Chapter Text
Ronan’s eyes had been opened and now he couldn’t stop seeing.
“Ronan! Hey, Ronan, look!”
Gansey waved eagerly from a spot in the grass that was most certainly not the driveway that he was supposed to be shoveling. He had instead carefully shuffled a path through the unbroken snow to form a huge, lopsided heart with a big arrow through it.
“Do you think Blue and Adam will be able to see it from the window?” he asked. With the size of it, Blue and Adam would be able to see it from space. Still, Gansey looked at him with his big, round puppy eyes and frost-bitten cheeks, his hair sticking out of the bottom of his hat.
Ronan tipped his head up at the sky and took a deep breath, asking for strength.
He wanted to strangle Gansey. He wanted to laugh until his stomach hurt. He wanted to curse until he was spitting blood. He wanted to run far, far away until his feelings stopped threatening to burn him alive. Gansey was his best friend and he was also undeniably and infuriatingly beautiful.
Ronan did none of these. Instead, propped his hands on his shovel and gave Gansey a hard look.
“Are you gonna stop being gay and help me finish this fucking thing or do I have to tattle on you?” he said. Gansey pouted and carefully picked his way back over, trying to damage his miniature geoglyph as little as possible.
“Geez, cranky, cranky,” he quipped good-naturedly.
“Adam leaves for work in half an hour, we can make snow angels after, ” Ronan said, scooping up another pile of snow and hurling it to the side. Cheered by this, Gansey doubled down again and managed to get a majority of his half of the driveway shoveled before Adam came out, extra large travel mug in hand.
“Thanks, hon,” Adam kissed Ronan goodbye. “Thanks Ganz!” He clambered into his car (already on and warm, thanks to Ronan), and peeled out of the driveway like a man that had woken up half an hour late for work. Ronan watched him go, like he always did, lovesick like he always was.
A snowball beaned him directly in the back of the head.
“The fuck?! ” he swore, whirling on him.
“You said to wait until Adam was gone,” Gansey said very innocently. He had another snowball in hand already. Ronan threw down his shovel.
“Oh, it’s on. ”
Gansey shrieked in a very uncool manner when Ronan charged at him, forgoing snowballs altogether. Ronan chased him around the BMW, then into the yard where Gansey’s poor, suburban upbringing failed to give him the strength to power through eight inches of white powder.
Ronan knocked him off his feet and into the snow and promptly began shoveling as much as he could into every exposed area he could find while Gansey was fighting him.
“What happened to sportsmanship?!” Gansey wailed.
“That’s pussy shit, Dick,” Ronan grinned.
“Come on, get offa me!”
Ronan let Gansey throw him off and they both collapsed on their backs in the snow, panting and laughing up at the gray sky.
“Asshole,” Gansey gasped.
“Bitch.”
They laughed again and Ronan heard Gansey start to shuffle, the swish, swish, swish of his arms through the snow.
“ Now what are you doing?” Ronan grumbled.
“Snow angel,” Gansey replied.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
Well, Ronan couldn’t argue with that. He also began to sweep his arms and legs in great arcs, something he hasn’t done in-- fuck, probably since he was twelve years old.
When they both struggled to their feet, they nearly keeled over laughing again at the result-- their scuffle from earlier had thoroughly tossed the snow around them and their snow angels were more like snow aliens.
Gansey added the letters B G in his heart, and Ronan added a badly drawn penis right above it. Gansey retaliated by writing Ro sux toes on the other side of the driveway, directly in front of the kitchen window.
“AH-HEM!”
Ronan froze, a huge block of snow held over his head and ready to dump it on an unsuspecting Gansey. Blue stood on the porch wrapped up in a blanket, Noah’s itty bitty head barely peeping out from under it. She pointed at Ronan threateningly, bringing her stink eye out in full force. Ronan rolled his eyes and tossed the snow boulder aside, making Gansey notice him for the first time and flinch away (as if that would have been enough).
“When y’all are done trying to give yourselves hypothermia, I’ve got a baby covered in throw-up that needs a bath,” called Blue. Gansey looked at Ronan.
“Your squirt, man,” Ronan said. Gansey’s face pinched up unpleasantly at him.
“Real mature, Ronan,” he sniffed. Ronan snickered and shoved at Gansey’s shoulder. Gansey shoved him back. There was a beat, and then they lunged at each other again, grappling and trying to push one another into the bank of dirty snow at the edge of the driveway.
“BOYS!” Blue roared.
“Coming! I’m coming,” Gansey said, immediately extricating himself. Ronan cackled and then darted after Gansey as they both took a walk of shame. Ronan’s heart thundered in his ears, adrenaline pumping in his veins that, for once, was clean of fear or anger.
