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It begins, as many things do, with a question.
“What do we do now?”
Blue regrets asking it the moment she sees Gansey’s expression crumple, and she shakes her head and grabs his hands in hers.
“Never mind,” she says, squeezing his fingers tightly.
“No, it’s—you’re right,” Gansey mutters, though his eyes are glassy. “I don’t know. I never really imagined I would make it this far.”
Blue frowns and intertwines their fingers. Gansey tugs her closer until their knees knock together on his bed, Monmouth Manufacturing empty except for them now that Ronan is back at the Barns, and Noah is—
“Well, what’s something you’ve always wanted to do?” Blue asks in a rush, desperate to tune out her own thoughts. Gansey huffs out a pitiful half-laugh. “Not Glendower related. Something else. Something stupid and reckless and easy.”
The barest hint of a smile starts to turn up the corners of his mouth, and Blue has never been more grateful for the sight of it.
“Well, I suppose I’ve always wanted to kiss you without the threat of imminent death looming over our heads.”
She doesn’t miss the humor in his tone, and while she is glad for it, the erratic pounding of her heart in her throat becomes her most immediate concern. She tries to inhale to calm herself down but fails miserably.
Gansey catches the look on her face and his eyes soften as he squeezes her fingers between his.
“We don’t have to, Blue. I was kidding.”
She shakes her head. “You weren’t, really.”
He knits his eyebrows thoughtfully, and she tries to focus on that, on the crinkle above the elegant line of his nose, the hazel eyes behind his exquisitely clean glasses.
“Not entirely, no, but I didn’t mean that we have to do it right now. That was the part I was joking about.”
“I’m so scared,” she whispers, horrified at the prickling in her nose, behind her eyes.
Maura and Calla have assured her multiple times what the cards say, that her curse has been broken, that she is free to kiss who she pleases without fear. They were not there, though, on that flooded road, their boys each dying a different death, nothing to save them but the sacrifice of one. They can’t understand the terror, the full-bodied fear and grief and loss that overwhelmed her that day.
They can only tell her that it is safe now. Now, after all has come to pass. Something shifted within her that day, something that she fears may never be righted again. Now doesn’t help her move on from then—how could it, really? The conversation with her family churns her stomach each time, and she has to escape the room before her most recent meal makes a reappearance.
But there is nowhere to run right now. Not that she particularly wants to, with Gansey’s palms warm and close and alive against hers.
He is alive, she reminds herself. She can feel his pulse where their wrists are pressed together. He is safe, now.
She shuts her eyes to steady herself, doing her best to take long, measured breaths. Gansey shuffles closer to her until his knees are on either side of her, boxing her in. Instead of feeling trapped, though, she only feels safe—he is here, keeping her safe. He will not leave her again. She will not hurt him again.
“Will you look at me for a minute, Blue?” he murmurs.
She swallows hard and opens her eyes slowly, her vision no longer blurred around the edges with panic. There is only Gansey’s understanding expression, so close she can smell the mint on his breath.
He releases her hands in favor of cradling her face between his palms, and she leans into his touch like an exhale, relieved and easy.
“I’d just like to say that we don’t ever have to do anything that you don’t want to do,” he tells her, his tone painfully earnest. She swallows hard, and his eyes flit between hers. “I know that you know that, obviously, but—I just wanted to remind you. Before all this, I was prepared to go my entire life without kissing you. I consider myself a bit of an expert on that front.” Blue snorts, entirely unwittingly, and Gansey sends her an amused grin. “I don’t need to kiss you, Jane; I just need to be with you.” Her chest heaves, and he offers her a tender smile. “I love you, Blue Sargent. The only thing I’ll ever ask of you is that you allow me to stay by your side, for as long as I’m wanted there.”
A sob escapes her involuntarily, and Gansey’s expression becomes alarmed as he pulls her into his chest.
“Damn you,” she cries into his stupid teal polo. “Can you stop being so sweet when I’m trying not to cry?”
Gansey lets out a laugh that sounds more relieved than anything else, and she wraps her arms around him, hugging him tight.
“You were dead, Gansey,” she sobs, her entire body trembling. “Don’t you understand? You died. I thought I’d lost you forever, I thought—I thought that I’d never get you back.” She pulls back from him to meet his gaze, though she can hardly see him through her tears. “I’ve never been so desperate and broken as I was begging Cabeswater for your life. I can’t just move on from that.”
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers. “Jesus, Blue—I’m so, so sorry.”
She shakes her head, letting him wipe away her tears with the backs of his hands.
“You’re sorry? You died!”
