WHO Blue Sargent + Sydney Clarke WHERE The Barns WHEN Sometime last week! WHAT Friend bonding after Henry’s disappearance. STATUS Complete! WARNINGS A LOT of wood gets chopped in this log. Mention of weird/freaky animals. Sadness.
Chopping wood was cathartic. Or, well, it was supposed to be. Blue had chopped more wood than a woodchuck would chuck over the course of the week and she still felt like that tightness in her chest hadn't gone away. She tried to make it a game, with arbitrary goals—if I cut these three pieces at once then I can get water; if I can swing the axe this way and nail it into the middle of this log, I can take a five minute break; if I get through this entire pile, then I will feel a little less sad. Notably the last one didn't quite work, so she kept chopping.
Sensible Blue reminded herself that when they came to Vallo, they had been chained to a tree in Oregon, happily fighting the good fight for conservation. Henry wasn't in danger, per se, only his police record—if they were arrested, a high possibility. But there wasn't a threat of death, there weren't demons or monsters lurking around the corner.
Blue had to keep telling herself that, she had to keep telling Gansey that when it was just the two of them in their bed at night, when Gansey managed to make it there. It was cold, empty, missing that Henry-shaped space.
The axe came down hard on a piece of wood, cracking the whole thing in half in a satisfying way. Blue earned a drink for that one. As she took a swig from her water bottle, Blue saw Sydney coming up to Blue's spot from one of the barns.
"I hope someone’s paying you," Blue said. She was fine, she would keep telling everyone she was fine. She had gotten really good at saying it. "Because I know you're coming out here to check on me or whatever, and would probably do it without money, but you should say you need double for emotional support, and make bank."
“I’ll tell Ronan I want a raise,” Syd quipped back, but held up two foil wrapped burritos in her hand and offered Blue’s out to her. She hadn’t been put out to check on Blue, instead having offered to deliver lunch to her friend as a veiled means to check in. Which was likely the same thing, as a half dozen hands had offered to do it just as quickly.
With the burrito handed over, Syd climbed up the short wood stack and took a seat, glad it was more stable than wobbly. “I’d make a terrible therapist though, so I’m not sure how much I should bother charging him. I accept tips for food delivery?” She wasn’t lying about that part - being bad at therapy - Syd had been through the people leaving thing before and it sucked, but everyone wanted a different level of comfort in return.
In Blue’s case, it looked like chopping wood was working pretty well. Who was Syd to mess with that outside of the occasional harassment?
Blue nodded solemnly in thanks, as she took the burrito from Syd. She took her time unwrapping it, like if she sped through the action the moment would go by too fast and Blue's whole thing right now was taking up as much time as possible. Less time to think about Henry and where he was and what he was doing and how it wasn't being here.
"You don't want to be a therapist, anyway. Unless you want to hear everyone's drama, which then just be a psychic. It's all the gossip and none of the schooling. Except Persephone, and that's a whole different story," Blue said, as she took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. She made a whole production of climbing onto the thick stump that was covered in deep and shallow grooves. If asked, she could map out every thought to every notch—the deeper ones were the sadder emotions, compensating with more anger.
She stared at the burrito in her hand, as if it had offended her in some way. "I'll slip you cash when I go back inside," which sounded suspiciously like if I ever go back inside. Blue could just chop wood all day, live in the woods. Really hippie it up.
"How did you do it? Like people come and go all the time, and it sucks, but it's never been—" Blue waved a hand in front of her face and looked away.
“I’m gonna skip on the psychic thing, no offense.” Drama was all well and good but she’d much rather just keep up on the gossip from someone telling her. There had definitely been a time or two where people could hear thoughts in Atlantis, and Sydney shuddered at the idea. Her own brain was enough of a mess.
She started chewing her burrito slowly, stalling while she gave Blue what was probably just an edge too sympathetic. Syd wasn’t the sterling example of what to do, but then there was no one set rulebook for this sort of thing. “I drank for like three days. I had Jesse, too. That was actually what started me moving in with him, because Atlantis was never really meant to be anything but temporary, and when Victor and Mitch left, I got housing-reassigned to be with a bunch of strangers.”
Syd shrugged, lamely. “So we just kind of leaned on each other and drank a lot of gin. I’m not exactly the poster child of coping techniques unfortunately.”
"Benders are usually frowned upon in society, but I hate most of society, so your suggestion has been approved," Blue said, taking another bite of her burrito. "I will add it to the notebook full of key helpful coping mechanisms when someone you love disappears from Vallo that I'm creating." This all came out very fast, Blue barrelling through the things that hurt in hope that it didn't. But it was like the sting of a slap—it only came after the initial pain. Joking didn't lessen it the way she thought it might.
Blue took a deep breath, her shoulders slouching. It felt weird, itchy like a bad sweater, to be vulnerable in front of Syd. Not because she thought Syd might be disrespectful, but because she didn't want to seem less somehow—less stable, less tough, less grounded. It was a stupid feeling that Blue tried desperately to squash.
