[Christmas Night Afterparty]

[thatsallthereis]

When there was nothing but leftover meat and beer, the crowd dwindled. They'd planned it well so that the last person was out before dinnertime and by 6pm, Hywel was bare bones. There was plenty of food to pick at, lots of beer for Ronan, and the gracious guests had done most of the cleanup. In the morning, Gansey had to call to get the picnic tables and heaters taken to the community center. He hadn't made arrangements for the grill; he'd meant to take it to the local shelter, but he was afraid he was attached to it. Keeping it, though, meant this was a selfish act. He didn't want that. That was not what this was about.

Now sans beer and plus water, Gansey lept over the back of the couch and landed himself at one side. This was even more like Gansey's kind of gathering: just the his royal court. They'd grown and gained some, but that was good too. If time wasn't here what it was in Henrietta, there was so much more to learn.

[Afterparty. Please use this as Gansey's TL as well.

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[formicine]

Blue holds up both hands. "Ten points," she informs Gansey, and curls up into the space between the arm and the back of the chair she's sitting in, sock feet tucked under her. She surveys the landscape. It's been nice all day, all of them feeling for once like they might be on good terms, and this is nice too: guests and significant others peeled away and just them at their core.

She wonders how many of them have found their more personal gifts from her. It itches and tickles like an unanswered question, but she makes herself be patient. They're surprises.

"Someone want to grab me a drink?" she calls toward the kitchen. It's possible no one will oblige. That'd be okay too.

[OOC: This is...both a reply and a TL, because posts that are also TLs are confusing. Reply away!]

[thatsallthereis]

For the occasion, Gansey got wine. Red wine, as it seemed to be the most tolerable for him. Perhaps the occasion would have been better suited with champagne, but New Years was coming up. There was only so much champagne a person could handle. Anyway, Gansey preferred the drier kind and people didn't seem to like that. A dry red wine was -- for some reason -- another story.

Whether it was the glass of wine he'd imbibed or a general lightness as his life shifted, his smile was stuck. He raised his arms in triumph as Blue awarded him his points.

"Wasn't sure I'd nailed the style score," Gansey said, ever humble. It was easy to hop back to his feet to fulfill Blue's request. "What would you like?"

[formicine]

"Well, there was some debate with the Russian judge," Blue returns, solemnly, "but ultimately an excellent showing."

She can't keep her eyes from betraying her smile. Gansey is genuinely sunny today, eyes bright and mood effervescent, and it's warming. Like all things springtime, she hadn't realized she was missing it until an unforced smile reappeared on his face.

Blue shrugs amiably. "Whatever. Nog. Wine. Something else. I trust you."

[thatsallthereis]

There had been a comment about a Russian judge on Gansey's own tongue, and his skin lit up warm when Blue plucked it from the air. Psychic amplifier, sure, but she wasn't a speaker to Gansey -- she was silence. Beautiful, striking silence. It ached in his chest. How Gansey missed her.

Egg Nog was a better bet, Gansey thought once he was in the kitchen. Gansey hadn't ever expected her to be a dry wine person and that suited him just fine. He poured her some into a plastic cup and returned with it, vaulting himself over the couch again with less ceremony.

"Thank you for the elk," Gansey said softly, crossing his legs under him. "It's one of the strangest things I've ever seen. It's perfect."

[formicine]

Blue smiles as he comes back, sitting down next to her but taking up more room. Not in the slouchy, expansive way that boys -- Gansey included -- so easily and unthinkingly do sometimes, but just as a matter of being taller.

Their knees could brush, if she wanted them to. She does, a little.

Blue sits up a little; her heart turns over a little when he mentions the elk. "You saw it! Oh, god. I'm glad you like it." She sounds little-girlish even to herself. "I was worried it was --" Too much, especially for someone she's nominally not 'with'? Not right? Strange? All of these things.

"That's one of the last things I remember before I arrived here," she decides. "That cave. Watching you bring the skeletons to life." And riding one, into that chamber with the pool, with the Ronan she left behind there.

