It starts as sleepless nights for Blue Sargent usually start—her hand hovering over the phone at 300 Fox Way. She wasn't sure when it became habit, calling Gansey, sometimes asking for him to pick her up, but it was almost like a Pavlovian response to insomnia now. Or maybe her body had picked up on the fact that not sleeping with Gansey was better than sleeping without him.
Or something.
Her mother is gone, underground with raven caves and dead kings and Blue's sense of home, and Calla and Persephone could try as they might to instill some kind of discipline in her, but they know she'd only ever truly listen to Maura. Gentle warnings of "he's dying, don't forget" from the kitchen as Blue whisks out the front door don't dissuade her—as if she couldever forget.
That's why she needs this time with him.
So it's 1:24 in the morning, and she can't sleep, and she dials his number, her fingers moving in muscle memory only reserved for the truly important (she only needed five numbers memorized, anyway). She waited as she pulled at a section of her hair with the phone to her ear, and it doesn't even ring twice before—
"Jane."
She stares down at her feet, her heart beating a strange, irregular tattoo. "Hey."
"How are—"
"Could you come get me?" She doesn't want him to get that question out, because she isn't entirely sure how to answer it.
There was barely a second's pause before he replies, "Of course. I'll be right there."
Closing her eyes, she lets out a breath. "Thanks."
She slips into some worn-through brown boots, jean shorts, and an oversized purple T-shirt in the back of her closet. The outfit gives her the impression of a child splashing in puddles, which she's fine with. Any semblance of innocence she can hold onto these days, she'll grasp at. She sets out to wait by the door.
It isn't too long before she hears a soft series of knocks and she swings the door open. Gansey's hair is a little more messed up than usual, and he grins upon seeing her—something she finds herself fighting not to return.
"All set?" he asks, leaning against the frame. She nods, steps outside. The muggy Virginia air feels charged.
"I couldn't sleep," she says somewhat lamely on their walk to the Pig.
"It doesn't seem like any of us can, these days," Gansey says. She wonders, not for the first time, if he knows something about Adam or Ronan she doesn't. Although, if she were to look at it objectively, he probably does.
"Yeah, well. Side-effects of being magic, I guess."
"I'm not magic," he says instantly, opening the passenger door for her. She hates when he does this, insists her delicate sensibilities do allow her to help herself—but if he didn't do this, he wasn't him. He wasn't Richard Campbell Gansey the third.
"You're not dead, so life seems to disagree with you there."
He raises his eyebrows and nods in concession. He's the boy who should be dead—who's going to die anyway, Blue reminds herself bitterly. She can't forget.
They drive and drive in relative silence, the night passing over them until Gansey seems to decide that their trip is finished and pulls off the road, driving a mile or two into a field where wildflowers and weeds nearly reach the height of the Camaro. The area is humming in the way that Southern summers tend to do, but Blue feels something more than that. Maybe magic.
She gets out and hikes herself onto the hood, leaning back on the windshield. These nights are the kind her mother must have had, Blue rationalizes, back in her youth. She wondered if her father was like Gansey. She wondered what he was like, to get Maura to just… leave.
But she doesn't let herself get beyond that. Gansey crosses over to the side of the hood she's sitting on and leans on the car beside her. He looks up.
"You probably already know all the constellations, don't you?" he asks.
She scoffs good-naturedly. "One doesn't grow up in an all-psychic household and not learn everything there is about the stars."
"No, I imagine one doesn't," he mutters, looking at her. She loves his voice like that, all earth-low and thoughtful, and subconsciously tightens her legs together. In the darkness he might not notice. She's not sure she doesn't want him to.
"How do you know about this place, anyway?" she asks. It's less that she really wants to know and more that she just wants to talk to him.
Chuckling a bit, he replies, "Ronan told me. I think he brought someone here to hook up once."
Blue chokes on her own spit, and after the subsequent coughing fit and tears running down her face, she manages, "Ronan has had sex?!"
Gansey, who had been rubbing her back through the fit, let out a loud bark of laughter. "Well, we've never really discussed it, but I assume so."
"Have you?"
The question is out before she can stop it, but her thoughts have never been too considerate at making pit stops before they leave her mouth. Gansey's eyebrows shoot up, and he fidgets a bit.
"I haven't, no," he responds. "I don't have to ask you the same question, I trust?"
"Hey! Just because I can't kiss—" she starts, but cuts herself off. This is very much Of the Bad. Beyond here be dragons. Do not pass go.
So she turns her head away. "No. I haven't."
He makes a small noise in his throat, and she can't help but look at him again. The dull light of the moon is distorting things, surely, because Gansey does not have an almost… dark look on his face. There is no lust there.
Except that there obviously is. Blue groans and lets herself fall back onto the windshield. "This sucks."
He doesn't have to ask what she means. He replies in a strained voice, "It really, really does."
"I would kiss you, you know," she says exasperatedly. "If I could? I'd do it in a second. And then we could… really be together." Her voice shrinks.
Gansey's breathing is ragged and as she takes in his face, she decides something. She slides slowly off the hood. Taking his hand, she walks to the side door and waits as he opens it and moves the passenger seat forward. She's glad he understands; glad she doesn't have to translate what she wants into fumbling words. She climbs into the backseat and he follows.
They're young, so young, and they should have so much time. Should, but don't. There is an expiration date stamped on the boy next to her in the backseat of this Camaro, and she just wanted to take and take and take so maybe by the time it came, she'd have enough.
(This is a lie. She'll never have enough.)
He shuts the door and looks at her. It's almost completely dark in the car, but she feels his burning gaze. She nudges herself towards him, leaning her forehead against his. His breath hitches magnificently, and she finds herself running her knuckles over his cheeks.