"I know you weren't going for sage advice, but you moving in with Jesse is kind of like finding a silver lining in bad situations. I'm sure hindsight will help, eventually. But I worry about Gansey," Blue said as she balled up a piece of wrapper from the burrito between her fingers.
"We have each other, and we have our friends, and I know I can keep telling him that Henry is okay, but I don't know how to, like, find the right thing to say so that he doesn't stress or worse, blame himself."
Syd shrugged helplessly, knowing nothing would be the exact fix-it for their issues and that this shit sucked no matter what way you painted it. Gin, eating your feelings, chopping things. It still hit her everyday that she might not see Mitch ever again, but Mitch would have been happy for her to be safe and somewhere out of danger.
If Syd had to guess, Henry would’ve been the same, but speaking for him wasn’t on the agenda. She wasn’t the closest with Gansey herself, having connected more with Blue and Ronan’s sort of feral and angry energy. “I know it’s probably not optimal or helps, but time? Just sticking around and maybe forcing him out to do stuff that isn’t a normal group thing but something different? New? It might help keep down the hurt memories for you guys and give you both something new to focus on.”
"Is it bad that I kind of want him to just swing an axe around like I am?" Blue asked, knowing it wasn't bad at all. She wondered if she could just shove Gansey out into incredibly physical activities that formed all that sadness into frustrated aggression. Blue had made a huge dent in chopping for the season.
"But yeah, time. I know. It just feels like all the things we did before were always with Henry—" She paused on his name, shoving more burrito into her mouth than was necessary. Swallowing she added, "So literally we have to do something new-new. Like scuba diving or surfing or dressage. You know, with the horses? Though Gansey knows how to fly a helicopter, he might already be a junior dressage master and I wouldn't even know until he breaks it out in casual conversation."
Blue didn't sound annoyed like she might have years ago at Aglionby boys and their rich-people hobbies. More like enamoured, pleased that there might be more little tidbits about Gansey's life that she got to discover. She jumped off the stump, folding the aluminium back around the rest of her lunch.
"Do you want to chop some wood and tell me something nice going on with you to distract me? I can focus on that."
Syd nodded. She did most things with Jesse these days, outside of work and animals, so it was an easy enough concept to know in her head that something new had to be far removed from the norm. Video games, camping, or whatever magical hikes they took would have to be put to the side for a little while so they could heal.
“Maybe convince Ronan to pull some horses out of that brain of his, but they might just end up being Pegasus or horses with eight legs, who knows. Horse spiders- God, forget I said that.” She was wincing her way through it, and already had to promise herself to never say that around Ronan. “Nice horses. Normal horses.” Ugh. Now it was out there, she’d have to shake it off for the next eight years.
Maybe teasing Blue would help them both. “I can tell you nice things but I’m definitely not paid to chop wood. I’m barely getting a therapy fee as it is.”
"Ughhhh," was the only thing Blue could manage out at spider horses. She was thankful that neither she nor Syd would ever breathe that back in Ronan's direction, for fear of it coming true. "Normal nice horses are totally fine. Just ask Adam to supervise when he's dreaming them. Make sure none of the horses come out with hacksaws for hooves. Or like with a taste for human flesh. There's some weird Irish legend about carnivorous horses coming out of the ocean, so no thanks."
The horse talk was helpful, Blue hadn't even thought about how sad she was for a whole five minutes. Company was better than doing things alone. She handed her half of the burrito off to Syd. "Fair enough. You're not getting paid with exposure, I get it. But if you don't want to chop wood, you can at least chuck something sharp at some wood," Blue said, picking up one of the smaller throwing axes she had been trained on.
She bounced it in her hand a few times, testing the weight, before in a flash she flung it with more power than her short stature suggested, lodging it in the stump of her chopping block. Better, she felt better. "What else does the farm need? I bet if I asked Ronan he'd okay it because of, you know, generalized sadness."
“What the fuck,” Sydney whispered in return, genuinely horrified at the dark path they’d both taken down this road. It really was a slippery slope of thinking up horrifying things Ronan could dream up, and while often fun, in this case was just inducing a few nightmare images. “Let’s never repeat that weird irish legend and only suggest the horses when Adam’s around, then,” Syd confirmed, a full body shudder coursing through her.
She hopped off the wood pile and took Blue’s burrito from her, before bumping shoulders with her friend (an easy thing to do when they were both short). “Ducks. Maybe rabbits? Both would be cute to have but we might have to wait until spring, so I guess we need some patience.” Syd shrugged, she wasn’t the most patient of people. “But I think Jesse and I are going to foster a tiny kitten from the shelter, if you need small cute things to keep you occupied?”
Blue held up her empty hands in surrender. It wasn't her fault that being around so many storytellers and budding historians led to knowing an exorbitant amount of unnerving folklore that tended to be more real than myth. She missed hearing whatever new strange fact that Gansey had gleaned from a few hours in the Library of Alexandria, curled against Henry and—horses. She needed to focus on animals, cute, fluffy animals.
