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

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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

incognoscibilis

Even without the annual Kavinsky shitshow, Adam's memories of the Fourth of July were not particularly favorable. It was a lot of his drunk dad and their drunk friends setting off fireworks and burning themselves. Or some drunk teenagers and their drunk friends tying a roman candle to a dog's tail or throwing them as close as they dared to people's windows. The thought of having someplace distant and almost sterilely civilized had its appeal.

And he knew that Ronan wouldn't go if he didn't.

So Adam went and parked himself with a Cola away from the window, rearranging the chips around the edge of his plate.

From:

jeongbro

"You know," Henry said, parking himself at a respectable distance to Adam in case Adam didn't want to be seen consorting with him at his own party, "I think you're supposed to eat the chips? Cards make a bit of a better tower."

He didn't ask if Adam appreciated the gesture of the sodas, because Henry was not doing this for praise or attention. The fact that Adam had a cup and it was being used spoke of a quiet sort of trust. Henry was trying.

From:

incognoscibilis

"I was eating them, but then I got a whole bunch of even shaped ones," Adam said. And because focusing on a consuming task seemed to be a good strategy while he waited for the Lynch-shaped cloud of hostility to dissipate. He was aware that his boyfriend was not always the happiest party guest but it was painfully obvious in this small gathering.

If only they had Apples to Apples, or the evil version that people always talked about.

From:

jeongbro

"Someone working hard in the chip factory," Henry said and gave a sage nod about it, as if this were a perfect explanation. And it was. But Henry still felt like the gentle tease was warranted.

"On the one hand," he said after a soft silence that probably did not need filling, "I feel like, with a small group and this sort of atmosphere, a board game like the one Noah brought would be perfect. On the other hand, I think if I suggested it out loud, I would be a laughing stock?"

From:

incognoscibilis

"You're counting on Ronan not to knock all the pieces off the board and shout 'Blitzkrieg,'" Adam said. Board games with rules were something of a challenge for them, more so if Chainsaw ever got involved.

But Noah's optimism was appreciable.

"But I wouldn't laugh."

From:

jeongbro

Henry went placid, because he was a little loathe to admit that, until he'd come to Canada a few years back, and Aglionby two years ago, that word, blitzkrieg, wouldn't have really meant anything to him; a strange compromise in education, when your historical oppressor was a two or four hour flight away from where you grew up. It seemed strangely insensitive in the mouth of a smart white boy. He said nothing.

"I feel this was a matter of poor, short planning on my part," Henry admitted when his moment passed. "But I think I was also hoping Kavinsky wouldn't try and blow something up. That was stupid of me."

From:

incognoscibilis

Henry didn't have to say anything but Adam knew a shift in mood when he saw one. There were subtle signs in people and less subtle signs that followed. Adam wondered what he'd said wrong, where he needed to backpedal. He doubted that Henry Cheng was about to backhand him across the mouth but another person's displeasure was alway a thing to be managed before the bowstring was too taut.

"I'm fine with being here," he said, knowing it wasn't enough but still caught in the puzzle of the source of Henry Cheng's displeasure.

From:

jeongbro

"As long as it's not completely insufferable, I suppose," Henry conceded, and he smiled. He touched his knuckles, very briefly, to the outside of Adam's knee. It was not a pat or a thump, which he thought might be unwelcome. But it was a grounding sort of touch, an assurance that he appreciated Adam's being here--all of them being here--and that he, at least, was trying to make this a good time.

"Oh, I should have put on music, before. I found a streaming service, it's not so bad. It even gets some music from home, mixed in with music almost from home--like, when you've misheard the lyrics to a song?"

From:

iwasmore

Noah sits down next to Adam, knocking his shoulder very gently against Adam's and then just leaving it there to lean against. "I brought your birthday crown with me in case you want to wear it again today," he whispers like a secret, knowing Adam likely won't want to here in front of Henry who he's still getting to know. Hell, he might not have even wanted to wear it yesterday, either, but Noah can't help himself. You're supposed to feel special on your birthday.

From:

incognoscibilis

"Put it on Ronan and see what happens," Adam said, his voice low to match Noah's. It had, in all truthfulness, been a very nice gesture and Adam had appreciated it more than anything store bought. Al of them had understood and respected what he wanted on his birthday without having to really work at it and Adam had felt known.

From:

iwasmore

Noah's face lights up. "Okay, but if I do, you have to be ready with your camera to take a picture, alright?" he asks, and waits, poised in his seat for Adam to get his phone out.

From:

incognoscibilis

Adam rolled his eyes but he did take out his phone, pretending to study a message rather than conspire against his boyfriend. "But if anyone asks, you came up with this idea all on your own. I'm an innocent bystander," Adam said, not looking up from the screen.

From:

iwasmore

"That's so rude, Adam, making me take the fall like that," Noah says, covertly slipping the folded crown from his back pocket. Casually, he strolls over to the other couch where Ronan is sitting and plops down next to him.

"Hey Ronan, look at Adam," he says, and when Ronan turns his head Noah drops the crown on it.

Ronan scowls when he realizes what's going on and then tackles Noah. Noah laughs and tries to push him off, but only before disappearing and then re-manifesting next to Adam.

"Did you get it?" he asks, still laughing a little.

From:

incognoscibilis

"Subtle," Adam said, when Noah reappeared back at his side. The phone was still incriminating in his hand and he suspected he'd pay for it in some painless way later in bed.