Stay, he wanted to shout. Stay, stay, stay.
He didn’t say any of that. He went inside and he listened to Blue chastise them both for their antics, and then he accepted the mug of hot cocoa Blue had made from scratch because even when she was mad, she was still Blue.
Stay, he wished. Stay.
.
.
.
Chainsaw was getting impatient. She flew circles around the house like a bad omen, leaving dead mice and spiders on the front porch like offerings, like she was bargaining. The babies were only a month old, immune systems still weak, but that didn’t stop Chainsaw from pecking at the windows and cawing mournfully.
Blue watched her hop agitatedly on the front porch banister through the window while she fed Noah, her lower lip pushed out sadly. It was just the two of them on this too-bright afternoon, Adam at work once again, Gansey holed up in his and Blue’s room to answer emails from his thesis sponsor.
“I feel bad,” she sniffed. “She just wants to meet them...”
“She rolls around in dead things, just as a reminder,” Ronan said, not looking up from the papers spread out in front of him. The cold snap of the last several weeks was starting to loosen its hold, so it was time for him to start planning what to plant for the next growing season. Shea sat in the carrier on the floor, nudged into a rocking motion by his foot. Joan was trapped in her death swaddle, not crying but with a pinchy look on her face that said she was thinking about it anyway.
“Well, maybe you can give her a bath?” she suggested.
“She hates baths.”
“You’re such a spoilsport,” Blue pouted. Noah smacked wetly from under the blanket and Ronan grimaced.
“‘Scuse me if I don’t want to kill our kids with bird flu,” he said, flipping a page in his notebook. He only realized what he said several seconds after it had left his mouth. He avoided Blue’s gaze and cleared his throat.
“... You know what I meant,” he mumbled.
“I did,” said Blue, and it sounded like she was smiling. “I kind of like the sound of it, though.”
That irksome feeling rose in his chest, the one that had been near omnipresent since Blue and Gansey had moved in. Slippery, shaking, hard to pinpoint. A pool that sometimes felt like jealousy, sometimes like protectiveness, sometimes like a blinding euphoria potent enough to take his breath away.
“Alright, ow-- we’re done, we’re done,” Blue winced, detaching Noah with a pop! (gross) and lowering him down into his carrier. “Next one, please.”
Ronan set down his pencil and stood up, stretching until his lower back cracked nicely.
“Okay, turds, who wants to go next?”
Shea, upon seeing Ronan’s attention on her once more, flapped her arms and legs excitedly. Joan farted.
“Shea it is. C’mere, you.”
Ronan managed to swap babies with Blue without getting flashed (something that had happened so many times how he was growing immune) and Ronan abandoned his work in favor of hoisting Noah onto his shoulder, pat-pat-patting him while waiting to hear him burp.
“Sooo...” Ronan said. “Adam talked to me.”
“Mm-hmm,” Blue said, raising an eyebrow at him. Not that he was looking at her-- he could just feel the eyebrow bend the fabric of reality with her attitude. He tried to think very hard about the merits of planting beans versus peppers.
“To be completely fair to Adam,” she said, waving her hand, “I was trying to snoop at the book he was reading. It was mostly my fault so-- my bad.”
“I’m not mad about it,” Ronan said, shrugging his unoccupied shoulder. “Just so we’ve got that cleared up. Does Gansey know?”
“He saw it happen, so yes.”
“Right. Cool.”
Foot, meet mouth. Ronan slumped a little, sighing. He’s not good at this-- never had been, never will be. When in doubt, he defaulted to being blunt.
“Why did you both say yes?”
“To what?”
“To... staying here.”
Blue sat in a thoughtful silence for a long time. Or maybe it was only a few seconds, and Ronan was just drowning in two inches of water.
“Because we missed you both. Because I wanted to share this with you. Because it wouldn’t have felt right without you. Take your pick,” she said all of this easily, like the truth was easy , and that characteristic, more than anything else, used to drive him up the wall when it came to her. As teenagers, it was a defensive fury to protect a fresh wound, as a young adult a dull pang of longing and bitterness. What a painful thing, to realize that she gave truth easily because she got truth easily, a thing freely given in the house she grew up in.
But now, on the other side of this absolutely batshit hurdle in their relationship, Ronan could see her intent for what it was: an invitation. A truth for a truth.
“Not just ‘cause you missed my organic, free-range eggs?” he suggested. Blue chuckled and shook her head.
“Well, maybe all of that, plus the eggs.”
Ronan massaged the inner corners of his eyes, suddenly tired all at once. Something inside him had untensed, and now he felt a wave of lethargy.
“I’m not always this nice,” Ronan warned.
“We know,” Blue said. “That’s why we like you so much.”
