Chapter 3

Noah:

Noah was in that space between sleeping and waking, that grey area where you are blinking into the present, where you can see your surrounds, but your dream still owns you, when the taste of vanilla flooded his mouth, warm lips moving with his. A tongue, soft and searching, licked at the roof of his mouth. A warm body pressed down over his, knees on either side of his hips, skirt rucked up her thighs. Her elbows boxed in his face, fingers pulling gently on his hair.

His body was heated, burning. His hands were pressed to the woman's sides, his thumbs skimming the sensitive skin just beneath the wire of her bra through her thin dress.

"Oh, Adam," she sighed into his mouth, fingers roaming down to smooth over his cheek, "What am I going to do with you?"

"Take me with you across the ocean to meet your family and friends, and attend your fancy school that sends you abroad," he told her jokingly, smiling against her lips.

"I would if you would let me," she said, "Your school is my sister school, dork. It has just as good an abroad program. I thought you said you applied for it."

Noah was sleepy and groggy and possibly slightly hung over from the night before, but he would have known that voice anywhere, despite not having heard it except for over the phone three times a year. Disgust, fast and sharp, clawed up his throat. "Oh god," he said, scrambling up against the headboard of his bed. It did not rid him of any sensation. He still felt her lips on his neck, and the hand that slowly slipped lower and lower. "That's so gross!" he whined, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand, slapping at the hand he couldn't see. He was going to throw up.

Suddenly, the hand was gone. When he peeled his eyes open once more, Adam was sitting up across from him.

"Are you alright?" he asked, looking over Noah with a slight amount of concern.

A girl with blonde hair was snuggled into his side, breathing deeply as if in sleep, though only a moment had passed since she'd taken up the position. She was looking up at him with clear blue eyes, her expression watchful and a little wondering. She remained silent though, simply observing. She glanced over her shoulder for a short moment, rolling her eyes in exasperation.

"No, not really," Noah told him, dragging at his lips and tongue with more vigor.

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Yeah, not making out with my sister and waking me up." He could feel with others stirring, dragging themselves from sleep with the magnitude of his disturbance. They mumbled sleepily in Noah and Adam's ears.

Adam met the girl's eyes. "I'm sorry? I didn't know."

"You should be. She's a lesbian."

The others were suddenly wide awake, scrambling to pick up the pieces of their conversation and their consciousness. "Be kind, rewind," Blue and Ronan asked together as Gansey asked, "What did we miss?"

Adam and Noah ignored them.

The girl reached up, smoothing her finger between Adam's furrowed brows. "Who are you talking to?" she asked quietly, sitting up slowly to stare at the spot Adam was staring. When he didn't answer right away, she looked back to him. "Don't worry, I'm one too. Who are you talking to? What did they say?"

"My name is Noah," Noah supplied helpfully, staring at the girl in a mixture of anger and frustration.

Adam returned her gaze, mumbling, "His name is Noah. He told me he's your brother and that you're… he said that you're gay."

The girl scowled distastefully. "Noah Czerny?" At Noah's nod, Adam nodded the affirmative. She turned towards the wall quickly, snapping, "Would you guys stop chattering? There's too much noise in my head to concentrate, assholes." As she turned back, she was there with them, sitting both at Adam's side and against the wall between them. "Noah Czerny, you are an asshole too. I should construct a new one for you! Why did you never tell me?" Her mouths moved in sync, the boys jumping between the two to pick which version to watch.

Picking the version closest to him, Noah bristled as he rarely did with anyone other than his little sister. "Who is the asshole, now? This goes two ways, Natalie. I didn't find out about this-" He waved his hand between himself and Adam. "-until recently. Like two days ago, just recently. Oh, and I don't know what Mom has been teaching you, but you can't just go leading people on when you feel like it, pretending to be a self-absorbed straight girl.

"Hey, I resent that statement! I could be bisexual!" She flapped her hand at someone they couldn't see, snapping her teeth at them playfully.

Noah threw her a withering look. "Natalie, you're about as bisexual as I am interested in sex, or genders, or really much of anything."

She opened her mouth to retort, then stopped herself and rolled her eyes. "I see your point."

"Wait, wait, wait," Adam said, his accent thick on his tongue, "You two are related?" The pair nodded. "And you like girls?" Natalie nodded. "Then why are you dating me? What has been the whole point?"

"Adam, I was going to tell you, but I needed to trust you first," she explained with a sigh, glaring at her brother. Her expression softened to one of shared pain. "Our parents aren't too accepting of those who do not conform to their ideals. Too bad for my parents, they only got one of three who does. I like you well enough, Adam, just not in the 'get in your pants' like."

'Woah, that totally blows,' Ronan's voice supplied unhelpfully and slightly sarcastically somewhere far off. Blue shushed him, a sharp snap of teeth following the sound.

