1.
blue and noah keep their kisses a secret from the others, not because they're ashamed or embarrassed, but because it feels good to have a secret that doesn't fill their stomachs with dread.
2.
ronan walks into the aftermath of blue and gansey; the air in the room is still electric despite gansey leaving blue there alone. when she glares at ronan, he steels himself against the look in her eyes, one he recognizes from years of schooling his expression after gansey has left the room.
with her eyes locked on his, blue stalks toward ronan and pushes him back until he's pressed between the doorjamb and her body. when she closes her mouth on his, the charge in the air coalesces and all that's left is blue and the lightning between them.
3.
adam sees ronan and blue kissing and flushes pink. "it's not that complicated," noah tells him. he leans into adam's space and kisses a soft line up his jaw. adam's soft "oh" is lost against noah's lips.
4.
adam kisses ronan to taste his rage in someone else's mouth; the fire it starts inside him nearly consumes them both.
5.
when ronan wakes up from a nightmare, another nightmare, always another nightmare, noah is there. his body takes on weight and form when he curls into ronan in the dark, his hand pressed to ronan's heaving chest, his lips to ronan's panting mouth. neither of them ever notices the moment when those pants change their tenor.
6.
sometimes noah is conflicted about kissing blue and adam and ronan. he relishes in the simple pleasure of kissing them and being kissed, their stolen moments, the times when they are his, but sometimes he's envious of the more complicated ways they dance around each other.
while noah is happy kissing everyone, gansey kisses no one. gansey stands apart from the connection the other four share, because he doesn't know how to ask the others for that and the others don't think he wants like they do.
noah is the one who sees, who tells him how the other three taste and then when gansey's pupils are blown wide and his breath is catching in his throat kisses him until there are no doubts left.
noah feels better after that.
7.
blue and adam's kisses begin so hesitantly. they're awkward the first time, bumping heads and noses and teeth, unsure of where to place their hands, neither wanting to test the other's boundaries. they find their rhythm though, unhurried and unselfconscious.
8.
ronan wants those gentle kisses, wants something that is both more and less than the sparks and shocks and flames he shares with noah and blue and adam, but he wouldn't know how to initiate them even if he thought anyone else would want that from him.
when gansey finally kisses him, it's so soft, softer than any dream ronan's ever had.
9.
richard campbell gansey iii considers himself to be both patient and generous, but he is tired of being turned down by adam, tired of waiting for adam to come to him. when he kisses adam, he takes.
10.
blue and gansey never kiss. they whisper each other's names into everyone else's mouths but they never kiss.
and then they do, and the kissing stops.
thanks to ashley for the most helpful beta comments of all time.