Not despite, but because. He was getting fucking emotional again.
Joan came to the rescue by screwing her face up and letting out one of the loudest, wettest farts Ronan had ever heard. He stared at her, aghast. Blue burst out laughing, a hand over her mouth.
“ Jesus, kid, you’ll wake the dead with that,” he said. Joan looked utterly pleased with herself. Ronan sighed and carefully eased Noah off of his shoulder to replace him in the carrier.
“I got it,” he sighed.
“Thank you, Ro,” Blue gushed exaggeratedly. Ronan ignored her-- he’d had enough emotional vulnerability for today, thank you very much. Time to cure it by wiping up baby shit.
What the hell had happened to his life?
.
.
.
Good things, he had to remind himself. Good things happened. You asked for this.
It was difficult to remember why after listening to three babies wail their heads off for twenty minutes now at-- Ronan checked the clock-- three-thirty in the morning. Ronan pulled the pillow off his head, huffing an annoyed breath at the ceiling. Adam grunted beside him.
“Should I give him a hand?” Ronan mumbled,
“Probably.”
It was supposed to be Gansey’s night shift, but every once in a while, the night shift needed backup. Ronan slipped out of bed and into a discarded sweatshirt before heading for the nursery. He could hear Gansey speaking, soft and sleep-hoarse, before he reached the open door.
“--I mean, you do know that, don’t you? The sheer volume of shit leaving your ass baffles even the foremost experts in shit science. We are single-handedly sucking California dry with how much laundry we do. Do you know that? You do? Good.”
Ronan let out a muffled wheeze of laughter and Gansey startled away from the changing table.
“Oh,” he let out an embarrassed laugh, “I’m sorry, I promise I’m working on it. All three of them had dirty diapers, and then the moment I changed Shea she dropped another one, and I’m--”
“Dude, it’s fine.” Ronan went over to the nearest crib and scooped up Noah. The moment Ronan put him to his chest he began to calm, talking deep, shuddering breaths in relief. Ronan pressed his cheek against the top of his head, hand rubbing up and down on his back; nothing knocked him out faster than close contact, a fact that everyone was more than happy to take advantage of.
“I’ll go make bottles,” Ronan said once he had redone Noah’s swaddle and returned him to the crib. He hovered for a few seconds, praying, but he got lucky-- Noah returned to sleep pretty easily. Ronan did a silent victory fist pump.
“Thanks,” Gansey said, hoisting Shea into his arms, who was still letting out dramatic, hiccuping little cries.
“Oh, baby, I know, I’m a terrible diaper-changer,” Gansey cooed at her, sounding genuinely apologetic. Ronan rolled his eyes.
“Crybaby,” he teased.
“I can’t help it! It just breaks my heart!” Gansey protested as they both left the nursery so they lessened the chance of waking Noah back up. Ronan went to the kitchen, and Gansey flopped down on the couch, still bouncing and shushing and cuddling Shea.
“You’re such a bleeding heart,” Ronan said as he assembled the essentials one-handed. Joan continued crying as hard as she could because Ronan didn’t have Adam’s mystical baby-soothing abilities, but Ronan could already tell she was wearing herself out. Half a bottle and she’d be unconscious.
What an odd thing. He used to think that babies didn’t really start becoming people until about toddler age, but that wasn’t true-- already, the triplets were rapidly coalescing into people. Joan, fussy and easily overstimulated; Noah, affectionate and sleepy; Shea, energetic and curious about everything.
He was eager to see who they’d become.
Two bottles successfully warm and ready, Ronan returned to the living room and offered Gansey one before sitting down beside him. Without asking, Gansey turned and put his feet in Ronan’s lap with a sigh, and Ronan adjusted until they were both comfortable. The fireplace had mostly burned down since Ronan had tended it before heading to bed earlier that night, leaving the room in almost total darkness.
The quiet was easy and comfortable, the only sound was the popping of embers and the low suckling of both girls on their bottles. Out of the corner of his eye, Ronan regarded Gansey in all his tired, loving glory. The threads between all four of them were growing tighter and more tangled than they’d ever been. Ronan used to hate the feeling of being bound.
But that wasn’t what this felt like.
“I still can’t believe it sometimes,” Gansey uttered, his voice hushed and reverent. Ronan lifted his gaze to him.
“Believe what?”
“That I helped make this,” he said. “I feel like an imposter sometimes... like, this can’t be me. I’ve never made something this-- this utterly perfect.”
It was hard to see Gansey’s whole face in this lighting, but Ronan could see the way his eyes were shining as he gazed at Shea. Gansey hurriedly wiped his face.
“Sorry,” said Gansey, “I’m just really tired. Trying to catch up on my thesis-- my sponsor is starting to freak out.”
