Chapter Text
“Ugh. I don’t want to be responsible for you all,” Blue Sargent groans, flopping back on the grass while Adam Parrish tinkers with his mutt of a car in front of 300 Fox Way. “Why couldn’t Res Life have put you in another dorm? I don’t want to be in charge!”
“Aren’t you already?”
She shoots him a look that he ignores. Blue loves being an RA, and she loves her pack of boys. But that doesn’t mean she’s excited about them all living in her dorm.
During Orientation Week, a time when everyone and their mom was trying to make friends, Blue Sargent made a couple enemies. The boys in the suite across the hall from her were everything Blue and the other townies hated about the students of Aglionby College. Now that Blue was one, she felt mildly conflicted - a house divided and all that - but these boys were still the worst. The combined worth of the Ganseys, Czernys, Whelks, and Lynches was probably enough to buy the whole university and the neighboring towns, and their dorm common room was named after a previous generation of Gansey. To make matters worse, Blue’s roommate Cialina had an ill-advised crush on Ronan Lynch and his tattoo. But their friend Adam, a fellow townie, had helped smooth things over, and by the end of their first year, they had all managed to get along. She and Noah had regular dance-offs at parties, Ronan had laughed in the face of every frat who’d offered him a bid, Gansey had proved to be an incredible nerd, and her crush on Adam had come and gone. Now, going into junior year, Blue finds herself with a group of friends that she adores.
Adam makes one final adjustment before slamming the hood of the car shut. She’s still glowering, but she allows him to lay down next to her and press his forehead fondly against hers.
“It’s going to be a good year,” he says.
“Yeah. Okay. If you say so.”
“I do. I also need a shower. Help me clear the bathroom of all your cousins.”
---
Gansey turns into the tiny parking lot by the dorm and parks the Pig in the last open spot. Helen is about an hour behind him with most of his things, but he pulls out his briefcase and a duffel bag of essentials and heads into the dorm.
Blue Sargent is sitting in the common room with a box of keys and a pleasant smile.
“Jane! The only one they’d trust to supervise us, I see.”
“Dick.”
Gansey laughs and pulls her into a hug. The spikes of her ponytail tickle his nose and Gansey sighs.
“It’s good to be back on campus. Summer just dragged.”
“I’m sure the yachting trips and the croquet were very tiring.”
“Yes, well, you’d have to ask Ronan about the croquet. Speaking of, is he here yet?”
Ronan Lynch is arguably Gansey’s best friend. They’ve known each other since prep school - a phrase that irritates Blue whenever he uses it - and Gansey is about the only person who can talk Ronan into doing anything he doesn’t otherwise want to do.
“His stuff is here, Res Life moved it from the summer housing, but I haven’t seen him yet. Noah and Adam are here though.”
“Smashing!”
It’s a miracle that she doesn’t hit him.
“I’ll leave you to your very important business,” he says with a broad grin. He hugs her one more time, rubbing his cheek against hers in a familiar gesture.
The room is tiny, like always. Gansey has a suspicion that they’re giving him crappy rooms so that no one could possibly argue favoritism, but he doesn’t mind. The first thing he unpacks is his thesis notebook, followed by sheets. Moved in enough, he heads back to the common room to see if the others have arrived.
It’s a shabby but cozy room; the carpet is worn and stained and the furniture, while newer, has clearly been enjoyed by several years of careless students. It’s currently being enjoyed by the three boys sprawled across it. Blue shakes her head at their ‘lack of respect for their living quarters,’ sprawled across an arm chair of her own.
“Gansey!” says Adam, offering his hand for a fist bump.
He gives Noah a high five and flops down on the couch next to Ronan whose arm slips down onto his shoulders.
Gansey has always been a person who likes school better than summer, but only recently has that been because of the people. Research and discovery are where he’s in his element and now he has friends that are right there with him. Sure, there’s some eye rolling when he lectures a bit too long, but Ronan helps him with Latin translations, and Adam brings him obscure texts from the library with passages helpfully marked, and Noah always knows when he needs to work or when he needs a distraction, and Blue has access to the best maps both in the Environmental Studies department and in her head from a childhood of running around the mountain. It feels right having them all together, like he’s finally complete, like now that everything is in place his life can begin.