[thatsallthereis]

The nearer their limbs were, the more magnetized they seemed. When he replaced himself on the couch, he'd sat closer than the previous time. Gansey was not the type to gamble, so what was it? Maybe what it was: the gravity of fate. Maybe time was different in Darrow, but something like that -- real, actual true love that has been righteously proven -- had to have a whole different kind of gravity. They were stuck in it. That was okay. They could behave themselves like two adult individuals. Gansey was capable of this.

It was tough, though, when her smile lit up like that and the shape of her thighs was so gently highlighted by her clothes. It was not okay to think things like that about someone else's girlfriend, so he drank some more wine, instead.

"--Too much?" Gansey ventured, his brows smoothing from curiosity to rest atop a gentle smile that touched his eyes. "It was perfect. Thank you." People that had been through what they had got close, gave gifts, sometimes sat close. Surely that was easy to understand for anyone looking, right?

"Feels like yesterday," Gansey joked, because time was a construct he had parted with in the world they'd known before Darrow.

[iwasmore]

Noah's draped across one half of one of the couches with Ro curled up on his chest, enjoying the warmth and the quiet of the much smaller group of friends than had been at the barbecue.

He'd invited Freddie to the barbecue and he'd invited him to hang out afterward, too, and surprisingly he's still here. Noah's glad, thinking back to what Freddie said about not having any friends. He doesn't know if his Henrietta friends are a good fit, but does it really matter today? No one should be alone on Christmas. No one who knows what it is, anyway. (And, more selfishly, he's the only one here without a date, and he's totally not gonna watch everyone be cute with each other when all he has is an invisible cat. Even if the cat is really, really cute.)

"Let's be those people and leave our Christmas lights up all year," he says.

[thatsallthereis]

"We could use the extra light," Gansey reasoned. Though he wasn't wholly sold on the idea of being those people, the idea of year-round merriment appealed to him. Sometimes Hywel found itself lacking in that department. Gansey had hope that would change. Hope was the gift he'd gotten himself for Christmas. It had escaped him, but he was determined to replace it. There were always secrets to discover. Gansey just had to keep asking questions.

He rolled his head to the side on the back of the couch, slung out and lazed like one should be in their living room. With a quiet trepidation, like he was ashamed of himself, he said, "I didn't know you were seeing someone."

[iwasmore]

"And it's pretty," Noah adds. And now that he thinks about it, why is it just a Christmas thing? It should just be a regular thing if you want to make your house look pretty. Now he's determined to keep them up. He'll add them to Ronan's barn house too.

His eyebrows shoot up and his face goes pink at Gansey's question. "No." He quickly looks around to make sure Freddie didn't hear, before scooting closer to Gansey so he can speak quietly. "Just friends. And that's all I want to be, too, so don't get weird."

Sure, he and Freddie fool around sometimes, but they aren't a couple, and all he needs is one of his friends trying to go all match-maker on him and mortifying him to a second death.

"I hope it's okay I invited him to stick around. He doesn't have many friends, so..."

[thatsallthereis]

Noah's response was somewhat troubling in its alarm. What exactly was going on that should make Noah so nervous that his friend might have heard it? What Noah did was his business. He hoped that hiding had no part of it.

"I'm surprised to see him is all," Gansey said, his voice a bit lower. "Since you're not dating." Everyone else had brought significant others or people they were seeing, and Noah had brought a friend. Was he lonely? Was he worried about being the one without a date? Surely they were all closer than to get caught up in things like that, right?

[iwasmore]

"Sorry," Noah says, guiltily, not sure what else to say. He hadn't really thought about it, just when everyone started to head inside, cleaning up and whatever, Noah had told Freddie to stay. He doesn't even know if Freddie realizes he's become a plus one. He hadn't meant to it be like that. Though, no matter what Gansey things, it does suck being the only one without a partner. Even if his friends aren't that demonstrative.

He almost offers to send Freddie home, but he knows Gansey in all his politeness won't have it. "I did date someone once," he offers. He smirks a little. "But it's kind of weird, a ghost dating, right?"