He sends her a shaky half-smile. “I did,” he breathes, drying the last of her tears with his thumbs. “And I’m afraid that I’ve run out of chances to come back to life. The next time will have to stick.”
Blue does not know how to respond to such a horrifying thought, so she leans forward until her forehead is pressed above his heart. His hands tremble slightly on either side of her face, his heart beating rapidly in his chest.
“I’m just too afraid to try,” she whispers eventually, and he rests his chin atop her head. “I know what my mom and Calla say, but—I’m too scared to risk it.”
Gansey lets out a low sigh, his fingers scratching soothing patterns into Blue’s scalp. His hands have stopped shaking, at least.
“I’m a little afraid, too,” he admits.
His words send a piercing pain through her chest, all the way down to her stomach, but she cannot blame him—they fear the same thing.
“You know, Dr. Reinfeld says that avoidance makes anxiety worse,” he says eventually.
Blue snorts derisively as she pulls back from him. “Has your therapist ever killed someone with her lips?”
Gansey laughs a bit, and she finds it in her to smile for the first time as she revels in the sound. His expression softens as he meets her eyes, and he caresses her cheekbone with his thumb.
“I don’t believe she has, but I suppose that’s sort of the whole point,” he says. “It is nice to have someone objective to speak with, though. She acts a bit like a sounding board to all my worst thoughts—she makes sense of them in a way that I just can’t, when I’m spiraling. It helps.”
Blue nods in understanding, and he moves his hand to her jaw, his thumb tracing the underside of her bottom lip. Her breath catches in her throat.
“Gansey,” she warns, breathless for more than just her fear.
“We can go little by little, okay?” he mutters. “There's no need to rush.” He holds her eyes. “Is that alright?”
She swallows hard and nods, and he moves his thumb to brush over her mouth. Her heartbeat clogs her throat, but somehow she manages to speak.
“I’ve always been jealous of that thumb,” she whispers.
Gansey’s eyes move from her lips back to meet her gaze. “Hm?”
She shakes her head, her cheeks heating. “Never mind.”
She leans forward to knock her forehead into his, partially so he will not see her blush, partially because she just wants to be as close to him as she can right now. She knows Gansey will not push her, and she is overwhelmed with an unspeakable fondness that nearly bowls her over.
“One day at a time,” she whispers, and he nods against her head.
“One day at a time,” he agrees.
It’s a promise she does not have to fear keeping. One she will not fear breaking, either.
One day at a time, she thinks, breathing him in. They are safe, now, together.
______________
It continues with an accident, a moment of joy giving way to something darker, tinged at the edges with the faintest hints of light.
But first: Ronan stomping around Monmouth Manufacturing's open space, Adam laughing at the joke Blue’s just made, Gansey smiling that wide, warm smile of his, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes and shows all his perfectly white teeth and softens his Presidential exterior. Henry busy laying out plans for a backpacking trip across the U.S., excitement lighting him up like a Christmas tree.
(Someone else is still noticeably absent, though Blue does her best not to dwell on that. It just hurts too much.)
Blue is lying back against Gansey's chest, her head resting on his shoulder, his long legs on either side of her (much) shorter ones, his tan arms wrapped around her stomach. She marvels for a moment at her hands over his, their fingers intertwined; she still has moments when she is taken aback by how natural it feels to be wrapped up with him like this, his warmth so generously shared with her, his presence steady and sure as her own heartbeat.
Adam and Ronan are not so overt in their affection, but Blue notes the way Ronan sprawls out beside his boyfriend, his elbow pressed to Adam's hip, Adam's posture leaning into Ronan as if they're both magnetized.
“I feel like a bit of a fifth wheel here, if I’m honest,” Henry says, and Blue laughs as Ronan snorts.
“Doesn't seem like that's really stopping you, Cheng,” Ronan remarks.
Henry sends him a shit-eating grin as he sits up and scoots closer in the haphazard circle they've formed on the floor. “True enough, Lynch. Look at this itinerary I made that'll take us from here to San Francisco with a pit stop at the Grand Canyon.”
“For the last time, I'm not going on a fuckin' road trip with you.”
“Well then you'll be missing out on a truly enlightening experience.”
“I dreamed a goddamned forest into existence and the goddamned forest turned into my best friend.”
“Goddamned forest haunted your goddamned boyfriend, too,” Adam notes.
Ronan points at Adam as if to say, my point exactly, and Blue grins.
“I don't see what that has to do with your enlightenment,” she says, and Ronan raises a single eyebrow at her.
“I've seen e-fucking-nough,” he deadpans.
“There's always more to the world than meets the eye,” Henry says sagely.
Ronan mimes gagging himself.