---
There isn’t a uniform, but walking across campus on the first day of classes, Blue remembers why she used to think there was. All the girls wear candy colored sundresses, their hair long and gleaming in the August sun, and all the boys wear khakis and navy blazers, most of them with bowties and boat shoes. Gansey is no exception, in fact he’s probably their leader.
“Hello Jane,” he says as brightly as his salmon bowtie.
Blue is also wearing a bright dress, but since it’s cobbled together from three other garments and paired with combat boots it doesn’t quite fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the student body. Her first few months at Aglionby she’d worried about that more; about fitting in and not looking too obviously like a townie. From afar the campus does look homogeneous, but she knows it now, knows it’s quirks. Like Isaac, the guy with the cloak, and drinking society that wears kilts to everything, and her friends.
They arrive at the dining hall, a modern building disguised in English Gothic, and Gansey holds open the door for her. Blue has long since given up trying to rid Gansey of his chivalric tendencies. Ronan has no such bad habits. He cuts in front of them in line and heaps chili and Fritos into his bowl. Sometimes she can’t believe she loves them.
“Real classy, Lynch,” Gansey says, without any heat.
“We can’t all be Richard Classy Ganseys.”
“The C stands for Campbell and you know it.”
The three of them weave their way through hoards of hungry Aglionby students and between overly full tables towards the row of window nooks. Adam has one all to himself despite the jealous looks of a cluster of sophomores. He moves over to make room for Blue while Ronan and Gansey take seats on his other side.
“Where’s Noah?”
“Frat lunch. He’s on his way. He texted Ronan.” Adam holds up Ronan’s sleek phone.
Blue takes it from him and sends Noah a string of emojis. She imagines it’ll lose some of its novelty if she ever gets a phone of her own, but until that day comes it will always be amusing. She sends a string of eggplants to Gansey. His smile a minute later when the text goes through is surprisingly rewarding.
Noah joins them a little later with a tray of desserts. Ronan immediately reaches for one, but Noah swats his hand away. Ronan rubs it, looking dejected until Gansey offers him a cookie. Blue takes a piece of pie with no consequences and Ronan glares at her.
“I’m eating for two,” he says.
“Are you really keeping that thing?” Gansey complains.
Blue blinks. “What? Ronan, please tell me you aren’t going to keep that raven in the dorm.”
“Her name is Chainsaw, and yes. I am.”
Blue sighs. “Just don’t let Gwenllian find her. I’ll never hear the end of it if my co-RA finds a wild animal in a room. Though,” she grins, “She hasn’t said anything about you yet.”
Ronan flips her off, and then snatches a cookie from Noah’s tray while he’s distracted laughing.
---
It’s always hard for Noah to explain to people why he joined a fraternity. He’s not a legacy, and wasn’t really planning on rushing when he decided to come to Aglionby college, it just sort of happened. He has a prepared list of official reasons why he joined - their philanthropy and the camaraderie and the networking opportunities - but really it comes down to the fact that everyone else seemed to be rushing and Whelk was doing it and why not?
He loves it though, loves it like family. He’s an only child, but his bros feel like real brothers. That includes fighting for them. Adam and the others accept his membership as another weird quirk of his behavior now, but it took some convincing. It also includes the fights with them; when he and Whelk were up against each other for Pledge Master their room became a silent, frigid place. It was tense for a while, but Noah always knew they’d be friends again; you can’t go through the consumption of whole onions and naked runs in the snow together and then allow politics to come between you. And more than that, Noah got lucky and got a freshman year roommate that he could both live with and be friends with. This is their first year not rooming together, but Noah knows they’ll see each other all the time at frat functions. They’re currently standing at the Epsilon Kappa Delta booth at the Greek Life Fair and watching the sorority girls.
