Baby you're a firework [4th of July Gathering]

[jeongbro]

From Candlewood, Henry could hear the party going on northeast of town, the thud of distance bass and the pop of fireworks and the shrill of cars put to the test. And how shit was that?

He texted Blue, first. A soft, subtle inquiry, a joke of an invitation, but a broad one. One for all of them. He remembered Ronan's arm in that cast, and him saying it was from Kavinsky, and Henry had no duty to them, but it would be good to keep all of them away from the mess that was going on at that party outside of town. None of them had to come, of course. They were all their own people, adults--and a ghost who was as good as one, in Henry's eyes--and they were each allowed their own decisions.

So Henry texted Any plans for the 4th Wendybird? And then he followed it up, even before she could answer, I think my place could use some Virginian charms.

He had no decorations. Fourth of July over the past two years had become a thing tainted by Joseph Kavinsky. But he could, easily, go down a couple blocks and buy more two-liter bottles of Pipsy and lemon-lime soda than he could possibly need, and some liquor and mixers, and chips and dip. If he didn't use it all up, he'd bring it to Panoptes. And that seemed like a good enough way to ignore that Joseph Kavinsky was trying to blow himself up, to him.


[Running as a gathering]

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[jeongbro]

Henry wanted to follow that up, but the moment was a tender, fledgling thing, and it seemed better to let it be alone. He knew what it was like to hate yourself for too long, for things that couldn't be changed.

But, Henry reminded himself that the next time he paid Blue a compliment, it should be about something beside her body.

He laughed as she reached out and poked at him, swatting gently and ineffectually at her finger. The question prompted a bit of a hiss of discontent. "No, no. Lynch and I do not get on very well for ideological purposes beyond my pacifism. And we--we argued, when everyone had those words on their backs? Things came up and I told him some things, and it didn't go over well."

[formicine]

There's a silence that isn't quite pregnant and isn't quite awkward, and is both a little, too, and Blue lets it pass, moving over to the counter next to Henry to pour herself a drink.

Her eyes go a little more serious; Ronan hasn't really described what happened or what there is between them (besides, she suspects, jealousy over Gansey having other friends). It doesn't go unnoticed that Henry's usually specific choice of words escapes him in favor of vagueness, either. Either he's trying not to say to her what he said to Ronan, or he's in his head a little.

"What sort of things?" she asks, keeping her tone casual if curious.

[jeongbro]

Henry sighed. Were his hair not gelled back, it would have been the sort of explosive exhalation that would have gotten the fringe of his hair to flutter up off his forehead and out of his eyes. But, as always, his hair was carefully, dutifully styled.

"Things like how our families, his and mine, know each other," Henry said softly. "Things like how I knew--know--what Lynch can do, know that he and Adam are magic."

Henry drummed his fingers against his palm, shrugging a little. Things that Henry Cheng shouldn't have been able to know, but that he did, by virtue of a mother that needed to know these things, that did know these things.

[formicine]

She looks at him, sizing that statement up with a little wariness. Blue's not exactly sure why she should be wary: it's just that, historically, a majority of people who know about Ronan and Adam without being told haven't been the safest.

But they're close, back home, and he's loyal to Gansey; though she doesn't have the context to trace how any of that happened, her gut here, now says that Henry's no threat to her.

And a threat to the boys is a threat to her, simple as that.

"How do they know each other?" she asks instead, tilting her head in real curiosity.

[jeongbro]

This was the Blue that Henry had been waiting for since his arrival. Not the one that had folded him into the pitch neatly, but the one that had scowled and disliked him on principal of his being Aglionby, up on the ridge overlooking Henrietta when the Fisker broke down and Henry had to ask Gansey for his phone.

Henry didn't want to backtrack that far, that many months--both here in Darrow, and back in Henrietta. They'd taken such great strides.

