that tiny room above St. Agnes. He knows he never would, though. Adam’s far too proud for that. Gansey both admires it about him and hates it.
Noah seems to read Gansey’s mind, or his pinched expression, because he grasps Adam’s lovely hands with his own and begs him in that Noah voice that no one can seem to say no to-- “Adam, Adam, c’mon! Let’s have a sleepover, it’s still raining,” and Gansey watches Adam’s eyes flit from Noah’s to Gansey’s and settle on some sort of decision.
Please, Gansey prays to a god he hadn’t believed in since he’d died, and miraculously, Adam sits back down.
“Alright,” Adam concedes, his eyes crinkling towards Noah in a smile, “Just for tonight.” He takes a bite of Ronan’s discarded eggs and swallows-- Gansey tracks the movement of his Adam’s apple bobbing. Adam says then, “But you’d better not cut my hair while I’m sleepin’ or anything.”
“No promises,” Noah says gleefully, and Adam shakes his head with a small laugh.
Gansey rises from the table, suddenly nervous, and presses his thumb to his lip. “So, Adam, where would you prefer to sleep?”
“Uh-- I can take the couch?” Adam’s unsure of himself, and so is Gansey: it’s their first sleepover after they had all decided they wanted to be in a relationship.
Gansey feels Noah’s unnerving gaze on him, but he ignores it. “Whatever would make you most comfortable,” he says carefully, meaning it.
Adam nods once, and Gansey knows he understands.
The sleeping arrangements in Monmouth aren’t the same every night, after all. Even after Gansey, Ronan, and Noah all started dating at first, there were nights where they’d all return to their own rooms, or nights where they’d climb into Gansey’s bed, and many nights where they wouldn’t sleep at all. Gansey knew that most of the time, Noah would watch over Ronan when he dreamed. Ronan liked to sleep in his room alone, still in fear that he’d conjure something from his dreams that would end up killing Gansey. On one occasion, Gansey’d tried to sneak into Ronan’s bed, and the two of them had gotten into a tear-filled argument that had lasted for days before Gansey apologized and Ronan had crawled into Gansey’s bed on some nights instead.
“You can sleep in my room, or Gansey’s bed, or on the couch,” Noah rattles the sleeping locations off to Adam, reclining in his chair and tilting it back so that he’s balancing on one leg. Gansey doesn’t bother telling him off for it-- he’s a ghost, after all.
“What about me?”
Blue’s voice right behind him startles Gansey, so much so that he practically jumps. Ronan laughs. “Christ, Gansey.”
“She may be little, but she be fierce,” Noah jumps in, grinning.
“‘Though she be but little, she is fierce,'” Adam corrects him quickly.
“Nerd,” Ronan supplies helpfully.
“You can sleep wherever you’d like to, Jane,” Gansey says, not quite answering Blue’s question. He turns around to face her, and he has to swallow down the feelings that the sight of her brings him.
She’s dressed in one of Ronan’s old tee shirts, one that Gansey had thought Ronan had gotten rid of awhile ago. He remembers-- although remembering, at this point, feels more like watching an old film-- a curly-haired, bright-eyed Ronan wearing it, showing Gansey how to jump over sprinklers the proper way, how to pet a cow without being afraid to approach it, how to climb winding trees with barely any branches. How to sneak into attics to look for old treasure, how to find the right flowers to make pretty bouquets for girls he’d never end up talking to, how to polish off a whole bottle of whiskey just between the two of them.
Blue’s looking at him oddly, and Gansey realizes he hasn’t spoken for a little while. His breath feels caught in his throat. His gaze slides over to Ronan, who’s looking at him questioningly, and Gansey tries to be rational about this. Ronan gave it to her, after all, Ronan chose to show that part of him to her, to the rest of them, and it’s an enormous level of trust-- but Gansey can’t wrap his head around the idea that Blue’s wearing something of Ronan’s, something of Ronan’s that belonged to him Before.
Gansey’s breath quickens, and Ronan’s eyes flash in alarm. He steps forward, touches his elbow gently. “Gansey,” he says carefully, firmly. His voice quiet, he says, “It’s just a shirt, alright?”
