Motherfucker, Iβll be back from the dead soon;
Iβll be watching from the center of the hollow moon.
Oh my God - I think I mightβve made a mistake,
Waiting patiently was waiting taking up space,
We are waiting taking up space.
βSo,β Blue said to him over their morning breakfastβ yogurt for her, the fruity dregs for him, plus a mug the size of a small butter churn full of black coffee to prepare her for a long day at the public defendersβ office. βI think you should have sex with Ronan.βΒ
βWhat.β Gansey replied, softly owlish in his wireframes with all his muscles out, shirtless at the table that in the mornings he called the breakfast nook but was actually just the table they ate all their meals on.
Life in their matchbook apartment revolves around that table. He was reading the paper (the finance section) idly. Later, heβd make himself a plateful of scrambled eggs. For now, he was still mostly asleep, sitting up like a prop to well-wish his partner out the door.Β
Blueβs cell phone was going off, chirruping insistently. She took one last big spoonful of strawberry-flavored dairy goodness and kissed her fingertips before she answered Blue Sargent, pressing them to his mouth as she passed on her way to defend the disenfranchised masses.Β
βWhat.β Gansey mumbled to himself again, and then got up to go water all his plants. Their apartment resembled some kind of strange urban jungle, with greenery lush and alive on every possible surface. On their tiny balcony, he had a potted lemon tree that lived in their bathroom on winter nights but thrived now in the summertime light, fruited and vital. He liked itβ being surrounded by so much life.Β
He was a gentleman of leisure; he spent his days trading stocks and caring for his plants and going to the gym and working idly on his thesis. Heβd be a PhD sooner or laterβ Dr. Richard Campbell Gansey III. For now, he was content to be just thisβ just Gansey.Β
What, he texted Blue for good measure, before starting in on his morning dose of protein in the form of expertly-scrambled eggs. It was the only thing he knew how to cook without fail. He and Helen used to eat platefuls at night when they were too polite to wake up the housekeeper but too wracked by growth spurts to go hungry.Β
Blue didnβt respond except to send him a meme about capitalism. He forwarded it to Adam, who sent back funny, because he was too serious and too Adam to ever type out lol.
βBlue said I should sleep with Ronan.β Gansey said, ignoring the looks he drew from the surrounding gym-goers. He bounced around from gym to gym, never quite finding one to call his own haven of fitness. Today it was Mega Muscle, and Gansey was on the rowing machine with his AirPods in. Heβd paused the podcast he was listening to about obscure Aztec mythology to answer Henryβs call.Β
Never one to miss a beat, Henry responded cheerfully. βI think thatβs a great idea. Can I have your car after Parrish murders you for stealing his boyfriend?βΒ
Gansey grunted his way through another rep, an inelegant sound that only made him more desirable to passerby. It humanized him. βThe car is Blueβs, and I donβt think Adam would mind terribly.βΒ
Oddβ he hadnβt thought about Adam being jealous. It seemed just so beyond the pale. Why would Adam be jealous of him and Ronan? It was. Well. Okay, it wasnβt inconceivable, but Gansey sometimes forgot he wasnβt operating with the same wiring as everyone else around him.Β
βIβm gone for five minutes, and youβve dissolved into polyamorous debauchery.β Henry commented dryly, as if he werenβt thick as thieves with Blue and Gansey in life and in bed, both. βSpeaking of, howβs my favorite girl?βΒ
Gansey breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. Another rep. βSheβd kill you for calling her that. Janeβs good, sheβs got a big case right now, but itβs going well. She thinks sheβll get the acquittal.βΒ
From there it was the innocuousβ Henryβs travels, RoboBeeβs latest mishaps, Ganseyβs stories about his nephew, the erstwhile Richard Campbell Gansey IV, Henryβs wistful sighing, Ganseyβs bittersweet heartache when they hung up. Cathartic.Β
Heβd learned, in the intervening years between Henrietta and the here, the now, how to allow the holders of his heart to have their space without hating them for it.Β
He finished his set, and went to the next exercise with rote muscle memory guiding him.