Rubbing at his temples, Noah glanced over to where Barry still slept. He lowered his voice, "I've got to go before my roommate wakes up. Our alarm is about to go off. We're not done talking, Natalie. We'll talk when you get back."

"Aright, brother dearest," she said, smiling and blowing him a sarcastic kiss before he cut the connection off, silencing the others' voices as well.

Adam:

Natalie threw her arms around Adam's neck, holding him close to her body. "I'm going to miss you, Adam. I'm sorry you had to find out that way, but I would enjoy it greatly if you and I could remain friends."

Adam tightened his arms around her waist, lifting her from the ground, making her giggle. "Of course, and I'll be your fake boyfriend whenever you need me to be. That's what friends do for each other, right? Maybe I'll see you in Berlin one day."

"I really hope that's true," she said, smiling against his neck, "I would love to show you around Berlin one day, and you'd be able to meet my brother in the flesh." Kissing him on the cheek, she slid back down to the floor. "I've got to catch my flight. I'll contact you when I land, maybe between flight as well, or on the flight. Would that… be okay?"

"Of course, why would you even ask that?" he asked, rubbing his hand up and down her arm soothingly.

She smiled. "Well, most people don't like to talk to their exes right after breaking up with them, you know?"

"It won't be a problem. To tell you the truth, I think I may be bisexual, and I may have kissed a man while dancing with him very inappropriately… while he was in Dublin," he told her in a quiet, confiding tone, a grin on his lips.

Natalie threw her head back, laughing loudly. "I'm surprised it's taken you this long to realize." Patting his cheek affectionately, she kissed his lips one last time. "I'll see you. Keep being strong, Adam."

"I will." He remained where he stood, watching her until she disappeared through security.

"I'm sorry that you two parted on such terms."

Adam turned, finding someone whose voice he recognized, but whose face he did not. "That seems to be going around," he muttered a little bitterly, taking in the man before him in one quick gaze. He was handsome, bred from the same species that Natalie had been, kingly to her queenly. His shoulders were straight in the way someone who has never had to work for a living are.

Gansey nodded, uncrossing his arms, holding out a steady hand. "You are Adam, correct? You can call me Gansey." A smile split across his lips as Adam grasped his hand. "Adam, what do you know of sensates, or if you know don't know what that is, what about Welsh Kings?"

Startled, all of his knowledge of the subjects spilled from his lips unbidden, only broadening this strange man's smile.

Gansey:

Gansey stumbled, catching himself on the edge of his bedroom door. Dizzy nausea swam over him, his vision blurring and distorting. A wave of giggling contentment rushed over him, and he slowly sank to the hardwood beneath him. He leaned his head back against the wall, the nausea slowing, but still bubbling just below the surface.

"Gansey, are you alright? You appear a bit intoxicated." Mallory, Gansey's old and crotchety flat mate, stood over him, service dog at his side. He stared down at him, eyebrow raised quizzically. "Really, Gansey, I don't mind you having a few drinks, but getting falling down drunk seems a little excessive. I'd rather not you be here if that is your plan for tonight."

"I'm not drunk," Gansey told him, words slurring unconvincingly along his tongue, "But… one of the others is… I think. Fuck, I can't concentrate."

"Well, when you are sufficiently not intoxicated, you can explain to me what that meant. For now, do not break anything." Mallory shuffled off, leaving Gansey with a static filled brain and alcohol heavy limbs.

Pawing his bedroom door open, Gansey collapsed beside his bed and kicked his door closed. The papers and pictures and maps covering the four walls of his room fluttered, settling silently to watch him curiously.

There were lips on his neck, warm hands clutching at his hips, pulling him forward, a knee sliding between his. The hands held him with bruising force, resisting any movements he made to pull away. Long fingers jerked at his belt, popping the button of his pants. "Come on Lynch," a voice, husky and horny and intoxicated, whispered along his jaw, "It's been two days. Stop being such a girl."

"I am not a girl," Gansey, or whoever he was experiencing the event through, growled, "Don't fucking touch me."

"Don't be like that, babe," the man growled right back, nipping at an exposed collar bone then licking a stripe along a raised scar.

"Stop," Gansey snarled more forcefully. He knew now, knew this was the fighter, the one who seemed to be at odds with Blue almost constantly. This was Ronan, the man who had invited him to dance.

Lust cooled by apprehension welled in him. He didn't want this, didn't want this man's bruising grip on him, didn't want to feel his teeth biting into his skin. He couldn't get away.

Pulling his mind back to him, focusing, Gansey shoved the man's hands away, scrambling to his feet. "He said don't touch him!" he shouted, stepping away from the surprised eyes and the burst of anger that flooded them.

"Fuck you, Lynch. Why don't you go fuck yourself," the man spat.