“Mm, you'd think the dreamer would be a bit more open-minded,” Gansey remarks, and Blue tilts her head back against his shoulder to grin at him. He nudges his forehead into her temple, and her stomach warms.
“Stop pestering the man,” Adam says, though he's wearing a knowing grin of his own. “Didn’t you hear him? He's seen e-fucking-nough.”
Ronan flips off his boyfriend, then flips off Blue, Gansey, and Henry, too. Chainsaw, who'd previously been having the time of her life in the rafters above them, flies down to land on his extended arm. Adam howls with laughter, as does everyone who is not Ronan, though Blue is certain there is pride shining in his cool ocean eyes, through his razor-sharp grin.
Blue pulls Gansey's arms tighter around her, grateful for his embrace, but even more so for his laughter; she can feel the way it rocks through his chest and travels down her back. There will never be a day she will take his joy for granted.
Gansey squeezes her tighter still, then presses a kiss to the top of her head.
Her amusement dries up in an instant, her body going tense and rigid as fear traps her in its clutches. She is too afraid to turn around to check for his safety, and she grips his hands in hers like a lifeline, desperate and terrified and so tight it must be painful for him, unless—unless—
"I'm here, Blue, I'm okay," he says in her ear, low, just for her.
Her breaths come in shallow and quick; she is convinced, for a moment, that she must be hallucinating the sound of his voice.
"I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking," he whispers. "I'm so sorry. I'm okay. We're okay."
She shuts her eyes, trembling, and Gansey's arms around her tighten further, pulling her back into his chest. There is no denying the beat of his heart against her back, the squeeze of his fingers between hers. He is okay, she tells herself, doing her best to steady her breathing. They are okay.
(He trembles ever so slightly, but Blue feels it. This has shaken him, too.)
True to their word, they've been taking things slowly, one day at a time. A brush of his lips across her knuckles here, the swipe of her thumb across his mouth there. There has never been this, though, a true kiss—the press of lips against skin (or hair, as it were), definitive and unambiguous and punctuated with the brief, sweet nuzzle of his nose against her ear.
She cannot fault him for slipping up—they have been moving ever closer to this moment, she knows. It was only a matter of time.
"I'm here," he repeats, and it sounds like he's speaking the words just as much for himself as he is for her. "I'm here with you."
"You're here," she murmurs, relief flooding her chest.
She opens her eyes, unsure when and how she came to be curled up into a ball, her face pressed to Gansey's shoulder. She takes a breath so deep she thinks for a moment that her lungs might explode, that the curse might bounce back to her, a mirror in her own right; she exhales long and slow, notes that Gansey is breathing in time with her.
He is okay. They are okay.
Too late she remembers that they are not alone here, and she turns her face a bit to take in the worried expressions of her three other friends; Adam's contemplative, as if he's adding numbers in his head, Henry's sympathetic, Ronan's masked by the harsh downturn of his mouth.
"Breathing, Sargent?" he asks, and she swallows hard, then nods.
"I'm okay," she says, and it's mostly true.
He eyes her cautiously and nods. Blue settles back into Gansey's embrace as she had earlier.
"So about this trip," Henry begins, turning to look at Ronan.
Ronan threatens to sic Chainsaw on him if he says another word. Little by little, Blue's laughter becomes more genuine, comes without being forced.
They are okay, she knows. Gansey's steady arms still wrapped around her feel like a promise that they always will be.
______________
It gets easier on a foggy winter day, the house at 300 Fox Way bustling and loud as ever, the door to Blue's bedroom shut to all the noise. She and Gansey are meant to be studying, and maybe their initial intentions were pure (they weren't) but they've given up the ruse entirely in favor of lying face-to-face on Blue's small bed.
Gansey's strong left hand caresses Blue's head gently, his fingers running through her choppy hair. She's taken her clips out just for this, for him—she's never truly been able to deny him anything for very long, and she can admit that she probably enjoys the soothing motion just as much as he does.
Her eyes are shut, her senses focused entirely on him—the sound of his steady breaths, the warmth of them fanning over her face, the soft, rhythmic stroke of his hand over her hair. His heart beat strong and present as it's ever (mostly) been beneath her palm, the ridiculous cashmere ridiculously silken against her skin. The smell of mint in her nose, the taste on her tongue after Gansey offered a leaf he saved just for her, tinged blue at its edges.
She is at peace, for once, and she does not take it for granted.
“Have I ever told you how beautiful you are?” Gansey mutters, and her cheeks heat even as she grins.
“Certainly not as often as you should.”