But he had gotten the shot. Adam turned his phone around and paged through the few he'd taken of the moment and then texted them to Noah, just because he had a phone and so he could.

From:

iwasmore

"It wouldn't have been a good picture if he hadn't looked," Noah protests, still grinning, and tries to peek at the photo before his own phone buzzes with the incoming texts.

"So what do you think, this isn't going so bad, right?" he asks, the this mostly being Ronan here at Henry's with the rest of them.

From:

incognoscibilis

"If I get couch exile or something, I'm throwing you under the bus," Adam said without rancor. They both knew it went too much against his code to pin his problems on someone else, even if it might be deserved. Any trouble that happened was brought upon himself and negotiated by himself.

It wasn't but it wasn't going anywhere the realm of well either. They didn't know how to navigate a new social situation without Gansey who was forever gifted in climbing society's greasy pole.

"It's going," he agreed at last.

From:

formicine

"Hey," Blue says, and steals a chip out of his arrangement without asking. It's a weird, intrusive sort of gesture of affection. She'd normally feel a pang of guilt, but there's about three times too much free food, and he's not eating his.

"Not the most terrible thing we could have done tonight." It's a statement, but also a question.

From:

incognoscibilis

Adam turned and looked at Blue as seriously as he could without cracking. "You've ruined the symmetry, Blue," he said in a flatly even tone. To fix the situation, he took a chip from the other side and ate it, certain that Blue was going to retaliate in kind.

"It's very civilized," he agreed.

From:

formicine

"That's me, an agent of chaos," she deadpans, regarding him back, though she feels like she's going to laugh. She stacks three chips and moves them to the center of his plate aggressively as though she can prove this about herself, a smile curling at her lips.

"Yeah, somehow I'm not missing the burning cars." She glances at Henry. "He's trying," she says, and she doesn't mean to be civilized.

From:

incognoscibilis

And now, of course, any of the parity was completely ruined and Adam gave Blue a petulant look that was only mostly faked. "This is probably the worst chaos we're going to experience all night though," he said, glancing out the window where he knew the party raged somewhere in the distance.

From:

formicine

She gives him an exaggerated look of apology, pouting her lower lip, and looks at the places they came from. It's as if the other chips have hidden them: the careful arrangement of chips seems totally changed. She allocates the separate three: one each aesthetically and evenly on either side and breaks the third in half to split between Adam and herself.

"Is that a bad thing?" she asks, and frowns, looking at her half of the chip. "Did I make a mistake here? I feel like I'm doing something wrong and no one will tell me what it is." As though she's supposed to think or feel something about Henry, but she's pretty sure if she'd kept resenting him for being a privileged Aglionby boy that wouldn't have been fair, either.

From:

incognoscibilis

Adam pouted back at her, though it came out as mostly a deranged imitation of Noah. Then, because they were being silly, Adam took the offered half-chip and ate it before he leaned all the way over from his seat to the snack table and grabbed the bag. With a half-flourish, he dumped more chips all over the plate in an untidy pile.

"I'm pretty sure none of us know what the right thing to do in this situation even is," Adam said. Gansey's absence, his talent for spinning awkward silence in the gold, was palpable.

From:

formicine

Blue giggles at the over-the-top pout (it does look a little Noah-esque, which is funnier than probably intended) and at his flourish. She feels a surge of warm, fierce appreciation for Adam just then, and it's not particularly spawned by anything but chips and Adam.

She'd say I love you, right then, if it were a thing they usually said to each other, but since it seems to be reserved for big occasions when someone might die, she plops down next to him, bumps her head against his shoulder like a cat and hopes he knows.

"Have fun, I think, but." She spreads her hands, too sensible to think that's as easy as it sounds. "If I were Gansey," she says, "I'd already know the steps to this. Do they teach you social dancing 101 at Aglionby? Henry's interested in sustainable resources, isn't that interesting Ronan," she mimicks, gesturing in a way meant to indicate some sort of complex social do-si-do where they end up together, "could you imagine generating power without consuming fossil fuels? Oh, and I think you both have strong feelings about EDM." Her Gansey imitation is intentionally poor, meant to make Adam laugh, and she huffs a sigh.

"I don't even care, really, what people talk about, I just --" She makes a circle with her hands. "Like my friends to all be friends, I guess." Which isn't possible, or even reasonable, and she deals with that, but. "Whatever this place is, we all know more about each other than anyone else."

Edited Date: 2016-07-10 01:06 am (UTC)

From:

incognoscibilis

When she bumped against his shoulder, Adam started to raise a hand before remembering at the last second that Blue was not, in fact, a barn cat. He liked the gesture though and tapped his knuckles against the back of her hand in an uncertain imitation of how Henry had tapped his knee earlier. It seemed appropriately affectionate without turning over the stones of a past relationship.

Blue's imperfect imitation of Gansey squeezed on Adam's heart in a peculiar way. Her impersonation of him was damnably accurate but not in the same way his or Ronan's would have been. They'd all known slightly different facets of Gansey and it only occurred to him now that, like a gem, Gansey could turn this way or that to cast light where it was needed. To be seen how he preferred in any situation.

The realization was such an epiphany that Adam forced it back in favor of laughing with Blue.

"I missed Social Dancing 101. It's a freshman year class and I wasn't at Aglionby until I was a sophomore," Adam said, still nibbling back laughter. "But, I mean. We're here, aren't we?"