"I would kiss you," she whispers, her breath hot. He groans, his head lolling back as he wraps his arms around her.
"I would let you," he replies, his heart audibly pounding.
She's inexperienced. She's never done this before. But she does have an Internet connection, and God knows she can read. So she thinks she's maybe gotten the gist of the notion of being with someone. Someone she cares about. Someone she maybe loves.
"But I can't," she says, voice husky as she angles herself to straddle him as best she can in the backseat of an ancient car. "So we'll have to… make do, for now."
"Jane," he says, part warning, part wanting. "We…"
"I want you," she interrupts. "Please, just… touch me."
She knew that would do it, knew he'd give her the world if she just asked nicely. It might not have been fair, but they both deserved it.
His hands hesitated before making contact with her skin, and the touch combined with the air take her breath away, and she arches her back to just get closer. Her fingers dig underneath his shirt and tugs and he leans down to let her pull it off of him. It pools in a pile on the floor and she has to take a minute to look at him.
"You're beautiful," she says, awed. He says nothing, just closes his eyes and softly growls, his grip gently tightening on her. "Will you take mine off?"
The question is soft but it's enough to snap him back awake. He nods wordlessly and bunched her T-shirt in his hands before pulling it over her head. No one had ever seen her like this except the women of Fox Way. She had a tan bra on, and she wasn't sure how her breasts compared to others, but she thought they were alright. She was unsure how Gansey would respond to these facts.
He responds like this: "Jesus, Jane," his head collapsing on her shoulder. "You are truly magnificent."
Blue lifts a hand to run her hands through his hair. "Touch me," she says again. He complies, his fingers ghosting over her skin, recharging her. His fingernails lightly scrape against her, leaving what she's sure are sparks. He leans in, his lips hovering over one of her ears, and the breath itself sends her body into high alert. She feels—something—she doesn't know what, but she needs it, needs more, so she angles her head for a better chance at realization. His tongue flicks out and grazes her earlobe, and she moans, throws her head back.
They're building up a sort of rhythm now, her body involuntarily moving against his, the friction almost too much. His fingers work their way through her hair, and it's so, so much for her not to claim his mouth with hers. She lets out a whimpering gasp, heat pooling in her stomach as he keeps working her scalp. She knows what's coming—like she said, the Internet is a thing, and it's not like she's never explored before, but this is so much more. She couldn't read about this kind of heat and passion; technical terms could never convey the importance of what was happening between Gansey and Blue.
She grinds against him now, with purpose, hoping to explain what's happening. He looks at her and she can see the sweat dripping on his forehead. "Blue," he says, and it's so rare he uses her real name that it elicits a sharp intake of breath. "I need you, all of you, so badly that it chokes me. I think about you every day. I'm not going to… say those words. But right now, I need you to know that I do. I really do."
It grips her heart, and in that moment she needs all of him. She can't return the sentiment aloud because that would mean that the two of them were really doomed, but she can try and make him know that she does, too.
She shuffles around in their limited space and unbuttons her shorts. His eyes widen, and she relishes it for a moment before removing them entirely.
"Fuck," he whispers reverently. She takes his hand and guides it to the area between her legs where warmth and wetness have already started to spread.
"Please," is all she says, and his eyes are liquid in the moonlight as he nods, gingerly peeling her underwear away.
"Is this okay? Please tell me if it's not," he begs, one knuckle kneading at her entrance. She nods vigorously and whimpers as he works a finger inside of her, his thumb gently rubbing on her clit. Blue Sargent's world explodes. It's nothing—nothing—she's ever felt before, it's like she's made of electricity, and he's working inside of her and she's moving against him and his free hand is lightly brushing over her shoulders, collarbone, neck, and it's ecstasy in the purest form she's ever been able to imagine.
He unclasps her bra and meticulously removes it, hanging it over the passenger seat. Through Blue's haze, she almost laughs at how gentlemanly he can be while he's inside her.
I love him, she thinks, as he dips his head to take one of her nipples in his mouth. It's all so much, and as his thumb continues working her clit, the warmth is jolting through parts of her body she had no idea could feel like this. She fists her hands in his hair, her toes clench on themselves and she hears herself making what sounds like mewling.
"Yes, Blue, please, come for me, please come for me," Gansey says, unbuckling his pants so he can access himself. Blue moves his hand aside before he can grab himself, and, almost hesitantly, takes it in her hand.
"Am I—is this right?" she asks, and he laughs raggedly.
"It's perfect. Just—just massage it, kind of, move your hand up and down."
She does as he instructs, and finds it comes naturally after a few movements. His eyes slam shut in equal parts concentration and pleasure as he focuses his thumb even more determinedly on her clit. She's close to coming, she can tell, but she doesn't know what it will take.
"I need—Gansey, I—" She doesn't finish her statement because all at once the energy that has been compounding inside her is released, and she screams. She lets go of Gansey's cock as she rides her orgasm, but he takes her place, watching her with a half-grin and working himself. It takes about a minute, but with a sharp gasp he comes, and his head collapses onto her shoulder.
She is happy, so happy, to be with him right now, in this capacity. In whatever capacity they have left. She won't let herself cry, so she just holds him. His big arms encircling her feels like there shouldn't be anywhere else the two of them ever need to be.
"This is something, right?" he asks, his mouth on her skin and his voice vibrating through her. "This is not nothing."
She shakes her head. "It is the least nothing that anything has ever been."
"Good," he says, lifting his head. His stare is incomprehensibly warm. "I want to have this something with you until I die."
Blue does her damnedest to ignore the uncaring, metal pain of the future as she replies, "I promise you will."