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]

Comments

[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."