“That just won't do.” Blue's smile widens, somehow, and she opens her eyes to find his perfect face aglow with adoration, that tiny smile he reserves just for her turning up the corners of his mouth. “Blue Sargent, you're the most stunning human being I've ever seen. I could write epics and ballads about your beauty and grace.”
“Get to it, then, Dick; I don't have all day.”
He clears his throat, presumably to begin waxing poetic about her beauty and grace, but Blue laughs and smacks her hand over his mouth.
“Don't you dare sing to me," she says, her demand undercut by her giggles.
She's giggling, giddy. What has this boy done to her?
“I thought you wanted me to get to it,” he mumbles against her palm.
“Have you never heard of the ever-elusive art of banter?”
“Of course I have—I invented banter. Banter is I, I am it.”
“You’re ridiculous,” she says, dropping her hand from his mouth.
He catches it and brings her knuckles to his lips, brushes his mouth over them gently before he presses a tender kiss to her skin.
Although her fear spikes for a moment, it subsides rather quickly, and she finds herself craving another. Gansey must read her unspoken request in her eyes, as he always does, and kisses the base of her wrist.
(They've moved forward since that day at Monmouth Manufacturing. Day by day, little by little, they've gotten more comfortable with this.)
“I’m about as ridiculous as Adam,” he begins, “but nowhere near as ridiculous as Ronan.”
Blue grins. “Your ridiculousness far surpasses that of our humble Ronan.”
“Humble!” Gansey exclaims, incredulous.
“Our little dreamer could rule the world if he wanted to.”
Gansey sighs, the sound heavy and wearied, and Blue decides it’s her turn to run her fingers through his hair. The strands are silky as ever, and he leans into her touch without an ounce of hesitation, drapes his arm around her waist just to pull her in closer.
“I worry about him,” Gansey says, needlessly.
Blue could tell from the tone of that sigh exactly what he was thinking.
“I know you do,” she mutters as he buries his face in her neck. She presses her nose to the crown of his head as she scratches at the back of his scalp. “I do, too.”
“Adam will look out for him,” Gansey mutters. “Adam’s always looked out for him, even back when he didn’t want to admit it.”
“You’ll look out for him, too. Like you always have. So will I.”
“I suppose that will have to be enough, won’t it?”
Blue nods against his head, and he sighs deeply once more.
“Enough of that,” he says as he pulls back from her, propping himself up on his elbow. She lets her hand fall back to his chest, reassured by the steady thumpthumpthump beneath his sternum. “We were concerned with your otherworldly beauty, last I checked.”
Blue rolls her eyes as she turns away from him, onto her opposite side. “Enough about that. I have brains, too, you know.”
“Don’t make this an issue of feminism, please, Jane.”
Blue’s jaw drops as she sits up to face him, ready to ream into him. The shit-eating grin on his lips tells her this is exactly the reaction he was hoping to inspire in her.
“Thanks for giving me the attention I deserve.”
“You—”
“As I was saying,” Gansey begins, still grinning (and shit, if she doesn’t want to kiss the smug look right off of his stupidly gorgeous face), “you’re the love of my life, and I’d like to stare at you all day every day for as long as we both shall live.”
“What about school?”
“Ronan will dream me a diploma.”
“Work?”
“We both know I don’t have to worry about that, Jane.”
A spike of irritation in her chest, quick as a needle pierced through her ear. “Well, I do,” she snaps.
“I’ll pay for your time.”
She whacks him in the chest, and he laughs brightly, catching her hand and tugging her down into him.
“That was obviously a reference to—”
“I know what it was a reference to, Richard Campbell Gansey III. I am not laughing.”
He wraps his arms around her tightly, so that she cannot break out of his grasp. “Come on, Jane, that was back before you loved me, when you thought I was an asshole. Haven’t I proven myself to you by now?”
“Not nearly as much as you think you have,” she says, mostly just to get a rise out of him.
He pouts at her. “I’m wounded, Jane.”
She grins, entirely unable to help herself. The thing about Gansey is that he makes himself utterly kissable at the worst possible moments—she doesn’t know how he manages it.
“Good,” she says, only just staving off her impulse. “That means I’m doing my job.”
He grins right back, then knocks his forehead into hers.
“I was just kidding, you know,” he mutters. “I’m a feminist, too.”
Blue laughs laughs laughs, her flimsy irritation now forgotten entirely, and he laughs with her. He finally releases his firm hold on her, lifting one hand just to trace the shape of her smile with his thumb. Without even thinking about it, she tilts her head to press a proper kiss to the pad of his finger, and they both freeze for a moment, blinking at each other.