Gansey doesn’t understand, he can’t understand this, he can’t wrap his head around this-- and the world seems to be falling out from under him. He shakes his head quickly, unaware of what time is, who he is, what’s happening around him-- but Ronan’s steady voice pierces through it all.
“Breathe, Gansey. In, 1, 2, 3… Out, 1, 2, 3. C’mon, Gansey, breathe with me, alright?”
Gansey feels a coolness on his back and a warmth spreading over his shoulders, and he embraces the feeling of it.
“You’re here, with me. In Monmouth. You’re home with me, Gansey. It’s Ronan. You’re home. It’s alright.”
Gansey blinks a few times and registers that Ronan’s holding onto his shoulders and Noah’s hand is pressed onto the small of his back. Ronan’s relieved face greets him, and Gansey shudders.
“I--”
“Don’t you fucking dare apologize,” Ronan says quickly, and squeezes his shoulders. Gansey swallows and reaches a shaking hand up to grasp Ronan’s solid arm.
Warmth.
His warm arm beneath his hand grounds him.
Gansey’s in Monmouth. He’s fine. He’s with Ronan, and Noah, and--
“Where’s--”
“We’re here,” Adam’s voice appears from behind him, and he steps forward cautiously into Gansey’s line of vision. Blue is in tow, looking nervous-- and Gansey notices she’s changed, she’s wearing one of Ronan’s tank tops now. (If Gansey weren’t so panicked, he would’ve had an aneurysm trying to ignore the way her browned skin looked against Ronan’s trademark shirt.) But now, all he can think about is how much time he just lost and didn’t even realize.
Ronan squeezes Gansey’s shoulders reassuringly again and Gansey takes a deep breath. “I-- I get panic attacks, sometimes,” he admits quietly, and directs his gaze to Blue. “I apologize, Blue. You did nothing wrong,” he says, and he needs her to know this, he needs her to understand this. “I just-- I have a lot of--”
Ronan squeezes his shoulder once, and Gansey knows Ronan’s telling him that he doesn’t have to say anything more. But Gansey sees the look in Blue’s eyes and feels like he owes it to her.
“That shirt just reminds me of something, is all,” he finishes, and he chooses to ignore how Adam’s looking at him blankly, devoid of pity or any emotion, which, Gansey knows, means he’s probably pitying him, or thinking of him differently. Instead, he lets Noah blow his cool breath over his ear.
“It’s okay,” Blue says then, giving Gansey a warm smile, and he knows she means it. “I’m sorry I didn’t know--”
“It’s not your fault, Sargent,” Ronan interrupts, but his tone is kind. “It’s no one’s fault, alright? These things happen. This is new for all of us.”
“We still have a lot to learn about each other,” Adam agrees quietly, and Gansey finds himself nodding.
“Why don’t we all put on a movie and then go to bed?” Noah offers from behind Gansey, propping his chin onto his shoulder, and Gansey nods.
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”
They’d decided on “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” to Noah’s request and Blue’s enthusiastic agreement, and ended up falling asleep sprawled together on the couch.
Gansey’s panic attack earlier had tired him out, and he slipped into a light sleep. He was hyperaware of the feeling of Blue’s body resting in between his legs, Ronan’s arms wrapped tightly around him, Adam’s head on his shoulder; Noah’s weightless body starfished over them all like a cool blanket. So when Gansey’s back felt unusually cold, his subconscious told him this was Ronan leaving all of them to go to his own room.
The part of Gansey’s brain that had remained awake slowly quieted, and he now found himself in a dreamland...
To Gansey, it looks strangely like 300 Fox Way’s phone/sewing/cat room. A joyful laugh breaks out from behind him, and DreamGansey turns, smile already on his face, to see Ronan as he’d first met him.
DreamRonan surges forward to grasp his arm, dark, lovely curls gently bouncing on his head. “C’mon,” he grins, his blue eyes bright, “let’s go prank Adam.”
Dreams don’t quite make sense sometimes, and this is one of them-- this Ronan has never met Adam-- but DreamGansey doesn’t think it odd at all, in fact, it’s the best idea that DreamRonan has had all day.