"Gladly," Gansey muttered, spinning on a heel and finding his way to the front door. There were three cars there. A white Mitsubishi that he'd decided wasn't a Ronan car, a small, tiny sports car that wasn't a Ronan car either, and a black BMW. That, that was definitely a Ronan car.

Fishing the keys from a jeans pocket, he slid into the car and started it.

"Thank you," Ronan whispered, words reluctant.

"I only did what was right. Now tell me how to get you home."

Ronan:

Ronan woke in a hideous mood. His head was pounding with a hangover and his stomach roiled and twisted as if he were about to get his period again after not having it for the past year and a half. On instinct, he rolled out of bed, stumbling into the bathroom. Dropping to his toilet, he glared at his boxers accusingly, waiting to see that red stain indicating the end of his life for a week, but there was no blood there.

He sighed in relief. Saved by having a dick.

"Is nothing sacred anymore?" a woman groaned.

His head snapped up, eyes narrowing. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I should be asking you that," the woman replied coolly, tucking the end of her towel between her breasts. She stepped out of the bathtub, black hair dripping with water, steam filling the small bathroom. "You are in my bathroom after all. If you must know, though, my name is Blue."

"That's a fucking stupid name."

"So is 'Ronan'," she spat back, stepping over to the pile of clothing she'd left on the bathroom counter. "Noah told me about you," she explained after finding his vaguely confused and slightly suspicious eyes narrowed at her.

As Ronan's stomach twisted again, a smirk curled up the corners of his mouth. "So, I thought that it would be so very kind of me to pop in and…"

Blue glanced at him cautiously. She didn't like the lilting tone of laughter to his words. "And what?" she asked, returning her underwear to the clothing pile.

"Well, I hate to be the bringer of bad news," Ronan said in a tone that implied he was taking every bit of amusement that he could from this, "But Mother Nature is in town. She wants her bloody pillows back. She's pretty pissed that you've kept them for a month."

Blue stared at him for a long moment. "No, you've got to be wrong. She's not supposed to come get her pillows for another two weeks!"

"Tell that to my body which is currently trying to give those pillows back. Mother Nature is trying to carve them from me with a dull knife, and I do not appreciate the feeling. Seriously, this would have been my main reason for letting them remove my uterus if I wasn't a guy."

Blue whined petulantly. "Move," she ordered, grabbing a pad from beneath the sink. "This is so stupid. It's all your guys' fault. All that testosterone is fucking with my cycle."

Ronan moved to the edge of the tub, politely averting his eyes off into the middle-distance. "I'm almost positive hormones don't work the same as emotions do with whatever this is."

"I'm still going to blame it on you four," she told him bitterly, ripping open the package.

Ronan looked back as she stood, pulling up her underwear. "Blame us all you want, it still won't change the fact that your ovaries and uterus are going to war."

She shrugged this time, moving back to the bathroom counter. "A girl can dream."

"A girl can also wish. That doesn't mean that her wish will come true."

"It did for you."

Ronan didn't have anything to say to that.

Blue:

Blue groaned, leaning back in her chair. Her head was throbbing with that hangover Ronan was happily sharing with their cluster, and her period didn't help the matter. Silently, she wished her mother had not stolen Mr. Gray for the evening so he could instead help her with her Biology and Psychology homework.
After a short moment of aborted movements and burning her tongue with her tea, she sat forward again. 'The longer I bitch and complain, the longer it'll take to finish it.'

"That protein formula looks a little off."

Blue glanced over her shoulder where Adam was leaning. She'd never had a one on one with him. Granted, this had only been a thing for less than a week, but she still felt uncomfortable not knowing this boy. She wanted to know all of them inside out. She wanted to know them as well as she knew herself. She wanted them to know her better than she knew herself.

"I know, I just can't figure it out. I finished the rest of it, but just this problem is giving me hell," she explained, tapping her pen against it. "Maybe… maybe if I switch this with this and add another of these?" she suggested, looking back at him.

Adam tilted his head, considering. "Do it, and tell me how it turns out. I'm going to work on some paperwork for a little bit."

"Sounds good to me." They worked in comfortable silence, pens scratching across paper. "Ah! I got it!" Blue shouted, jumping from her chair, "Thanks, Adam, that was the last of my Bio homework. Want to help me with my Psych homework?"

"If you help me with this form," Adam replied with a smile as she rounded the table.

"Sure." She leaned over his shoulder. "You're trying to go abroad? The paperwork is a bitch, but I think it'll be worth it in the end. I just put in my packet. Where are you trying to go?"

Adam shrugged. "I was thinking Italy or Germany, but I'm hoping for Germany."

"I put mine in for Spain or England, but I'm hoping for England," Blue told him, smiling, "Let's get this paperwork done. Let's get you to Germany."