WHAT: The trio having a proper mud bath to de-stress. WHERE: Galdin Quay WHEN: May 3rd WARNINGS: There are mud drawn eggplants in here. Otherwise it’s just sweet fluff. STATUS:Complete!
Despite his comfortable money situation at home, Henry didn’t spend a lot of time in spa resorts. He got facials and manicures and there was that one time he spent a week in a yoga retreat but that was more about getting out of writing a paper on U.S. presidents than anything else. Okay and there maybe have been the occasional massage, but usually he just had someone come to the house for that? Like hands-on-delivery.
Was that less pretentious or more? He wasn’t sure.
But he was sure he’d been missing out on this full-service resort business. The idea had mostly been to get Blue the pampering she deserved but Henry could get used to lounging around in a mud bath while a friendly staff brought them cucumber water and piped calming music into the room.
“Okay, Bluebird, what is your verdict so far?” he murmured lazily, his head against the rim of the bath. “Is it missing something? Are you properly pampered? Be honest!”
Blue had to admit that she liked this. A lot. She also was aware that this was not an all-the-time thing and only a special-occasions thing. And while there was nothing truly special about current day, the fact that she was spending this absolute luxury of a trip with Henry and Gansey was exceptionally good. Even when she was completely slathered in mud. Also not the first time, but the first time when she had to pay to do it.
She also was aware that Henry and Gansey had made this happen because she had wanted to do something deeply indulgent—derailed by being in her thirties for almost a week. But now that the thing she wanted was figuratively (and literally) in her hands, did she deserve it? Was this a good use of money and time spent? Was this against all her morals? Blue was of two camps that were currently warring within her tiny body.
Popping her foot up from below the muddy surface and wiggling her toes, she contemplated Henry's question, rather theatrically. "I feel like I am sitting in a lot of mud. But I also can feel every single one of my pores, so—" Blue slapped some more mud from the bath onto her cheeks. "I think it balances out. I feel the appropriate amount of pampered."
Then to Gansey, "This feels like something the Romans did."
“Mmm?” Gansey was halfway to dozing off when he heard the Romans mentioned, and he opened his eyes to look over at Blue. He could always be summoned by talks of the Romans. A smile came with it, reminding him of a slightly painful tug of a little mud that had dried on his jaw as the lines of his face moved. From shoulders down, he was covered in the thick mud, and it was probably the most relaxed he’d been in a month. Months.
Years. It had been a long year.
“The Romans were fond of mud baths, absolutely. A lot of cultures were, with the belief of healing properties and how readily volcanic ash could turn to mud in that region.” He could always muster up the ability to talk history, even as he was leaning over to draw a smiley face on Henry’s neck with a mud-coated finger. “Someday, maybe we’ll be able to visit and tour the ancient Roman bath houses. They had separate ones for water and mud.”
Henry kept his eyes open as the two of them talked, smiling through it all. It felt like every other day, they were giving him small, silly reasons to fall in love with them again. The touch on his neck did bring his eyes open, though, and he rolled his head along the tub wall to waggle mud-caked eyebrows at Gansey.
“Roman holiday? Does that mean I get to wear a toga the whole trip? Sign. Me. Up.” With a squelching sound, he lifted his arm up out of the mud and reached over to paint a mud heart into the new mud on Blue’s cheek. He grinned as he sank back down into his tub. “I know what you mean about the pores thing though. I feel like I have mud in every, like every single orifice.”
Blue's whole face lit up feeling Henry's finger on her cheek, and she bobbed her head side to side after he was done. They may have been here for relaxation, but Blue was not above drawing cute and ridiculous things in the mud. Point for enjoying herself—she got to play with really fancy dirt.
She had already messed up her little bath area by moving (point for disliking this experience was that she was required to sit still) so with a lot of obvious noise, she twisted to her side and propped herself up to look at Henry and Gansey. "If we're going on a Roman holiday and Henry is wearing a toga, I expect full commitment to the experience and to wear it as the Romans did," Blue said, mischievous, like a challenge.
"We could ask if Vallo has the equivalent of the Dead Sea here to go swimming in, to really clean out our orifices." It was Blue’s turn to waggle her eyebrows suggestively at both of them.
“You two.” Gansey’s voice was amused but pained, the kind of voice he usually reserved for Ronan. He was probably blushing, but the warm mud and steam in the room made it impossible to tell. He was thankful for that, even as he laughed a little at their antics. He got a little more mud on his finger and continued the drawing right above, curving it up over his jaw.