“Damn,” Whelk says. “Those Deltas are so hot.”
Noah makes a noncommittal noise. Blue’s cousin/roommate Orla is a Delta and she kind of terrifies him.
“Sorry man. I forgot you weren’t looking right now.”
Noah chuckles. “I’m looking, I just don’t need to find anything.”
“Right on,” Whelk says, and they bump fists.
Because as much as Noah loves his frat, and as much as he loves hooking up with sorority girls, his love for Gansey and Adam and Ronan and Blue looms so large. He heard somewhere that you either stay close with your high school friends or your college friends, and he is going to make damn sure that it’s his college friends because he can’t imagine losing any of them.
---
It’s Adam’s first semester living on campus, and it’s very different from commuting. The first time they all pile into the Pig to go to Nino’s and Adam doesn’t have to ask his parents is a revelation. He sits in the back, crammed between the side panel of the car and Blue’s warmth and shakes slightly, convinced that at any minute his dad will appear and drag him home.
He relaxes only after they’re settled into one of the orange vinyl booths and Ronan is handing the waitress his fake ID. Ronan is twenty-one, but he insists on using the fake one. Blue yells at him every time she catches him. Ronan fills their glasses and immediately orders another pitcher.
Only Aglionby students go to Nino’s, but Adam still glances around nervously before he takes his first drink. It’s just cheap beer - Nino’s doesn’t carry anything fancy - but Adam savors every sip. He’s starting to understand how college could be freedom.
“So what’s the plan, gentlemen and Jane?” Gansey asks. “Shall we go to the Hall tonight?”
“Last time we went there, Ronan tried to push me off.”
Ronan laughs. “You probably would have been fine, Noah.”
Adam remembers that night late last year. He had just left home after losing the hearing in his left ear and was begrudgingly sleeping on Gansey’s couch, and Blue had just gotten her RA assignment. They went out to Founders’ Hall to celebrate or to drink. The huge rock formation was just a short hike from campus which made it a common hang out spot on sunny days and weekend nights. Gansey and Ronan had rappelled off it once. This particular night, Ronan and Noah had been fooling around, and Ronan was indeed shoving Noah towards the edge, but his other hand was clasped tightly around Noah’s wrist.
Adam feels that iron grip on his leg, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“Hey, Adam’s back,” Ronan says, voice sarcastic but eyes warm. “We’re gonna go to the Chi House after this.”
“All of us?” Adam asks. He’s sure Gansey and Ronan have automatic invitations to any House on campus, but that doesn’t mean they can bring just anyone.
“Of course,” Gansey says. “The more the merrier.”
They finish off their sausage and avocado pizza and the lasagna for Blue “I’ve worked here and I’m never eating their pizza again” Sargent, and all pile back into the Pig significantly fuller and drunker than before.
Adam is still learning all the frats on campus. Epsilon Kappa Delta is Noah’s frat; they’re reasonably friendly and the least fratty of the houses. Sigma Eta is Kavinsky’s territory; their nickname is the Sexual Harassment House, and they’re to be avoided at all costs. Chi House is where Gansey would have gone if he hadn’t decided that fraternities weren’t politic enough for him. It’s also home to the entire Crew team who all cheer upon their entry.
“Woop Woop, Gansey Boy!”
The top floor of the Chi House is like something out of the nicer parts of Animal House, all stately columns and composites of well-dressed Chis past. It’s everything Adam isn’t. The bottom floor Chi Club House is intimidating in a different way. Everyone there knows each other. They’ve spent hours together, either drinking in the smoky Club House or crammed into a racing shell. They’re not completely exclusive - a few of Noah’s brothers are there, and some of Blue’s fellow RAs - but Adam has never felt so left out.
Right before he decides to just walk back to the dorm, Gansey and Ronan appear on either side of him.
“C’mon Parrish,” Ronan says, taking his elbow like an old fashioned escort. “We need your hands for flip cup.”
He leads Adam over to the table to join Noah and Blue where they’re faced off against a group of Chis.