βDo you think Adam would mind?β Gansey asked later that night from where he was enjoying the afterglow with his cheek pressed to Blueβs belly, his mouth wet from her slick, laying in the wet spot heβd created from grinding against her softly-furred shin. Blueβs fingers didnβt pause as they raked gently through the hair sheβd just been clutching for dear life.Β
βHe doesnβt mind.β She yawned, the kind of exhausted she only got when she was in the middle of a big case, riding on caffeine and righteous fury to victory.Β
There were many things Gansey could ask at this point, but instead he kissed his palm and stretched it up vaguely towards her face. He smiled when she caught him by the wrist to smear the kiss across her mouth.Β
βI love you.β He murmured, and felt settled in his skin. He went through stretches like this, where the constant thrum of run away run away run away was smothered down for months at a time. Otherwise it was an always-there flutter that needed soothing with the harsh rock of Blueβs hips and the feeling of her hand firm on the back of his neck.Β
βI love you.β Blue slurred, and then was asleep, snoring softly. Gansey rolled off of her but didnβt go far, curving his body around her more diminutive one and closing his eyes.Β
The post-orgasm syrup pumping through his veins made him looser, more languid. It was easier to fall asleep like this, and unlike Ambien, it didnβt make him want to die in the morning when he woke up with cottonmouth in a cold sweat.Β
Heβd never thought about it, just known somewhere that he couldβve put Ronan on his knees at any time, in any place. The sort of powerful knowing that made him reckless in the teeth, the claws.Β
Heβd grown up and out, somehow becoming exactly what heβd always thought he never would get to beβΒ
happy.Β
He spent his days chasing butterflies and reading books and smiling at passerby and making piles of money in the stock market and eating new flavors of ice cream. And and and.Β
He was alive, and he was free, and somehow everyone was okay with that. Helen had grown into a prince among men, the Gansey heir that had been foretold in the American Dreams of his great-great-grandparents. Gansey was the spare, and unneeded now, able to live out from under the crushing weight of Virginian high society and their expectations.Β
All of this to say, heβd known that Ronan would break his own body upon jagged rocks in the sea if Gansey had motioned for him to do it, much less said the first word.Β
βI want to have sex with you,β he said instead of that, and Ronanβs whole body jerked, coffee mug falling to the floor, shattering into a million pieces, splashing both their shoes with the hot liquid.Β
The movement was interesting, if Gansey had the cold blood required to watch it with a dispassionate lens. Ronanβs body moved as if to obey, to prostrate itself with spread legs and open arms and gaping mouth there in front of everyone in this little cafe, and then to stop itself, Ronanβs mind catching up to all the reasons that would be a bad idea.Β
βWhat in the fucking fuck, you fucker?β Ronan said, too-loud, deep voice almost shrill. He was bigger than heβd been when they were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen together. Taller and broader, with a low rumbling burr and more tattoos decorating the exposed skin of his throat, his arms. A thick black beard covered that sharp jawline, made his eyes seem almost too blue to bear.Β
He was still Ronan, but heβd grown up, too; the scars on his wrists were hidden with flowers, all the riotous colors of the dawn, disrupting his monochromatic aesthetic. Mussaenda philippica. Lady Aurora.Β
The razor-sharpness of him had given way to a sturdiness, unmoving, steady.Β
He did not immediately throw himself down to be ravaged, like he wouldβve when they were young and bleeding internally with every breath of air into their jagged-glass lungs.Β
People were staring.Β
Gansey smiled, because he couldnβt not.Β
βDo you want to have sex with me? Because I want to have sex with you.βΒ
βGansey,β Ronan said, raw with emotion, and when he rose it was to grab Gansey by the front of his shirt, dragging him close.Β
Yes, he said with the hard set of his bearded jaw, with the way he pressed their foreheads together, in front of God and all the assembled coffee drinking witnesses. They were a Renaissance painting standing there, a masterβs illumination in oils. That is what it felt like to Gansey. Like the sun was shining on them, and them alone.
βSo,β Blue said to him over their morning breakfastβ yogurt for her, the fruity dregs for him, plus a mug the size of a small butter churn full of black coffee to prepare her for a long day at the public defendersβ office. βI think you should have sex with Ronan.βΒ
βWhat.β Gansey replied, softly owlish in his wireframes with all his muscles out, shirtless at the table that in the mornings he called the breakfast nook but was actually just the table they ate all their meals on.
Life in their matchbook apartment revolves around that table. He was reading the paper (the finance section) idly. Later, heβd make himself a plateful of scrambled eggs. For now, he was still mostly asleep, sitting up like a prop to well-wish his partner out the door.Β
Blueβs cell phone was going off, chirruping insistently. She took one last big spoonful of strawberry-flavored dairy goodness and kissed her fingertips before she answered Blue Sargent, pressing them to his mouth as she passed on her way to defend the disenfranchised masses.Β
βWhat.β Gansey mumbled to himself again, and then got up to go water all his plants. Their apartment resembled some kind of strange urban jungle, with greenery lush and alive on every possible surface. On their tiny balcony, he had a potted lemon tree that lived in their bathroom on winter nights but thrived now in the summertime light, fruited and vital. He liked itβ being surrounded by so much life.Β
He was a gentleman of leisure; he spent his days trading stocks and caring for his plants and going to the gym and working idly on his thesis. Heβd be a PhD sooner or laterβ Dr. Richard Campbell Gansey III. For now, he was content to be just thisβ just Gansey.Β
What, he texted Blue for good measure, before starting in on his morning dose of protein in the form of expertly-scrambled eggs. It was the only thing he knew how to cook without fail. He and Helen used to eat platefuls at night when they were too polite to wake up the housekeeper but too wracked by growth spurts to go hungry.Β
Blue didnβt respond except to send him a meme about capitalism. He forwarded it to Adam, who sent back funny, because he was too serious and too Adam to ever type out lol.