DreamGansey lets DreamRonan link their fingers together and they race through the door of the phone/sewing/cat room, which is now 300 Fox Way’s front door, and they step out of the door into their Latin classroom.
DreamAdam’s teaching at the front:
desidero, desideras, desiderat.
desideramus, desideratis, desiderant,
and he crosses his arms as DreamRonan and DreamGansey slide into the two vacant seats in the room. Every other chair is occupied by Noah Czerny.
“You’re late for class,” DreamAdam says, rolling up his sleeves, and DreamRonan turns to DreamGansey, eyes wide in feigned shock, before laughing hysterically.
“We deeply apologize, Parrish,” DreamRonan smirks at DreamGansey, his eyes innocently mischievous, before he turns to their professor and clears his throat, appearing forlorn. “The cows blocked the road this morning.”
The cows had blocked the road that morning-- Gansey remembers: a sleepover at The Barns. Niall Lynch had been out of town on business, and Ronan had snuck Gansey into his room. They’d talked about their first ever memory, laid on the hardwood floor together, drank beers and swapped war stories about boring events their parents had dragged them to. In the morning, they’d been running late, sleep-deprived from the night before, and Ronan had wailed along merrily (to Declan's annoyance and Gansey's delight) to Declan's shitty car music as his father’s cows had gotten into the driveway. Gansey couldn’t ever let himself forget it.
The DreamNoahs turn to look at DreamRonanandGansey, DreamGanseyandRonan. “It won’t ever be like this again, y’know,” he says cheerfully, and DreamGansey turns to DreamRonan, mouth dry. Where freckled, curly-haired DreamRonan used to be now sits another DreamRonan: head shaved, posture tense.
DreamRonan turns to look at DreamGansey, and the whites of his eyes are black and weeping.
DreamRonan opens his mouth to speak, but all the DreamNoahs beat him to it-- they open their mouths wide, wider than is humanly possible, all screaming in Ronan’s looped voice:
“No! No! No!”
Gansey jolts awake, his heart hammering, and immediately, Ronan’s terrified screams fill his ears. Blue and Adam are clutching onto him, both wearing faces of tired shock. Gansey shrugs them off in his haste to get across Monmouth to Ronan.
It’s times like this that he curses the size of his apartment, but he has no time to dwell on that-- he practically trips over his stack of biographies of Gwenllian, and kicks them over in exhausted frustration.
Gansey twists open Ronan’s door desperately and surges into his room.
Ronan’s twisted in his sheets, eyes slammed shut, screaming himself hoarse. Gansey can see the pain etched into his face, the heaving sobs and pleas wrenching themselves out of Ronan’s mouth. It’s a horrific sight, one that Gansey’s unfortunately gotten used to, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.
Gansey’s heart clenches painfully and he presses his trembling hands onto Ronan’s shoulders, moving him gently. “Ronan, wake up,” he says firmly, shaking his shoulders, and Ronan shudders and gasps before his eyes fly open.
“Gansey--” he starts, voice broken, his hands naturally finding Gansey’s, before his eyes fill with tears and he lets out a shuddering sob. His shoulders shake under his and Gansey’s hands, his shaved head bowed down. Gansey instinctually moves closer to him, but Ronan wrenches himself away from him in a fluid motion and slams his fist into his wall violently. “Jesus Mary fuck!” He yells, cradling his hand, and starts crying again.
Gansey sits down beside him, unafraid-- after all, it’s Ronan-- and drapes his arm around Ronan’s strong shoulders, pulling him close. He looks up to see Blue and Adam hovering in the doorway, unsure. Gansey doesn’t have time to wonder where Noah is.
Gansey’s suddenly reminded of before, when Ronan was only his; selfishly, traitorously, a large part of him wishes it again.
Don’t they know this is serious? He thinks, staring them down, and the rest of him hates himself immediately for thinking it. Of course they know. That’s why they’re here.