“Read to crush a bunch of frat bros?” Blue asks, a very Ronan smile on her face.
“Yeah alright,” Adam drawls.
And here’s where he’s found a place. The thrill of the game starting to rise, just enough beer in his system that he’s willing to let it, sandwiched between Blue and Ronan with red Solo cups in front of them. Because that’s what freedom is; it’s choosing to be with exactly these people in exactly this moment. He grins and gets ready to play.
---
The five of them spend the most time in Gansey and Ronan’s room, even though it’s smaller than Blue’s and way more cluttered than Adam and Noah’s. Part of it is the couch, and part of it is Ronan having to feed Chainsaw every couple of hours, but part of it is just the way things are. Friday night pregames have always been a chance to be together before the night takes them off in different directions.
“Technically this is a rule violation,” Blue says, holding out her cup so Gansey can top her off.
“Good thing we’re friends with the RA then,” Ronan says, sitting down across from her.
Blue starts to rise to punch him, but Noah sneaks his arms around her waist and locks her solidly in his arms. “Behave,” he says, exhaling and ruffling Blue’s hair.
Gansey finishes straightening up the bar and sits down by Ronan, who immediately scoots closer.
“Tell ‘em, Noah,” he says, when he is sufficiently comfortable against Gansey’s shoulder.
“Ronan and I settled on these rules,” Noah explains with a salute of his glass. “The Glendower Drinking Game. Drink every time Gansey says ‘Glendower,’ ‘ley line,’ or something in another language. If you get him started talking, time it and you can assign a drink per two minutes of lecturing. Drinks will accumulate over the week and be consumed as part of our weekly pregame. And remember, there’s an Honor Code.”
Ronan’s smirk has gotten more and more smug as Noah talks and he’s stroking Chainsaw like he’s a Bond villain. Gansey’s expression is frozen somewhere between amusement and horror.
“Surely that won’t be enough for a pre-game?” he splutters. “I don’t talk about Glendower that much!”
Solemnly they all take a drink.
“Fuck you guys,” Gansey says.
Adam smirks around his beer bottle, and Ronan and Noah burst out laughing. Noah has a full bodied laugh, and it shakes Blue into giggles as well. Gansey looks put out, but Blue knows he’ll be laughing along with them in a second; he can’t resist his friends’ happiness for long.
They don’t end up making it out that night. Noah starts snoring gently on the couch halfway through Kings Cup (Ronan won’t stop calling it Glendower’s Game). Ronan and Gansey pass out on Ronan’s bottom bunk a little later, curled together, noses almost touching. Blue uses Gansey’s hideously expensive phone to take a picture.
“You can take the bed,” Adam offers. “I’ll go back to my room.”
Blue shakes her head. “We can share. Unless you’re worried about cooties?” she teases, halfway up the ladder.
“I’m not sleeping with Ronan, am I?” Adam shoots back.
He curls his lanky form around her compact one and tentatively wraps his arms around her middle. She tucks them a little tighter and falls asleep happy.
---
The EKD Shrimp Boil is a staple of Homecoming. It’s the first official party of the weekend, and Ronan has always been a fan of free food and booze. Aside from that aspect, the frat scene has never really interested him. His older brother is in Sigma Eta at his college a few hours northward, and the less Ronan has in common with Declan the better. At first he’d worried that Gansey was going to be like his brother. Gansey gave off the impression that he was going to be President of whatever fraternity his daddy had been President of. Ronan has never been so glad to be wrong.
He looks over at Gansey who has corralled some girl into a discussion of his favorite topic.
“It’s really fascinating. How much do you know about Welsh kings?” Gansey asks, his words only slightly slurred. His audience looks like she finds him more fascinating than any theory he may have.
Ronan moves away to get another drink, but he can tell by Gansey’s hand motions when he’s moved on to the ley lines and he’s counting drinks for next week’s pregame. Noah and Blue are on the dance floor, with Adam bopping along next to them. Ronan really doesn’t want to dance, but he wants to listen to Gansey’s thesis abstract even less. He downs his drink, gets another, and joins the crowd.