"Niall Lynch was a purveyor of magical and exotic goods and artifacts," Henry said, very quiet but matter-of-factly. Now, only two people in this room besides him knew the truth. "Seondeok, my mother, is a third party dealer, in Canada and East Asia. And I was sent to Virginia to be her eyes, just before Niall was killed."

[formicine]

She nods, taking that in, and trying not to draw attention. She isn't retreating, judging, as much as she is unsettled. Both by the sudden revelation, and by her instinct that Henry himself is safe to trust. Her gut instincts are good, but very little is safe to trust.

It sounds so very corporate, this selling and dealing of magical goods. Vendors and suppliers of all sorts had scions who went to Aglionby; why not magical ones?

"I assume the timing wasn't a coincidence?" she asks quietly, thinking of The Grey Man, and his mysterious Greywaren-seeking boss. "That Niall's death wasn't entirely out of nowhere?"

[jeongbro]

"She wasn't related to it, if that's what you mean," Henry assured softly, shaking his head. Seondeok kept Henry in the know, and he knew what had happened to Niall, but in a cautionary these men would have killed you in that hole sort of way. In a I would have let them, to protect my investments sort of way. Seondeok loved him, but it was a strange love.

"Niall was...not universally liked, in the trade," Henry said. "He once sold my mother something that he'd also offered to three other people, and when they found out--that's how I was kidnapped. But that was just business."

Henry shrugged a little. "Seondeok wasn't expecting Niall's death. No one was, particularly, I think. It just--happened. And then Declan took over purveying, which was suitable for my mother, because I could make exchanges for her at school if I needed to."

He was quiet a moment and then, softly, urgently, said to Blue, "Don't tell Ronan that. I didn't tell him. I don't think he knows about Declan...?"

[formicine]

"I know. I mean, I already knew that, mostly." She gives Henry a small, terse smile and offers, "The man who actually did the killing has...sort of a thing for my mom."

"A Lynch, not universally liked?" she quips, but shuts herself up and frowns, because here's a part of the story she doesn't know and feels as though she should. "You were kidnapped?"

She blinks, suddenly aware of quite a lot of truth she hasn't been in on before, and pieces start fitting themselves together in her mind. "No, of course I won't," she says back softly. It seems a little unfair, to lie to Ronan, but Declan isn't here, anyway, and there's nothing made better by him knowing, here in Darrow, not really. But quite a few things that could be worse.

[jeongbro]

"We are all a bit of a mess of things, coming together, aren't we?" Henry said with a soft laugh. But he had seen the Gray Man shuffling about Henrietta two years ago, and he had seen him shuffling about Henrietta a few months back. And then there was Colin Greenmantle, and--the whole lot of it made Henry unnerved, leery, ultimately frightened. But it was good, Henry supposed, to know that the Gray Man was not a loose end. The Sargent women had good judge of character, Henry had found. Henry trusted the process.

He gestured at his back. "Hole in the ground. Wait, did I show you--when we all had those words on our back?" He thought, suddenly, that he might have avoided it at Prom. So he sighed and shrugged. Now, everyone knew. "Yes. Yes, I was kidnapped when I was ten."

[formicine]

"As it turns out," Blue deadpans, "all those incest jokes about the Appalachians are true, they just don't know by family we mean half the town." She smirks when she realizes she's just done what Henry does, cashing in on a joke about herself.

"You didn't," she says, shaking her head. "I didn't want to ask." "They put you in a --" She pulls back the questioning, blunt side of herself, chewing on her thumb and wincing. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked, you don't have to talk about this stuff."

[jeongbro]

Henry gave Blue a slightly sheepish, but no less amused, look. He'd been known to make those off color jokes, after all. He was just as guilty as anyone else. But he could definitely appreciate what she was doing, and it wasn't calling him out explicitly; just paying heed to the assholes and the words they might lump onto the situation.

"No," Henry said with a shrug and that same sheepish smile. "No, it--well, it's not alright, but. It's the past. It's part of what made me, I suppose."