βBlue said I should sleep with Ronan.β Gansey said, ignoring the looks he drew from the surrounding gym-goers. He bounced around from gym to gym, never quite finding one to call his own haven of fitness. Today it was Mega Muscle, and Gansey was on the rowing machine with his AirPods in. Heβd paused the podcast he was listening to about obscure Aztec mythology to answer Henryβs call.Β
Never one to miss a beat, Henry responded cheerfully. βI think thatβs a great idea. Can I have your car after Parrish murders you for stealing his boyfriend?βΒ
Gansey grunted his way through another rep, an inelegant sound that only made him more desirable to passerby. It humanized him. βThe car is Blueβs, and I donβt think Adam would mind terribly.βΒ
Oddβ he hadnβt thought about Adam being jealous. It seemed just so beyond the pale. Why would Adam be jealous of him and Ronan? It was. Well. Okay, it wasnβt inconceivable, but Gansey sometimes forgot he wasnβt operating with the same wiring as everyone else around him.Β
βIβm gone for five minutes, and youβve dissolved into polyamorous debauchery.β Henry commented dryly, as if he werenβt thick as thieves with Blue and Gansey in life and in bed, both. βSpeaking of, howβs my favorite girl?βΒ
Gansey breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. Another rep. βSheβd kill you for calling her that. Janeβs good, sheβs got a big case right now, but itβs going well. She thinks sheβll get the acquittal.βΒ
From there it was the innocuousβ Henryβs travels, RoboBeeβs latest mishaps, Ganseyβs stories about his nephew, the erstwhile Richard Campbell Gansey IV, Henryβs wistful sighing, Ganseyβs bittersweet heartache when they hung up. Cathartic.Β
Heβd learned, in the intervening years between Henrietta and the here, the now, how to allow the holders of his heart to have their space without hating them for it.Β
He finished his set, and went to the next exercise with rote muscle memory guiding him.
βDo you think Adam would mind?β Gansey asked later that night from where he was enjoying the afterglow with his cheek pressed to Blueβs belly, his mouth wet from her slick, laying in the wet spot heβd created from grinding against her softly-furred shin. Blueβs fingers didnβt pause as they raked gently through the hair sheβd just been clutching for dear life.Β
βHe doesnβt mind.β She yawned, the kind of exhausted she only got when she was in the middle of a big case, riding on caffeine and righteous fury to victory.Β
There were many things Gansey could ask at this point, but instead he kissed his palm and stretched it up vaguely towards her face. He smiled when she caught him by the wrist to smear the kiss across her mouth.Β
βI love you.β He murmured, and felt settled in his skin. He went through stretches like this, where the constant thrum of run away run away run away was smothered down for months at a time. Otherwise it was an always-there flutter that needed soothing with the harsh rock of Blueβs hips and the feeling of her hand firm on the back of his neck.Β
βI love you.β Blue slurred, and then was asleep, snoring softly. Gansey rolled off of her but didnβt go far, curving his body around her more diminutive one and closing his eyes.Β
The post-orgasm syrup pumping through his veins made him looser, more languid. It was easier to fall asleep like this, and unlike Ambien, it didnβt make him want to die in the morning when he woke up with cottonmouth in a cold sweat.Β
βSo,β Blue said to him over their morning breakfastβ yogurt for her, the fruity dregs for him, plus a mug the size of a small butter churn full of black coffee to prepare her for a long day at the public defendersβ office. βI think you should have sex with Ronan.βΒ
βWhat.β Gansey replied, softly owlish in his wireframes with all his muscles out, shirtless at the table that in the mornings he called the breakfast nook but was actually just the table they ate all their meals on.