Gansey averts his intentioned gaze from Blue and Adam, focusing all of his attention on Ronan. He’s curled up into Gansey’s chest, sobbing loudly into his sleep-rumpled sweater, and Gansey’s other arm reaches up to cradle his shaved head. He rubs at the base of it gently, soothing him, and hums. “I’ve got you,” he says quietly, firmly, and he means it with all his heart.
Most of the time, Gansey can tell the difference between the causes of Ronan’s post-night terror breakdowns. Tonight, Ronan’s loud, and he’s crying heavily. This one, he knows, has to do with Niall. Guilt rises steadily in Gansey’s chest-- maybe if he hadn’t had a panic attack earlier over a stupid tee shirt, Ronan wouldn’t have had a very real nightmare about the moment in his past that killed the version of him that Gansey had known. Gansey quickly becomes angry with himself again. This isn’t about you, he scolds himself, and reframes his thinking.
So Gansey thinks instead: that Ronan’s old tee shirt likely triggered a memory for him, aided by the fact that Gansey had a panic attack over it, and it stayed in his subconscious even in sleep. It had had absolutely nothing to do with how Gansey felt about Ronan Before the incident that was Niall Lynch’s brutal death, so he should stop thinking of it as such.
He takes a deep breath and further soothes Ronan. He opens his mouth and lets the words flow out of him, sincere. “I love you, alright? I’ve got you, Ronan. We all love you so much.” He knows from experience there’s not much he can say to assuage Ronan’s grief, other than the plain and simple fact that he loves him. Just for Ronan, he whispers, “You’re mine, okay?” and he feels Ronan inhale shakily, nodding vigorously a few times against Gansey’s chest. “And I know it’s not easy, not at all,” he whispers, “you’ve been so good, Ronan. You don’t deserve feeling like this. But know that I love you.”
Ronan quiets and burrows deeper into Gansey’s arms. Part of Gansey half expects Blue or Adam to chime in with words of affirmation, but he looks up and is greeted with an empty doorway. His heart swells with love for them. They’d recognized that this was Gansey’s territory, not theirs. At least, not yet.
He continues stroking Ronan’s shaved head, for once not thinking of the curls that used to exist there. He loves the Ronan he has in front of him now, and has loved every part of Ronan, and will love every version of him that he continues to grow into.
“You want to talk about it?” Gansey asks. Even though he knows it’s futile, he’ll ask every time.
Ronan shakes his head against his chest, and snakes an arm around Gansey’s waist.
“That’s okay,” Gansey reassures him, and Ronan sniffs.
“God-- this is so-- so--” Ronan says weakly, trying to disguise his grief, and Gansey smiles at him sympathetically.
“So fucked?” he finishes, the vulgarity of his language growing familiar again under his tongue, and startles a snort out of Ronan.
“Jesus, yeah, you’re even swearing again,” he laughs wetly, and Gansey smirks down at him, gently.
“Don’t get used to it,” he warns.
Ronan removes his face from Gansey’s sweater and turns his head away, exhaling deeply. He scrubs at his eyes and nose with the back of his hand and sniffs. “Y’know, my dad always hated that I brought you around The Barns. That’s the one thing I ever disagreed with him on.”
Gansey lets out a bewildered laugh. It’s not a foreign concept to have people dislike him: after all, that’s how it started out with Blue, but it’s always made him attempt to smooth over that relationship. It’s worked like a charm, so far, almost every time. But Niall Lynch is dead, and Gansey won’t ever have that opportunity to fix his perception of him.
He finds that because Ronan doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, not really, but curiosity gets the better of him.
“Why did he hate it? Was I too posh for him?”
Ronan laughs and moves so that he and Gansey are leaning into each other, instead of just him leaning on Gansey.
“See, Gansey, that’s how you live up to the title of ‘S.R.F.’” Ronan jokes, referencing Robert Parrish’s favorite name to call Gansey, and he rolls his eyes.
“Shut up,” he says, without any heat.
“Nah,” Ronan smirks, then lets out a breath. “No, it was because of all the dream things we had around. The Barns was his kingdom. A living manifestation of his mind, y’know?” Ronan waves a hand carelessly, but Gansey hears the heaviness behind his tone. “He didn’t like the idea of intruders. It was always only dreamers and dream things, and Declan.”