The alcohol is just starting to hit him, softening the edges of his thoughts and loosening the tension in his muscles. He’d once heard someone say that they did everything better when they were slightly intoxicated, and it was certainly true for him. Latin translations seemed to flow out of him after a whiskey or two and he’d drunk a whole case of beer while working on his studio art final last semester.
Adam is still nursing the beer he got when they first arrived at the party, so Ronan swaps it with his drink. Adam rolls his eyes, but takes a long swig. Ronan ignores the red cup when Adam tries to hand it back, instead pressing close to Adam’s chest and curling a hand around his hip. Ronan thinks Adam is out of place here; too elegant and self-possessed for the raucous crowds. Adam thinks he’s out of place for a whole host of other reasons, so Ronan reminds him where he belongs.
Blue shifts so she’s behind Adam, and it should be comical how she moves against him, barely visible over his shoulder, but it’s really not. Noah moves closer too, and Ronan slings an arm over his shoulder. Adam smiles and Ronan wants to swallow it whole. There are fingers on his waist, two sets, Adam and Gansey keeping a hold on him.
“Having fun?” Gansey asks, completing their circle.
“Always.”
---
The buzz of people and alcohol carries Blue outside where the first batch of shrimp has just been finished. With a few well placed glares she manages to snag a nice piece of grass and waits for the others to get back with plates. Gansey hands one to her before sprawling out on the ground, looking glorious despite the boat shoes and patterned shorts that it’s almost too cold for.
“Are you going to change before we go out tonight?” Blue asks, idly flicking shrimp shells at Ronan.
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“At least all his clothes are in one piece,” Ronan quips, chucking his own shells right back.
“Where are we going then?” Adam asks, tactfully moving the conversation away from the dangerous territory of anyone’s fashion choices.
Gansey gets his game face on, and Blue half expects him to pull a color coded schedule and map out of his pocket. “Well there’s nothing official happening at Chi, but I told some of the guys I’d stop by. Heaven and Hell starts at nine, though Tad says they’re going to open up their pregame a little earlier than that. And I know you have work tomorrow Adam, but the Herodotus Society is having a kill it party at eleven that we could go to. Ronan and I have a few bottles that would be suitable.”
Blue doesn’t really care where they go; a frat is a frat is a frat. They all have the same people, the same beer smell, and the same sludge covered floor. She’d be just as happy hanging out in the dorm. So when Adam suggests that, she jumps on it.
“My pledge class is doing a thing right after this, but I’ll meet you later,” Noah says.
Ronan nods. “Yeah, I owe a couple of people shots. Catch you all back at the dorm.”
Gansey grins. “Excelsior!”
---
Noah and the Drunk Bus are old friends. Ever since the first time it had appeared, light flashing like a lighthouse beacon, Noah had had a fondness for it. The drivers always know where the best parties are and there’s always someone interesting on board. Tonight is no exception.
When Noah and Whelk board outside the EKD house after their pledge class party, Henry Cheng is driving and Ronan and Kavinsky sit in the very back. Ronan is staring out the window, but Kavinsky has his head tilted close, whispering into Ronan’s ear. Homecoming is a good weekend for bad decisions.
Noah slams the door and Kavinsky looks up.
“Hey Barrington, pets aren’t allowed on here.”
Whelk seems to notice Kavinsky for the first time. Kavinsky is a bit of an enigma. He probably should have been kicked out his first week after setting fire to a couch in the Sigma house, but he’s still here three years later and the list of things he’s set on fire has grown to include cars, a fence around a fraternity house, and most recently the lake. He doesn’t pay dues and he never went through formal rush, but he hangs out with the Sigmas - the couch thing was forgiven and has become an annual party. Whelk is a bit obsessed with him.
“How’s your night going?” Noah asks Ronan.
Kavinsky responds. “You can’t do anything fun on campus, so we’re heading a bit farther afield. You game?”