That drawing would’ve made a few people proud, as much as it made Gansey blush. But they were in a private room, and no doubt it would get covered with mud later.
“Authentic togas were heavy, made of wool and uncomfortable for many. They also wore leather undergarments that looked a great deal like tight bikini bottoms and less like loin cloths.” He spoke idly, picturing them both in something authentic furthered Gansey’s grin as he finished his dirty drawing. “Women, at least, got to wear linen under it all. Still interested?”
“Dooo I want to wear a leather bikini?...Well no, not really. But I’m willing to suffer through for the sake of authenticity if it’ll earn me some points.” It was possible Henry snorted a little mud, snickering at Blue’s suggestions and Gansey’s educational addition. He was careful not to touch where Gansey had drawn on him, but he did sit up straighter to look around for reflective surfaces. He knew what it felt like Gansey had drawn.
“Did you draw something untoward on me, Mr. President? Where are the mirrored ceilings when you need one?” Temporarily distracted by how mostly clean Gansey’s face was, Henry reached over to smear a thumb across his cheek as a starting point.
"I'm with Henry, let's go authentic. Leather bikinis, linen underwear, uncomfortable wool, the whole thing," Blue said, with a wide sweeping hand gesture in the air. Sometimes—okay, more than sometimes—Blue was willing to do things she didn't like to make one or both of them happy. Historical costumes seemed to check off both their boxes.
She folded her arms on the side of the bath, resting her chin on top, just watching the two of them interact. And in that moment she knew that this was why they worked so well together—not jealousy, not confusion, nothing but a warm feeling in her chest. She suddenly did not want to be separated by heavy mud. Would it be breaking the rules if she climbed into one of their tubs? What exactly was spa etiquette?
It certainly wasn't sneakily slipping her hand down to scoop up her own handful of mud and lob it underhand across to Gansey's tub. She missed him, purposely, but it made a soft, satisfying splat. "I think Henry is on to something."
“Alright then, we’ll plan for a Roman Holiday at some point in the future.” A future he probably shouldn’t be idly musing over, given their future selves had been here, and who knew if they’d ever make it home. But that way of thinking was futile and unhelpful, so Gansey forced himself to just let go of the worry. It might’ve been the mud that helped, or Henry’s thumb on the side of his face grounding him.
Either way, he was able to relax into the mud with a little smile on his face, even as Blue’s present plopped in front of him. “Jane,” He chided, but there was no heat behind it, just amusement. “Throwing mud is explicitly against the rules. I have plenty of my own, thank you.” He couldn’t deny it made a good body paint, though, as he was curious just how he looked now with mud smeared on his face.
Whether they would ever see a world with Rome in it again was a question Henry was good at ignoring. Blue looked like a cute mud pixie and was hanging over into his tub. Gansey had a fingerprint in mud on his cheek and an easy smile that warmed Henry even better than the hot mud. Rome could wait. He was pretty sure it had been there a very very long time already.
“Rules, schmules.” Henry waved a messy hand dismissively. “I don’t know if you have enough mud, Ganseyman. What you do have is charming so far, but here, let me…” He dipped all his fingers into Gansey’s mud, grabbing for his thigh while he was at it. Grinning mischievously, he pulled his hand back out and started turning his thumbprint of mud into a dick on Gansey’s cheek. “Please remember that you’re fond of me, okay? Thank you.”
"A spa that has to have rules about mud is absolutely no fun," Blue said. And okay, this was about relaxing not necessarily fun, but what was the point of being here with her two favorite people and being bored? This whole indulgent experience would have zero purpose if she didn't enjoy herself a little.
"Also, I didn't throw mud. I shifted it from one tub to another through the air in a gentle flying motion." And then Blue heaved herself out of the mud, pushing up on the side of the tub—which made both a disgusting sound and a moderate mess—showcasing her mud-made "bodysuit". She had decided to quick sew underwear but the rest of her was artfully covered in wet dirt. But it was over in a flash as she slip-sank into Henry's tub. This was definitely against the rules.
With just the barest sliver of her shoulders and her head above the muddy surface, Blue looked even smaller. But it didn't matter, she was too busy eying their cheek artwork.
"We can't throw mud but we can draw dicks and butts on each other's faces?" Blue leaned in, stage-whispering, "You're going to get us kicked out."
Gansey had been cleaning off one hand on the towel directly behind him, and grabbing for his phone to look at exactly what Henry drew. He, like his boyfriend, knew exactly how it felt, but he wanted to be proven correct. He knew that he could just smear mud over whatever the drawing was, but first he wanted to see - and laugh - at Henry’s art.