"As long as no one gets uppity about past experiences with fuzzy critters and water birds, I think those are on the table. Won't take up as much space as a horse," Blue said, walking toward the stump to rip the axe back out. It took some wiggling, but she managed spinning around with her brows high. "You're going to foster a kitten? That's—I would be really into that."
Normally, she didn't like people prying into her love life (and especially not now), but she liked prying into others. And Blue liked Syd and Jesse. "Other than this kitten, how are you two?" Blue asked, pointing the axe at Syd. "Before you hesitate on answering, I'm the one asking, which makes it okay."
Syd looked a little smug at Blue’s look over the kitten and nodded helpfully. It had pretty much been her response too, honestly. “We had a whole litter born at the shelter not long ago and there’s a tiny black one. I think fostering a tiny black kitten to go with Dol is exactly what my aesthetic needs.” Which was a good match for how Ronan did things too, she knew, but that was just what made them friends.
She took the axe from Blue even if it wasn’t strictly offered to her, and laughed at the relationship question. “We’re good? Holidays kind of suck when you’re both orphans with semi-absent found families.” She shrugged, but didn’t want to get deep into her own familial issues if she could help it.
Instead, Syd lined up and threw the axe, just a few centimeters off of Blue’s only indent. That did make her feel better. “Thanksgiving at the Barns will probably help with that. Christmas is an issue for Future-Sydney.”
Blue whistled low, impressed, when the axe sunk into the trunk. "Your aesthetic also needs to include more axe-wielding." She didn't immediately go to retrieve it, just shoulder nudged Syd back. Having an absent father, who was a tree, didn't sting so bad when she had her mom and her aunts. She wasn't an orphan, and she wasn't alone. And here she was feeling bad about missing Henry when people around her had been missing family members for years.
"I can tell you now, that they will probably do something for Christmas too. I know it's not the same thing as spending it with family, blood or not, but Future-Sydney doesn't have to stress too much. We can make a fire pit or something, make sacrifices to my pagan gods." Blue said this, sliding a wry glance to Syd. Blue never did any such thing, Christmas was a quiet affair, but living in a house of psychics, she liked to perpetuate rumors that came with the territory. She figured Syd would appreciate it.
"I have clearly chopped enough wood to have a fire going every day until March," Blue said, gesturing to the pile. "So I think it's our civic duty to burn a lot of stuff through the winter. It will be our first one here." And not in California like they had planned forever ago.
Syd took the opportunity to wrap an arm around Blue’s shoulders. She only had a few bare inches on her dark haired friend, so it wasn’t difficult or awkward, just quiet comfort. Or a freezing hand, if she managed to touch any of Blue’s skin with it. Less comfort, more amusing.
She was quiet, like she was serious or thinking too much - and she probably could’ve, easily, fallen down the path of thinking about her parents and Serena. The latter had been on her mind a lot lately, but Syd pushed her inner-demons away. Later.
“You’re a good friend, but if you ever,” very serious now, “threaten me with a good time like pagan sacrifices, and then take it away, we’re so over.” With that said, she cracked into a big grin. “I’m going to insist we do the bonfire now, so that’ll eat through some of your efforts.”
Blue responded excellently to threats. She liked to be threatening right back, but in this case with Syd, it just made her smile. Blue leaned into Syd's half-hug, and just kind of stood there for a second. It wasn't as though Blue needed the contact, but in the scope of the entire day, week, she'd leech it right off the person who offered it. Syd was today's lucky winner.
"I whole-heartedly promise," Blue said, placing a hand over her heart, "that we will do all the pagan rituals you want, even the ones that would absolutely get you arrested in Virginia. I think they are a little more forgiving in Vallo."
Eying the pile, Blue nodded, and slipped away from Syd's comfort to start grabbing wood. It was strange to think that all her pent up sadness had turned into something constructive. Or it was depressing. Blue wasn't sure. She just didn't want to be sad anymore. She wanted someone else to chop wood for a change.
"If anyone tries to pull some macho manly crap about how long I was out here versus how much is actually here after our bonfire, I'm calling you in for back up to confirm this pile was huge. Massive. Eight mes stacked on top of one another."
Syd laughed and started grabbing wood right after Blue, stacking it in her arms to help. She was sated with the promise of bonfires and pagan rituals, so there wasn’t a whole lot to complain about.
But she could tease, especially once Blue’s arms were full and she wasn’t threatened by the fact that her friend could throw an axe at her like this. “I’ve got your back, don’t worry. Eight whole yous, Which is like, still half of Ronan, but I won’t mention that part, I promise.”
She couldn’t put up the girl scout symbol when her hands were loaded with food, but she could wink mischievously and stack wood just out of Blue’s reach.
Blue scrunched up her face, but the pile of wood in her arms, so craftily placed there, prevented her from shaking an axe-filled fist at Syd in teasing retaliation. But she was still smiling, still in a better mood around Syd than she had been since Henry left.
"I know we promised to not speak about cannibal spider horses in front of Ronan, but you also have to swear that you will never tell him I let you get away with a short joke. We metaphorically burn it in this bonfire, with a blood pact." Blue paused, considering. "Or we spit in our hands and shake, whatever feels more ritualistic."