“Of course,” Whelk responds quickly and Kavinsky grins.
Ronan excuses himself to go feed Chainsaw, so it’s just Noah, Whelk and Kavinsky who trek out to Founders’ Hall. The climb there is easy, even in the dark. Noah clambers onto the rock, Kavinsky right at his heels. They hear Whelk slip on a patch of loose stones and Kavinsky laughs savagely.
The rocks form a narrow corridor, almost big enough for three college kids to stand comfortably. Whelk lights a joint and passes it around, hands shaking slightly.
“Shall we raise the stakes?” Kavinsky waves a bag of pills and then strikes out for the top of the Hall.
The combination of the weed and the view is making Noah dizzy. From the top of the rock, the valley spreads out at his feet like one of Gansey’s toy maps. He can see a single car driving the straight road that cuts through dark fields towards the constellation of the nearest town. Farther in the distance the tiny regional airport and the county seat and nearest Walmart form a slightly brighter knot. But even that is outshone by the stars that fill the sky. Noah wants to count them.
“Czerny,” Whelk snaps. “Quit stargazing and join us.”
He’s got two pills in the palm of his hand and when Noah shakes his head, Whelk shrugs and takes them both after a quick glance at Kavinsky. Noah lights up another joint and joins them near the edge of the rock.
These are the moments he wants to remember from college; just hanging out with his frat brother (and the campus miscreant), indulging in some mind-altering substances, and letting the world flow by. Noah is about as happy as he’s ever been.
“Have you ever climbed down?” Kavinsky asks, hurling an empty beer bottle over the rim.
Noah and Whelk wait to hear it shatter fall below before Noah replies, “Gansey and Ronan did once.”
Kavinsky laughs. “See Dick and Spot climb. Climb Dick, climb. Well, Ronan probably wants to.”
Whelk sniggers. “Probably. He got blackballed you know.”
That’s not strictly speaking true. Ronan got plenty of offers to rush, he just turned them all down and not very politely and was subsequently banned from participation in Greek life.
“Blue balled more like it. Come on, drugs can only take you part of the way, for the rest you gotta leap.”
He swings himself over the side and drops. Noah and Whelk rush to the very edge to see what happened. There’s a ledge maybe nine feet down that Kavinsky is standing on; his white shirt and sneakers glowing in the moonlight. “Come on in, boys. The water’s fine.”
“Uhh,” Noah says. He’s pretty stoned, but this doesn’t sound like the best idea.
“What are you, scared?” Whelk teases. “Come on, we did worse shit than this while we were rushing. Go on.”
He jostles Noah’s shoulder as they both slither down the side of the rock before joining Kavinsky on the ledge. Kavinsky’s got some more pills out. “Deeper down the rabbit hole?”
Whelk nudges Noah until he takes a pill. The stars are starting to distort and Noah can’t tell if that’s the drugs or the vertigo.
“How do we get back up?” he murmurs.
“You said he was cool, man,” Kavinsky says to Whelk. “What the fuck is this?”
“Naw, he is. Look, Noah, you go down first, okay? It’s chill. K’s done this before.”
Noah turns awkwardly on the narrow ledge to make his way further down the mountain. Hanging from the main ledge, he can just feel another lip of stone with his toes.
“Hurry it up!” Whelk says, and Noah drops.
The stone isn’t stable.
“Oh,” Noah says as he falls.
The ground is hard. Noah has walked on it almost every day of his life and he’s never before noticed how hard it is. It’s also covered in rocks from long ago slides and the slide that he just triggered. One of them is jabbing at his skull.
It’s all so absurd. He half expects Ronan to jump out of the bushes and yell ‘Surprise!’ He lifts his head to look around only it doesn’t move. Nothing is moving except the rapid flutter of his chest as his breath hitches in a way that doesn’t bode well. All he can see is branches and the moon, and if that has to be the last thing Noah sees that’s not too bad. The last thing Noah hears is the knife edge of Kavinsky’s laughter and the rough bark of Barrington Whelk’s.
---