But then Blue was climbing over, somehow making more of a mess than you already could in mud and Gansey was sighing. “Jesus, Jane.” That didn’t stop him from appreciating the mud-caked view. He knew Henry would delight in the company, so it was hard to complain too much. So instead he just pulled up the selfie camera on his phone with one hand and craned his neck to show off the art.
In a fit of spontaneity, he snapped a picture and sent it off to Ronan, mud dick drawing on full display for him. As an aside, he glanced at Blue over his phone, “At least we can cover this up. There’s no hiding you when the attendant comes back in.”
Henry lit up as Blue entered his tub. He came up halfway out of the mud with a wide grin and reached out his hands in case the terrain tripped her up. Quickly enough she was tucked back under the mud and he could feel their limbs tangling even if it was a squishy and distant sensation. He scratched his nails down her back and glanced over just as Gansey was taking a selfie.
“Oh, photographic proof! I should’ve drawn it a little bigger, for the audience at home.” He trailed his fingers up over Blue’s back to loop and arm around her shoulders. “Do you want a dick too, Bluebird?” he asked a little gleefully, just in case someone could hear them in the next mudroom. “It might distract the attendant long enough to grab our things and make a run for it.”
Somehow, somehow, Henry made her shiver in the heated tub. His nails down her back was nice, this was nice, this was relaxing. Blue's whole face scrunched up, pleased, and then subsequently amused when Gansey took his selfie. She leaned into Henry, eying Gansey and his suggestion that they get rid of the evidence.
"Oh, no. If I go down, we all go down. You're not covering anything up. And Henry put his heart and soul—" Blue side-eyed Henry as if to say, right? "—into that perfectly phallic rendering on your cheek. If anything, we're even more authentic because aren't the Romans like really into statues of them?" Public high school had given her a strange, incomplete sense of art history that she only supplemented by listening in on Gansey's more educated conversations.
She tilted her head up to kiss the underside of Henry's jaw. "How are your mud drawing skills? I would like an eggplant to be classy." And then she smiled at Gansey, as if to say see. "This is why I don't do these things, I get restless. What would have happened if you sent me here alone?"
“Anarchy.” It was Ronan’s word, but felt appropriate for Blue at almost all times, anyway. Gansey was getting more and more flushed by the second, which wasn’t unusual when he was around them. In a way, he was glad that Blue hadn’t climbed into his mud tub, because he never would have been able to keep his face as schooled as was required for this spa experience.
He also knew with certainty that he’d be covering up the mud dick on his face before anyone entered. If he didn’t get distracted.
“I’m sure it isn’t the first time people have drawn--” He choked on the word, face heating up again. “Dicks on their skin.” It shouldn’t have been so difficult to say his own name in a semi-public place, but propriety had been drilled into him. “But I would at least prefer not to get kicked out until the ten minute mineral bath is up, if possible?”
Henry was always easy and almost always agreeable. He nodded along excessively when Blue looked to him for support and then beamed a pleased grin when she asked for an eggplant. While he was no artist, he’d sent that particular emoji enough to sketch out a passable one on her neck. He smirked while he did it. He didn’t even need to look over at Gansey to hear the blush in his voice.
“You are both wonderful. I just need to put that out there into the world right now, okay.” Finishing up the drawing, he leaned back to admire his work and then smiled dangerously at Gansey. “I very much doubt they will give us the boot for a muddy penis, Ganseyman. It’s not like there aren’t more of them around here,” he added with a pointed glance over into Gansey’s tub, even though he couldn’t see anything but thick mud.
A lot of what Henry did was for show. Here at least it was to make them laugh. He reached out to tap Gansey’s arm as he pulled Blue closer. “Will you take a picture of us at least? Before we pretend to be respectable?”
"I'll pretend I didn't know! Ask for forgiveness, not permission. Climbing into Henry's tub and doing mud art is totally worth breaking the rules for, at least once. Besides, this is my first time in a spa, remember?" Blue said, purposely turning herself so that the eggplant was on full display for Gansey. There was something so endearing about his sense of propriety—normally she would put pressure on that insecurity, if it was anyone else. But she settled for his blushing.
She loved them both so much, it was ridiculous.
"We will get you that mineral bath. They can't kick us out covered in mud." Blue sounded less sure about that statement, but she made a mental note to definitely play up how much she didn't know about the Dos and Don'ts of the spa. Maybe the attendants would feel bad if she could eek out some faux-tears—unlikely. She wasn't that good.