Life in their matchbook apartment revolves around that table. He was reading the paper (the finance section) idly. Later, heβd make himself a plateful of scrambled eggs. For now, he was still mostly asleep, sitting up like a prop to well-wish his partner out the door.Β
Blueβs cell phone was going off, chirruping insistently. She took one last big spoonful of strawberry-flavored dairy goodness and kissed her fingertips before she answered Blue Sargent, pressing them to his mouth as she passed on her way to defend the disenfranchised masses.Β
βWhat.β Gansey mumbled to himself again, and then got up to go water all his plants. Their apartment resembled some kind of strange urban jungle, with greenery lush and alive on every possible surface. On their tiny balcony, he had a potted lemon tree that lived in their bathroom on winter nights but thrived now in the summertime light, fruited and vital. He liked itβ being surrounded by so much life.Β
He was a gentleman of leisure; he spent his days trading stocks and caring for his plants and going to the gym and working idly on his thesis. Heβd be a PhD sooner or laterβ Dr. Richard Campbell Gansey III. For now, he was content to be just thisβ just Gansey.Β
What, he texted Blue for good measure, before starting in on his morning dose of protein in the form of expertly-scrambled eggs. It was the only thing he knew how to cook without fail. He and Helen used to eat platefuls at night when they were too polite to wake up the housekeeper but too wracked by growth spurts to go hungry.Β
Blue didnβt respond except to send him a meme about capitalism. He forwarded it to Adam, who sent back funny, because he was too serious and too Adam to ever type out lol.
βBlue said I should sleep with Ronan.β Gansey said, ignoring the looks he drew from the surrounding gym-goers. He bounced around from gym to gym, never quite finding one to call his own haven of fitness. Today it was Mega Muscle, and Gansey was on the rowing machine with his AirPods in. Heβd paused the podcast he was listening to about obscure Aztec mythology to answer Henryβs call.Β
Never one to miss a beat, Henry responded cheerfully. βI think thatβs a great idea. Can I have your car after Parrish murders you for stealing his boyfriend?βΒ
Gansey grunted his way through another rep, an inelegant sound that only made him more desirable to passerby. It humanized him. βThe car is Blueβs, and I donβt think Adam would mind terribly.βΒ
Oddβ he hadnβt thought about Adam being jealous. It seemed just so beyond the pale. Why would Adam be jealous of him and Ronan? It was. Well. Okay, it wasnβt inconceivable, but Gansey sometimes forgot he wasnβt operating with the same wiring as everyone else around him.Β
βIβm gone for five minutes, and youβve dissolved into polyamorous debauchery.β Henry commented dryly, as if he werenβt thick as thieves with Blue and Gansey in life and in bed, both. βSpeaking of, howβs my favorite girl?βΒ
Gansey breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth. Another rep. βSheβd kill you for calling her that. Janeβs good, sheβs got a big case right now, but itβs going well. She thinks sheβll get the acquittal.βΒ
From there it was the innocuousβ Henryβs travels, RoboBeeβs latest mishaps, Ganseyβs stories about his nephew, the erstwhile Richard Campbell Gansey IV, Henryβs wistful sighing, Ganseyβs bittersweet heartache when they hung up. Cathartic.Β
Heβd learned, in the intervening years between Henrietta and the here, the now, how to allow the holders of his heart to have their space without hating them for it.Β
He finished his set, and went to the next exercise with rote muscle memory guiding him.
βSo,β Blue said to him over their morning breakfastβ yogurt for her, the fruity dregs for him, plus a mug the size of a small butter churn full of black coffee to prepare her for a long day at the public defendersβ office. βI think you should have sex with Ronan.βΒ
βWhat.β Gansey replied, softly owlish in his wireframes with all his muscles out, shirtless at the table that in the mornings he called the breakfast nook but was actually just the table they ate all their meals on.
Life in their matchbook apartment revolves around that table. He was reading the paper (the finance section) idly. Later, heβd make himself a plateful of scrambled eggs. For now, he was still mostly asleep, sitting up like a prop to well-wish his partner out the door.Β
Blueβs cell phone was going off, chirruping insistently. She took one last big spoonful of strawberry-flavored dairy goodness and kissed her fingertips before she answered Blue Sargent, pressing them to his mouth as she passed on her way to defend the disenfranchised masses.Β
βWhat.β Gansey mumbled to himself again, and then got up to go water all his plants. Their apartment resembled some kind of strange urban jungle, with greenery lush and alive on every possible surface. On their tiny balcony, he had a potted lemon tree that lived in their bathroom on winter nights but thrived now in the summertime light, fruited and vital. He liked itβ being surrounded by so much life.Β
He was a gentleman of leisure; he spent his days trading stocks and caring for his plants and going to the gym and working idly on his thesis. Heβd be a PhD sooner or laterβ Dr. Richard Campbell Gansey III. For now, he was content to be just thisβ just Gansey.Β
What, he texted Blue for good measure, before starting in on his morning dose of protein in the form of expertly-scrambled eggs. It was the only thing he knew how to cook without fail. He and Helen used to eat platefuls at night when they were too polite to wake up the housekeeper but too wracked by growth spurts to go hungry.Β
Blue didnβt respond except to send him a meme about capitalism. He forwarded it to Adam, who sent back funny, because he was too serious and too Adam to ever type out lol.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
They're never going to be here again.
[AKA, Sirius returns to 12 Grimmauld Place for one more fight with his mother; James catches Regulus spying. This has been building for a long time. It's time for one last confrontation, all around.]
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