Chapter 10
Gansey usually spent his nights on the precipice of sleep. On the brink of asleep, but not quite there. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sleep, it was that he physically couldn’t. He was used to the feeling.
This was different.
Everything was too loud all of a sudden, his thoughts, Ronan and Adam’s breath and soft snores, the ticking of the clock on the wall, the footsteps in the hallwa-
There were footsteps in the hallway. Slow, dragging footsteps, the footsteps of someone carrying something very heavy.
Gansey didn’t want to move. It was probably Dan, going back to the girl’s dorm. Gansey repeated that to himself until he believed it. Then there was a knock at the door. Then a second, more insistent this time.
He slowly forced his limbs to get out of bed and inch over to the door.
He opened it, and quick as Allison grabbed his arm.
“Thank god, help me get him on the couch,”
“Get who on the-,” Gansey was cut off as he turned to see none other than Henry Cheng, bleeding and bruised, hanging off Allison’s shoulders, his head was almost limp but his chest moved up and down, all his effort was put into keeping his head from sinking completely forward. His eyes stayed on Gansey’s face, drinking him in. “Henry,”.
“Yes Gansey, Henry, now stop standing there with your mouth wide open and help me move him,”
Gansey didn’t waste time asking questions, he scooped Henry up and placed him gently on the couch. He wasn’t sure what to do. Did he get ice? Bandages? Blue?
“I called Abby, the nurse, she’ll get here pretty soon,” Allison informed him.
Blue then, he’d get Blue.
It was like a dream, he didn’t remember running to the girl’s dorm, but he remembered knocking on the door, well, knocking was polite, Gansey slammed his fist on the door. Blue opened it, bleary eyed, Gansey could see that she was half asleep.
“It’s Henry, he’s hurt,”
Blue was wide awake.
She grabbed his hand, and together they ran back towards Gansey’s dorm. They stopped in the doorway.
When they got back, a woman was kneeling on the floor by the couch, inspecting Henry’s wounds, this must have been Abby, the nurse. Allison stood over them both behind the couch, looking worried.
The lights were on and Gansey could now see the full extent of Henry’s injuries. His shirt had been deposited on the floor and there was now a bandage surrounding Henry’s lower torso. He had bruises littering his face and the bits of chest that Gansey could see, he had a cut on his lip and blood was now drying under his nose.
Blue made a noise like a whimper.
Three heads snapped toward her. Gansey’s eyes didn’t move from Henry.
“Blue!” Henry said, then coughed, voice weak “Sorry I had to show up in such a state, but Abby here has been taking good care of me thus far. I wanted to stay at home, but I just couldn’t wait, I hope you don’t mind me crashing on your couch for pre-season. I can find a hotel,”
“Shut up you idiot,”
“Is.. is he okay?” Gansey addressed his question to Abby, but he couldn’t look away from Henry. Move your head you useless thing, move your head! His mind shouted at him, but he just couldn’t
“He’ll be fine, he has a few superficial injuries and a bruised rib. I can’t promise it won’t be painful, but I can promise he’ll make a full recovery with time, bed rest, and a lot of ice and ibuprofen,” Abby said, finishing up the bandage.
“Thank you,” Gansey said, seeing that Blue was still taking everything in and Henry was in too much pain to answer. “Thank you very much,”
He finally ripped his eyes away from the bleeding boy on the couch to look at Abby. Her dark hair was pulled up into an impeccable and relentless ponytail, no stray hairs in front of the rubber band, all stray hair behind it. Her eyes were warm and inviting, and had seen far too much. Gansey could tell, and he knew that she could see it in his eyes too, like recognized like, after all.
She did not, Gansey mused, look like someone who had been woken up in the middle of the night and rushed over to a dorm.
“Could we-,” Blue stopped, her voice was shaking. “Could we hug him?”
Abby’s face softened. “I don’t see the harm, just don’t squeeze too hard,”
And, as if a switch had turned on in her mind, Blue was at Henry’s side, arms looped around his neck. Not crying, Blue wasn’t one to waste tears, but comforting, taking Henry in, letting him know that she was there.
Gansey was a little slower, he sat on the couch and moved Henry’s head so that it was on his lap. Then, however strange the positioning, he leant down and wrapped his arms around both of them.
He didn’t care that Allison and Abby were in the room, he didn’t care that his back ached from the uncomfortable position he was in, he didn’t care that he should probably get Ronan and Adam, he didn’t care about how tired he was, because right now it was just him and Blue and Henry, and maybe that was alright for now.
It was okay. Henry was going to be okay. Gansey could breathe easy, and so he did. Gansey breathed for what felt like the first time.
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Andrew dreamed of red smears on a white wall. Not blood, but almost. He realized that it was lipstick. The strange smears resolved themselves into letters. In the back of his mind, he knew the words were english, but somehow, he couldn’t read them.
He heard a clicking sound behind him, having spent time with Allison, he recognized the sound as the steps of high heels, he turned around to see a woman standing with her arms crossed. Looking rather annoyed.
“Not yet Andrew, not yet. You should probably wake up now, check on the new recruits, build camaraderie and all that. Oh, and tell Bee that Scarlet says hi, ta!” The woman waved her hand in a flippant gesture and Andrew’s vision went dark.
Andrew woke up with a start.
What he thought the fuck.
Oh well, it was another thing to ask Bee about, he guessed. He got out of bed, careful not to wake Neil. Out of the bedroom’s small window, he saw the sun start to rise. No point in going back to sleep now.
Check on the new recruits, build camaraderie and all that. Well if a dream told you something...
Andrew supposed it was as good a time as any to check out the freshmen, make sure they weren’t threats. They were all boring, all except for the wishy-washy girl, Blue, and the dust boy, Adam. How could someone so tired be so determined not to rest?
The boy was a contradiction, and he was lucky that Andrew liked puzzles.
Still, he didn’t want to bother him just yet, the girl was the next best option. Then again she was probably asleep. It didn’t matter, it had never stopped him before. She didn’t strike Andrew as a liar, so it would probably be more beneficial to talk to her than to go through her things. He just had to find her first.
By the time Andrew found the girl, curled up on the floor by a couch in a freshman dorm, he had climbed three flights of stairs, and picked five locks. As he suspected, she was asleep. To his surprise, she was not alone.
On the couch was a boy who looked like hell. It took Andrew a moment to recognize him as the boy from Virginia. He wasn’t supposed to be there, but stranger things had happened. Henry, the boy’s name was. Henry’s head rested on the lap of the dignified one. Gansey.
It was a calm picture that Andrew could not quite bring himself to disrupt. Questioning the girl could wait. He would bring her and Adam to Eden’s or something.
Andrew closed the door on his way out.