At Henry's suggestion though, her eyes lit up and she slid in closer to him, tilted her head back and posed. "Henry, you said we were wonderful, not respectable. I can only be one. I choose to be wonderful with you, thanks."
Gansey was laughing now at their antics, enjoying them more than he usually liked to admit, but unapologetic about the loving look he shot their way. He brought his phone up to snap a few pictures of them in various mid-pose, giving himself a second to admire them (and not send them off to Ronan, who wouldn’t appreciate them half as much) before letting his phone gently drop back down to the towel.
“Alright, no more evidence of your deviant behavior, you two.” No animosity, no annoyance, just pure enjoyment as he grinned over at them. Their playful behavior was infectious, but Gansey would never throw mud.
He was, however, the type to reach over and draw a little mud crown on the back of Henry’s neck, as if he was claiming ownership. “I like you both an awful lot, you know.”
“I can absolutely play dumb with you,” Henry promised Blue, much more seriously than the situation warranted. If he thought it would get Gansey and Blue what they wanted, Henry would pull a fire alarm or streak naked through the whole resort.
He was reasonably certain neither of those things would help but it was the thought that mattered.
Even though he wasn’t sure this time what Gansey had drawn on him, he felt too warm to keep the feeling to himself and he pushed up out of the mud with Blue still half in his grasp and leaned over to plant a muddy kiss on Gansey before the entirety of “you know” was out of his mouth.
“The feeling is very very mutual,” Henry promised as he pulled back. His smile widened. He pressed a kiss to the side of Blue’s neck, right in the center of the eggplant, before his expression turned thoughtful. “...Do you think we’ll prune in here?”
Her smile grew considerably hearing Gansey say how much he liked them, and watching Henry kiss Gansey. Her heart raced, and hope surged through her—soon. Soon, soon, soon. Blue would be able to kiss them both and the thought of death and the fear that charged through her would be a distant thought. If a thought at all. What she wouldn't give to be able to kiss them both now.
But Blue was patient. She could wait. Until then she would have this.
She sighed, a soft thing, as Henry kissed her neck, and murmured out, "what Henry said." Then she reached across the tub, searching for Gansey's hand to take and squeeze. Or maybe to stop him from snapping blackmail pictures of her and Henry rule-breaking. It didn't matter though, they would do anything for him anyway.
"We'll prune eventually, still a lot of water in here." Blue moved, exaggerated, causing the mud to wobble around them. "But we have time before that happens," Blue said, dubiously casual. "Probably just enough time for both of us to get into Gansey's tub."
Gansey made a pleased little noise as he settled back against his pillow, after the kiss. His smile grew with Henry’s continued mouth trail to Blue, keeping his blurry gaze trained on them up to Blue’s hand reaching over. “They kick us out after an hour, I believe.” Possibly still enough time to prune, he wasn’t sure. He did glance at his fingers to see if it had already started, but no wrinkles appeared so he let the arm settle back into the mud.
“Oh-- no.” Catching up to Blue’s casual threat of jumping in with Gansey, he gave her a wary look and shook his head. “You both stay in your own tub. I am just fine on my own right here.” Gansey knew just how quickly they could manage to derail him and convince him otherwise, but at least making the protest helped his brain cope with the thought of his mostly-naked and muddy companions joining him in a tight, enclosed space.
Henry’s head fell back as he laughed. Once upon a time, he might’ve taken Gansey’s rejection as a real one and not the flattery that it was. He knew better now. He reached over to tangle his hand with their clasped ones while he sank down into the tub. A dramatic sigh accompanied him stretching out his legs along either side of Blue.
“I’ll stay put for now. Since I’m comfortable.” He smiled as he closed his eyes, relaxed and affectionate. “No promises if the tornado in my lap heads your way.”
"This tornado will behave for now," Blue said, though she didn't look to be moving. Instead she was reaching across into Gansey's tub again, and scooping out a generous handful of mud. Propped up in her hand, it was very difficult to know what she was going to do with it. Throwing it seemed like the most likely option.
Almost like a tease, she lifted her arm back and then promptly dropped it into her tub, without breaking eye contact with Gansey. "I'm just cleaning up my mess from earlier," Blue explained. As she settled back down, still in Henry's tub (she wasn't going to put everything back), Blue hummed and closed her eyes, "But I can’t be responsible for myself in the mineral bath."