They’ve been able to handle Gansey kissing Blue, this far along, but they have not yet ventured into Blue kissing Gansey herself. It’s entirely new territory for them, and it takes Blue back to that bloody road, Ronan’s eyes and nose leaking something black and foul and deadly, Adam tied up and losing himself, Gansey falling falling falling until—
An overwhelming sense of dread washes over her, and all she can think is that she’s made a horrible mistake. Her chest pinches, her breaths coming in so quickly it makes her lightheaded.
But then he is there, wrapping his arms around her, whispering in her ear. He is safe, and so is she, laid here beside him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I wasn’t thinking.”
His breaths move in and out unsteadily for a few moments until he regains control of them, and she hates herself for what she's done to him.
“I’m not sorry,” he declares, and she gapes at him. “You’re far too sensible, Jane; you could do with a break from thinking every once in a while.”
She shakes her head. “I could have—”
She cannot finish the sentence, her voice breaking. Gansey shakes his head and holds her closer, his hand stroking over the back of her hair.
“You couldn’t have,” he assures her, his tone leaving no room for argument. “We both know that. Anything else is fear talking.”
(She does not mention how tightly he holds onto her, as if he's trying to ground himself. She knows that he's doing what he needs to do in order to move forward here; she wishes she could be half as strong as he is.)
Blue nods, though that fear sounds reasonable enough to her. She cannot tear her eyes away from him, worried that the moment she looks elsewhere he will blink out of existence, removed from time and space the way Noah was, gone in an instant without a single goodbye.
“I’m right here, Blue,” he says as if reading her mind. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She nods, taking deep, soothing breaths. Gansey wipes at the tears she did not realize were streaming down her face and talks to her through the haze of her anxiety. Every simple touch sets her alight, even the soothing brush of his thumb against her skin. This is real, she minds herself. He is real.
The foggy feeling in her head leaves more quickly than it ever has before, her heart rate slowing until it beats in time with Gansey’s beneath her hand.
“It felt so good, to be able to do that with you,” she whispers eventually, reaching up to cup the side of his face in her hand.
She traces the line of his cheekbone with her thumb, and he catches her hand to press a kiss to the inside of her wrist, then does it again, and again, and again.
“You can always do it again, you know,” he mutters, rubbing her forearm gently.
She swallows hard, searching his eyes for any fear or hesitation—she finds none.
“How’d you stop being afraid?” she whispers. “I mean it was you—you’re the one who—”
She cannot bring herself to finish her statement, but she does not have to. Gansey shrugs as much as he can with one shoulder sunk into the mattress, and he tucks her hair behind her ear just for it to fall out again.
“Therapy gave me an advantage, I think,” he mutters. “Cabeswater gave me courage, too.” She nods, dropping her hand to his jaw, rubbing his lower lip with her thumb so that he will not have to. He kisses her knuckle and sighs. “Mostly, though, I just really want to kiss you, Blue. And now that I can, I don’t want to waste any more time worrying about what might happen after.”
“I’d really like to kiss you, too,” she admits. “I just need a little more time, I think.”
Gansey offers her an achingly soft smile. “We have all the time in the world, Jane. Take as much as you need.”
“One day at a time,” she mutters.
His grin lights up the room. “One day at a time.”
She buries her face in his chest and listens to the sound of his heart beating calmly in her ear. He wraps his arms around her and kisses the crown of her head once, twice, three times.
It's time to put her fear to bed, she thinks. With Gansey by her side, that task has never felt more possible.
______________
It changes after an unexpected scare, Gansey frozen and hyperventilating outside the Pig while Blue disposes of a wasp that somehow found its way into the car.
They’re on the side of a small, one-lane road, nothing around for miles but mountains and farmlands. Once she’s certain no threat remains, Blue crouches down between his knees where he sits against the driver’s side door, taking his face in her hands.
“Hey,” she says, trying her best to get him to focus on her. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s gone. I got rid of it, okay? It can’t hurt you now.”
Gansey’s eyes are glassy and far away, his breathing ragged and quick.
“Gansey,” she commands, using the firmest tone she can muster, “look at me.”
She can see him trying his best, his eyes flitting over her face, his hands coming up to hold onto hers. His skin is clammy and unusually paled; Blue’s certain that if she dared release her hold on his cheeks to touch his chest she’d find his heart beating a mile a minute.
“Blue,” he whispers, and she nods.
“I’m here,” she promises. “I’m right here. Nothing’s gonna hurt you now, okay? Not if I have anything to say about it.”
He nods, still in a daze, and Blue forces him to count his breaths, breathing in time with him. She didn’t realize, in the face of his panic, just how terrified she was, too—she does not remember killing the wasp, does not remember how she could have possibly acted so quickly while knowing the danger Gansey was in.