Gansey thinks it must have been lonely for Declan to live amongst such imagined splendor, but he doesn’t say that to Ronan. Instead, he jokes: “So what made me worth bringing around, then?”
Ronan rolls his eyes humorously, and Gansey knows he can hear the intention behind it. “Oh, c’mon, Dick. Like you don’t know.” Gansey shrugs in faux unsurety and grins, then grasps Ronan’s bruised hand in his. He presses his lips to each of Ronan’s hurt knuckles with care.
“I loved being at The Barns with you, Ronan. And I love being at Monmouth with you. And I’ll love wherever we end up next.” Gansey knows that Ronan understands what he really means, and he’s only slightly shocked when Ronan turns to him, cradles his jaw carefully with a firm hand, and captures his lips in a kiss.
Gansey responds immediately, his free hand coming up to find the back of Ronan’s neck. He grips him gently there as they kiss, a soft groan escaping from his lips into Ronan’s mouth. Ronan sucks at his lower lip harshly before pulling away for a moment, pressing his forehead into Gansey’s and catching his breath.
“You know,” he says, nonchalant, although his breathing is heavy, “you’re not an intruder to me. You’re part of what my dreams revolve around.”
A jolt of heady desire and love shoots through Gansey at Ronan’s admission, and he takes control of their kiss, allowing his grip on the back of Ronan’s neck to tighten. He opens Ronan’s mouth slowly with his tongue, and Ronan responds in turn.
Ronan whines against his mouth eagerly, and Gansey wants nothing more than to take him apart slowly until he’s a mess on his bed, but he remembers that Blue and Adam are outside feeling sidelined and he pulls away.
Ronan frowns, looking put out. “We can’t right now,” Gansey says apologetically. Ronan presses his lips to Gansey’s neck.
“Bullshit. Why not,” Ronan murmurs against his neck, breath hot. Wherever Ronan breathes on his neck, it sends a jolt of heat straight down Gansey’s body. He shivers and bites his lip to keep quiet as Ronan sucks a hickey into his neck.
“Ronan--” Gansey’s about to tell him off, but Ronan swirls his tongue on the hickey in an almost worshipful way and bites down firmly. Gansey sucks in a breath and pushes Ronan down on the bed, drinking in the beautiful sight of Ronan below him, cheeks flushed.
He presses himself down closer to him, allowing his hands to admiringly travel along Ronan’s taut sides, his slightly sweaty chest, up to the sides of his face. “You’re so beautiful like this,” he whispers reverently, before kissing him deeply.
Ronan bucks his hips up eagerly, but Gansey laughs and pushes him back down. “Someone’s needy,” he smirks, and watches as Ronan’s cheeks flush an impossibly redder color.
“Dick,” Ronan mutters, and Gansey grins.
“Don’t tempt me,” he warns, and kisses Ronan again, feeling Ronan’s hands wrap around the small of his back.
He’s about to lose himself in Ronan, despite his earlier thoughts, when a loud, exaggerated sigh interrupts them.
“Really, guys? Without me?”
Gansey pulls away from Ronan’s plush lips to see Noah hovering in the open doorway.
“Noah!” Ronan laughs, and uses Gansey’s distraction to his advantage: he sits up and starts attacking Gansey’s neck again with playful kisses.
Gansey laughs, “Stop, you’re tickling me,” and Noah flutters in the doorway.
“Where you been, man?” Ronan asks, lifting Gansey up easily and letting the both of them sit side-by-side again. Gansey’s suddenly glad for the interruption, because he knows with certainty that if Noah hadn’t appeared, he definitely wouldn’t have been able to hold himself back. He folds his hands over his lap self-consciously. Noah notes this and laughs, although he seems a bit sad.
“Finally got enough energy to come back,” he says, quietly, and Gansey understands why he’s so somber. He’d feel horrible, too, if he had to depend on something else to exist around the people he loved.
“C’mere,” Ronan says, patting his lap. Noah hovers over and sits down without a second thought. Ronan presses a gentle kiss to his temple. “Glad you’re back. Who else would I be able to toss out a window?”