Ah. That would explain why Gansey had been so off for the past few days. Ronan nudged Gansey's leg with his knee.
“You made us.”
Gansey's eyes went wide. He turned his face away to gaze at Shea, but his eyes were looking at so much more than her.
“No, I didn't,” he whispered. “I just found you. I didn’t make any of you.”
Ronan scoffed, anger licking the inside of his throat.
“I would’ve ended up in a gutter without you,” he muttered.
“I would’ve ended up nowhere without you,” Gansey responded evenly. When Ronan looked up at him, he held his gaze unflinchingly, his dark eyes catching the firelight in a way that reminded Ronan that he was, and always had been, made of magic.
Ronan shivered and felt his hackles lower.
There were moments like this when Ronan suspected that this life wasn’t the first time he’d known Gansey. There wasn’t a good explanation for the gravitational pull Ronan felt, a desire to keep him so close that sometimes it felt like only sinking his fangs into Gansey’s flesh would ever satisfy it. Protective to the point of destruction.
Stay, he wanted to sob. Stay, stay, stay.
“I should have known that irrelevance would be worse than death for a king,” Ronan said with a mean grin. Gansey hummed, tilting his head.
“What’s a king to a god?” he asked. Ronan rolled his eyes.
“Flying a little too close to blasphemy there, Dick,” Ronan said. Gansey chuckled.
“Forgive me,” he said, but even that carried a particular weight. Ronan felt his chest tighten and Gansey nudged his thigh with his foot.
“I appreciate you,” Gansey said softly. “Always have, always will.”
“Jesus, Mary, and bloody fucking Joseph,” Ronan grumbled, turning his head away.
They shared a quiet chuckle.
“Let's put these goobers to bed,” Gansey said.
“Good, I'm fucking beat.”
They both transport their cargo very slowly to the nursery, careful not to wake them. Ronan laid Joan down, double-checked her fabric prison, and nudged the mobile to get it moving. He turned around to see Gansey bent over the crib to give Shea a very light kiss.
“Goodnight, my love,” he murmured.
Imposter my ass.
Gansey shut the door nearly silently, and the two stood together in the hallway.
“Hey,” Ronan said as he flattened a palm against Gansey’s collar and pushed him firmly up against the wall.
“I don’t want to hear you talking about yourself like that again,” Ronan sneered in a low voice. “I mean it.”
Gansey looked down at Ronan's hand against his chest and then back up, his expression shifting into an unexpectedly dry half-smile. Gansey leaned forward until his forehead pressed against Ronan’s, his hair tickling Ronan’s cheek, eyes still flickering with a pinpricks of firelight. Ronan felt it spark something in his chest like--
Like torches. Like wands.
Four of wands, a match in his fingers, what do you want, Ronan?
“I...”
“This is really sweet and all--”
They both jerked their heads to stare at Blue, now standing in the doorway to the room she shared with Gansey, rubbing her eyes wearily.
“--but if you don't shut the fuck up and go to bed, I'll kill you both. Now kiss and make up.”
Ronan and Gansey both just stared. Blue's expression sharpened a bit, the sleepiness parting just slightly. She raised an eyebrow challengingly.
“You heard her.”
Adam had now entered the conversation. The floor creaked as Gansey shifted his weight. The house seemed to sigh around them, the darkness in the hallway wrapping around them like an embrace, like safety. The only light that eavesdropped on this conversation was the nightlight in the hall, soft and yellow and tracing fractured shapes across the floor.
Ronan looked back at Gansey. He had changed in so many ways since they had all left to live their own lives after Aglionby, all his overly polished bits now worn down and softer to the touch, but at the same time, he was still the guy that Ronan had clung to in high school, that he had been convinced held the moon and the stars in his crown of thorns. His steady second, his life raft when it felt like his grief would drown him, his best friend.
Ronan's eyes flicked to Adam one last time; his mouth quirked into a smile and he lifted one shoulder: well, go on.
Gansey touched Ronan's jaw softly to draw his attention back and kissed him.
“Goodnight,” he said.
“... Night, Ganz.”
Gansey slipped away from him, and was immediately wrapped up by Blue; they exchanged one last look before they returned to bed. Ronan shuffled into Adam's arms and they did the same.
Adam rolled until he was lying on top of Ronan's chest, crossing his arms and resting his chin on top. His hair was sticking up on one side, pillow creases on his cheek. He was ruffled and perfect and Ronan was so fucking in love with him, it was painful.
“You okay?” asked Adam.
Ronan ran his fingers through Adam's hair, tracing behind his ear and over his cheek. He hummed and his eyes fluttered close, tilting his head into it.
“Yeah,” Ronan whispered. “I'm okay.”