Her hands are trembling against his cheeks. She holds onto him a little tighter and they keep on breathing, together.
He is safe. She kept him safe. She can do it again, and again, and again, forever. She will.
She will.
Try and stop me, she thinks, not entirely sure at whom she's directing her internal declaration. The universe, maybe. Wasps the world over, possibly.
(Her own stubborn fear, most likely. She's beaten it countless times before, and she intends to do it again.)
Resolve steadies her, and she coaches Gansey through his episode until he's regained normal control of his breathing.
“I’m here,” she reassures him again. “I’m right here.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and she shakes her head.
“No, you’re not allowed to apologize. Not for this.”
“I’m not supposed to be afraid anymore,” he croaks. Her chest aches for the way his voice cracks, for the mistiness in his eyes. “I’m supposed to be past this. I'm supposed to be stronger.”
She shakes her head again, leaning forward to press her forehead into his.
“You’re not supposed to be anything, okay? We all have setbacks. You’re only human, Gansey. You can’t always be strong.”
“I think technically speaking I’m part forest, now,” he mutters, his tone falling just short of humor.
“A very handsome forest,” she tells him.
He lets out a pitiful half-laugh, but it’s better than nothing. Blue moves to wrap her arms around him in a hug, tucks her face into his neck as he buries his nose against her hair. He pulls her into his chest with his arms around her waist.
“You scared me,” she breathes, squeezing him tight tight tight.
He squeezes her right back.
“I’m here,” he mutters, the low rumble in his chest shaking its way into hers. “I’m here.”
“I know you are,” she assures him.
She brushes her lips over his pulse point, careful not to kiss him. His heart beats on, quicker than normal, but nowhere near the speed it must have been at earlier. She does it again because she can, and because Gansey’s leaning into her touch, and because she’s a little bit addicted to the feeling of his smooth, warm skin pressed to her lips.
She feels a little like the way she did after killing that wasp for him—a spike of adrenaline, a rush of something undeniably alive inside her. She finds that she’s not afraid, not of this.
Take that, asshole, she thinks, the words now most decidedly aimed at her every foolish doubt.
“Okay?” she mutters into Gansey's skin, and he nods against her head.
“I’m okay.” He pauses. “That felt nice.”
She grins and moves her lips over his neck again, not hesitating to fulfill his unspoken request. Gansey lets out a little sigh and nestles his nose into her hair, the last of his tension draining out of him as he falls back properly against the car, taking her with him.
“Should we just stay here all day?” Blue mutters.
He nods against her head. “It’s nice. Quiet.”
Blue nods, too, noting how true his statement is. Not a single car has driven past them on this road; the only sound Blue can hear is the wind whistling through the trees, Gansey’s now-steady breaths. She thinks that she could stay here with him forever—but then again, she thinks she could stay anywhere with him forever.
She just wants to stay with him, period.
“You know, you make me feel a lot like this,” Gansey mutters, and she digs her nose beneath his ear as she hums curiously. “Quiet, I mean. Safe. Settled.”
Her stomach blooms with warmth, and it spreads out to every inch of her, to her toes and fingertips and the ends of her hair. She buries her smile in his neck.
“Aren’t you a charmer,” she says, a moment too late.
“I’m just being honest, Jane. I'm sure you're aware how well-known I am for my sense of integrity.”
“Mhm, I’m sure.”
“You sound a bit too dubious for my liking.”
“Dubious? Me? Never.”
Gansey laughs, full and bright, and she revels in the way his body shakes in amusement, and shakes hers in turn.
“Gansey?” she mutters, once he’s settled down.
“Yes, Jane?”
“I love you.”
He lets out a small, contented sigh, and holds her a little tighter. “I love you, too. More than words can describe.”
“Perhaps you could try.”
“Mm,” he hums. “Perhaps.”
He stays silent, though, one of his hands moving up and down her back steadily, the other coming up to stroke the back of her head. She lets out a happy little sigh of her own, more grateful than ever before to be tangled up with him like this.
She has not lost him, and she never will again.
They’re here together now, she reminds herself. No matter how many setbacks they face, they’ll move forward together, too.
______________
It begins anew in an all too familiar place, the rumble of the Pig's engine shaking apart any remaining fear she may have left. The sun is setting over Henrietta, and the boy beside her has never looked so much like a king—his hazel eyes are molten in the fading orange light, his hair windswept and perfect. His glasses rest low on the bridge of his aquiline nose, his jaw sharp and well-defined. Everything about him is perfect and golden and bright as he commands the Camaro forward faster, just to hear her laugh.