Noah sputters out a laugh and shoves Ronan, getting up. “You asshole!” he grins, and Ronan’s familiar barking laughter finally reveals itself. Gansey smiles and gets up.
“Let’s go see Blue and Adam?” he questions carefully, and Ronan clenches his jaw before nodding.
They find Blue and Adam sitting cross-legged on Gansey’s bed. Adam’s holding a cup of tea. They’re sharing a blanket, Gansey notes with fondness, and if he squints, he can see that Blue’s got her pinky finger connected with Adam’s.
Blue sits up straight when she sees them emerge, and Adam’s still eyes fix on Gansey. Ronan speaks before any of them can.
“‘Sup,” he says, stalking over to Blue and Adam, and slides himself onto Gansey’s bed, right next to Adam.
Gansey is glad of the low lighting-- he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle Adam’s inquisitive staring of the hickey Ronan had gifted him-- and settles himself in between Blue and Adam. Noah joins them all last, bouncing on the bed before lying his head in Blue’s lap. She immediately sets in on petting his hair gently.
“You alright, Lynch?” Adam breaks the silence, and Gansey watches as Ronan nods sharply.
“Yeah,” he says, voice uncharacteristically quiet, and Noah props his feet up on Ronan’s legs. “Nightmare, y’know,” he shrugs, and squeezes Noah’s feet with his hands once before resting his hands on Noah’s shins.
“That sucks,” Blue says, and Gansey watches as Ronan nods at her.
Gansey translates the interaction in his head:
Blue: I know you and I are just starting out our friendship, and it’s weird, and we’re trying to figure out how we fit together. But I care about you and hate seeing you in pain. So know that even though I don’t know why you’re having nightmares, I get it, and I’m here for you even if you don’t think I am.
Ronan: I appreciate you so much. I know you’re trying your best, and yeah, it’s a fucking weird scenario, but I care about you too. Thanks for acting chill and not like I’m a freak or made of glass or whatever. I know I can trust you, but it’s a hard thing for me to just open up instantly. So it’ll take time. Thank you for being patient.
“I made you tea. It’s got honey in it. For your throat,” Adam says, offering the cup of tea to Ronan. Gansey watches as Ronan takes in the beautiful sight of Adam’s hands and accepts the tea.
“Thanks,” Ronan says simply, and Gansey sees him smile to himself before taking a sip of the tea.
Gansey takes a leap and grasps Blue and Adam’s hands in his own. Blue looks surprised, but a stroke of her thumb against his fingers sets a warmness through his chest. Adam eyes their joined hands with a faraway, content expression and squeezes his hand once.
“I love you all,” he says, and it’s the truth, laid bare for all to see.
“We know,” Noah says, and blinks warmly in his direction.
Blue squeezes his hand. “I-- I know I don’t say it,” she says quietly, seeming to grapple with something. “I’m just… afraid of admitting it.”
Gansey knows what she really means: admitting it’s true means that she’ll kill one of them someday with a kiss, and she doesn’t want to. “It’s okay, Jane,” he says, although his heart aches and aches and aches for his lips to press to hers. She shakes her head minutely, and he hopes-- no, he knows she’s thinking the same thing.
“If I said I loved you all, it’d go right to your head,” Adam says matter-of-factly, and Ronan almost chokes on his tea in laughter.
“Christ, Parrish, what a way to make a man feel loved,” Ronan says, right as Noah adds in, “Yeah it would,” with a wink.
Gansey snorts out a rather undignified laugh and allows himself to enjoy this moment. I never want to forget this.
Blue mutters, “Raven Boys,” with a roll of her eyes and a fond smile, and Adam tugs the blanket they’re all sharing around Ronan’s shoulders.
They all sit together drowsily, leaning on each other. They delight in the simple pleasure of each other’s company, until they all fall asleep; the sky turns light outside Monmouth’s multicolored glass windows.
Later, they’ll go searching for a dead Welsh King. For now, they’ll rest their heads on each other’s shoulders and stomachs and legs and wake up with pins and needles and hearts full of warmth.