When they park, it's near the top of a mountain Blue considers to be an old friend, the very same place they had their first not-kiss. Blue grins at Gansey, and he becomes her mirror.
“I figured it might be nice to watch the sunset from up here,” he says.
She raises one skeptical eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
His grin grows, a challenge in his eyes. “Absolutely. Look at that view.”
“You're looking the wrong way, Gansey.”
“I most certainly am not.”
She forces herself to ignore the ridiculous flutter in her stomach giving way to the warmth that blooms in the wake of his words.
“You must think you're really smooth, huh?” she says, narrowing her eyes.
“I have no idea what you're insinuating, Jane.”
“Sure.”
“In fact, I'm insulted you'd ever question my intentions so callously.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is this the kind of treatment I get for bringing the love of my life back to the place where it all began for us?”
Blue softens at that, her teasing forgotten for the moment. “I don't think it started here,” she says gently.
He tilts his head and takes her hand in his, bringing her knuckles to his lips. “Where, then?” he mutters into her skin.
“Nino's, maybe.”
He scrunches up his nose. “I'd rather not mark the place I made an asshole of myself as the starting point of our relationship.”
Blue grins and runs her fingers through the hair at the side of his head. He lets out a contented hum, leaning into her touch, so she continues on doing it.
“Well, the first place I ever saw you was actually the corpse road, if you'd rather our relationship start there.”
“Jesus. Talk about romance.”
Blue laughs, though some sadness lingers. She does not think there will ever be a day she can think of their lives without at least a touch of it, not so long as her Noah is gone, not so long as she can remember the pain of losing the boy before her now.
It bolsters her gratitude, though, and she clings to it as tightly as she can, refuses to let go.
“Fox Way, then,” Blue decides. “That was where I learned your name.”
“I pulled your card,” Gansey mutters, running his thumb beneath her bottom lip.
She nods. “Twice.”
His smile comes soft as his silky hair, and everything in her longs for him. “Fox Way, then,” he says.
And suddenly, Blue cannot stand the distance between them any longer.
She does not surge forward in a rush, desperation driving her into him. She keeps on running her fingers through his hair, and she presses forward slowly, to give him the chance to say no, if he so pleases.
He does not say no. He does not release his hold on her chin, doesn't even move his thumb from her bottom lip. He pulls her forward as he pushes towards her himself, nuzzling his nose into her cheek.
“I'm right here,” he assures her, his mouth ghosting over hers.
The heat of his breath is almost too much to bear—she does not think she's ever been so desperate to kiss him in her life, even before the curse was broken.
“Gansey,” she begs, and he replaces his thumb against her lips with his mouth.
And he is warm warm warm. Warmer than she remembers, warm like the sun heating the cab of this car, warm like Gansey, ridiculous and impossible and so sweet it makes her ache. She kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him, and she is not afraid.
“I'm right here, Blue,” he mumbles against her lips, and she hears every word he does not say.
Instead of answering, she kisses him again, her arms circling his neck. One of his hands still cradles her chin, the other moving down her spine only to come back up again. It's a kiss that feels like home, like a promise, like a battle hard-won. And she loves him, she loves him, she loves him.
“I love you,” she tells him, pulling back just to speak the words more clearly. His glasses sit askew on his nose, the lenses half-foggy, and she grins as she fixes them for him, then kisses him once, quickly. “I love you,” she repeats, determined not to let her rapid pulse beat any faster in fear.
(It plays on the edges of her mind, but he's right here with her. He will not go again.)
Gansey's smile wraps itself around her heart and squeezes until she thinks it might burst. “I love you, Blue,” he tells her. He bumps his nose up against hers gently. “And may I just add that this was well worth the wait.”
Blue laughs brightly, and Gansey kisses each corner of her mouth as much as he can with his grin getting in the way. She turns her head to catch his lips with hers again, dizzy and breathless in the best of ways.
She could stay here all day, just kissing him. She cannot for the life of her understand how she went so long without this.
Oh, help, she thinks, wrapping her arms tighter around his neck. She'll never be able to go a day without kissing him again.
“How are your lips so soft?” she demands, mumbling against his mouth. “You're infuriating.”
Gansey grins against her lips before he begins peppering her cheeks and chin with kisses. “Am I being scolded for staying moisturized now, too?”
“Yes,” she declares, redirecting his mouth to her own. “You're entirely too kissable.”
“Now you know how I feel.”
She smiles against his lips, but she doesn't let that stop her in the slightest—they have too much lost time to make up for, here. She needs to get working on that.
Eventually she finds the self-control she needs to pull away, though not entirely; their foreheads are still pressed together, their noses bumping up against each other, teasing and purposeful. The heat of Gansey's palms on her neck and back nearly scald her, and it takes everything she has not to just start kissing him all over again.
(She is so, impossibly screwed.)
“Okay?” Gansey mutters, and she grins, knocking her nose into his.
“I'd be better if I had that epic about my beauty and grace on hand.”
He throws his head back to laugh uninhibited, and she laughs with him, unable to resist it. Everything about him is impossibly enticing—she could not fight this if she tried.
She remembers the first time she ever laid eyes on him, remembers the rage that boiled her blood. Even then, determined to hate him, she was drawn to him like a moth to the flame. There was never a universe in which she could avoid this. She's impossibly grateful for it, now.
“Oh, I'll write it one day, Jane. Just you wait and see.”
There's nothing else in the world that she'd rather do than wait and see with him, she thinks. But then he kisses her again, and—she can think of one thing she'd rather do, actually.
The waiting and seeing will have to wait, it seems. They've got other plans for right now.
______________
“You fuckers, there's kids around.”
Blue ignores Ronan's disgusted statement as she peppers Gansey's face in kisses, unable to resist it after he declared her to be the best thing that's ever happened to him. The only "kid" in the room is Ronan himself, and Blue intends to make him suffer.
She's got her arms wrapped around Gansey from behind, though she's sitting on the couch in the living room of the Barns with him on the floor between her knees. He's laughing, and it's the only sound in the world she ever wants to hear again, so she does not stop leaving pecks on his nose and temple and cheeks and chin even under threat from their best friend.
“I swear to Christ, neither of you will ever step foot on my property again,” he warns.
“Smells like cow shit anyway,” Blue says, then smacks a kiss onto the top of Gansey's head.
“Who smells like cow shit?” Adam asks as he steps in from the kitchen.
“Sargent,” Ronan says at the same time Blue says, “Lynch.”
Adam takes his seat beside Ronan on the floor, their shoulders and hips and thighs lined up in perfect parallel. Ronan hooks his ankle around Adam's; Adam's straight-backed posture relaxes as he leans fully into Ronan's side.
“I don't mind the cow shit,” Gansey muses as Blue presses one last kiss to the shell of his ear, “so long as I get to smell it with all of you.”
“Why are you so sentimental all of a sudden?” Ronan asks, his eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“He's always been sentimental,” Adam says. “Vaguely insufferable at times, too.”
Gansey and Adam share a knowing grin, and Blue's chest nearly bursts with gratitude for how far they've all come.
"I'm just grateful to be alive today," Gansey says.
Ronan's sharp, skeptical expression softens, and he kicks at the floor with his free foot. "We should celebrate, then. Throw a fuckin' party."
Gansey grins. "You can dream me a Happy Resurrection sign."
"Still got mine from Easter last year."
"Does it have my face on it?"
"Can you grow a beard in fifteen minutes?"
"I believe I can do anything I set my mind to."
Adam snorts, and Blue grins, resting her lips against Gansey's shoulder. He reaches up to scratch at her scalp gently, and she presses a kiss to the nape of his neck.
"Then sure, your picture's up there nice and pretty," Ronan says.
Gansey's grin is wicked. "So let's throw a fuckin' party."
In the end, it's just the four of them dancing and laughing and celebrating all throughout the Barns, but there’s a magic here that she can’t deny. It’s their joy in the face of everything they’ve gone through together, their refusal to give in to the past. It’s their dumb jokes and wild laughter, their off-key singing and loud jeering, their stumbling and jumping and spinning around.
They do it all simply because they can, because they’re here and alive and together. And it's entirely perfect because it's them. Her raven boys.
Blue thinks that Noah would’ve loved this, if he could see it. She misses him so deeply that for a moment, she cannot catch her breath; she only hopes that wherever he is right now, he’s just as unbelievably happy as she is.
At some point Ronan and Adam disappear, and Gansey picks Blue up at the foot of the stairs just to spin her in a haphazard circle, pretending to dance gracelessly. She throws her head back and cackles without reservation. He kisses her, and her heart soars as she tugs him in closer without a second thought.
There is not an ounce of fear left in her. Tonight, she thinks they may all just be invincible.
When Gansey pulls away from her, she follows him to press one more kiss to his lips, and he grins at her, his eyes bright behind his glasses.
"See, Jane?" he says, and she can tell by his grin that he's getting ready to rile her up. "A little kiss never killed anybody."
She shoves him away from her even as she laughs, unable to contain herself. Gansey picks her right back up, and she doesn't bother pretending to be annoyed at him for it.
They’ve made it this far together, she knows. She cannot wait to find out where they'll go next.