“Do we feed you food? Massage the non-bruised parts? Convince you to sleep? I kind of like that one."
WHAT: Post fight club hurt/comfort? Fluff? Flirting? All of the above. WHERE: Uhhh near the Barns waypoint? I guess? WHEN: July 18, late late evening WARNINGS: PG - flirting and some feelings of inadequacy and touching on some mental health issues. Nothing too bad. STATUS:Complete!
Every single muscle in Richard Campbell Gansey (the third)’s body was going to hurt tomorrow. He could feel it now, with every movement, every nerve ending just alight with a fury Gansey hadn’t felt in a long time.
Now it was exhilarating, even after sitting for a little while with their people and just watching the remaining fights. Tomorrow it would hurt. A lot. But he was still grinning from ear to ear after his two wins and forfeit to Ronan - a loss he felt good about to see his best friend move on and to avoid having any violence between them.
He was sweaty and messed up, a Gansey that wasn’t often seen unless you caught up right after his training sessions with Gladio. Usually, he didn’t have a smile on his face like he did now, though, and that smile turned devious as he pulled Blue aside to a private, quiet area of the Barns, after their group went in some other direction. He’d gotten his kisses from Henry earlier. Now he was sharing with Blue, that devious grin only growing as he leaned in for a kiss.
It still tweaked his neck, but this was still a newness that hadn’t worn off yet, so he powered through for an appropriately long kiss before pulling away with a wince. “I’m going to feel this tomorrow.”
Blue would have been lying if she said she enjoyed watching Gansey take a hit. What she did enjoy was seeing Gansey be physically clever in an arena that most people wouldn't expect to see him. She had flinched several times throughout the night, already knowing where he would be sore later, but Blue was obnoxiously loud when he won. Pride had swelled inside her to see him excel, excitement to see him shed a little more of that structured version of Gansey.
And if she kept sneaking glances at the disarming smile on his face that hadn't worn away as they left the Underground, so what? It made her smile too.
Caught off-guard by the sly tug to a secluded spot, Blue was stunned by his kiss. But she soon melted into it, into him. Kissing Gansey felt impossibly appealing, and she was all the more eager to let him know that she appreciated it, him, them. Her hands had come up to frame his face and keep him there longer, but he could not hide that wince. It only made Blue frown up at him.
"You should probably put ice on it so it's not so bad tomorrow," Blue said, brushing some of his hair out of his face. "Don't try to suck it up and power through. I'll push on your bruises as punishment." She wouldn't, causing Gansey pain was not fun, but she thought the threat was solid.
Her attention slid somewhere past his shoulder as she said, ever-so-casually, "You did look good out there, though."
At least he knew the reasoning behind her frown as he pulled away, and Gansey couldn’t be too mad about Blue being concerned over him. Maybe he felt a little bad about being the kind of person that liked (a little too much) someone expressing concern over his well-being, but he attempted to smooth away her frown with a light touch at the downward turn of her mouth and a gentle kiss to her forehead.
“I think Henry mentioned something about ice packs and ibuprofen, so that should make for an exciting rest of the evening?” The adrenaline had mostly worn off, but he was still just energized enough to not sag or feel weighed down just yet. Instead, she got another grin as a blush crept up his cheeks. “Thanks. I know a lot of it was luck, but…” Embarrassed now, Gansey reached up to brush a hand through his hair, attempting to put it in place. It didn’t work. “I think I did well.”
Blue's body relaxed a little—she was tense? Why was she tense?—when he pressed his lips to her forehead. Even the casual kisses, the small tokens of affection were not lost on her. How strange to think that not three weeks prior, the thought of doing this gave her hives and scared her.
She played it off though by giving Gansey a very suggestive look at the mention of ice packs and ibuprofen. "This night just keeps on getting more exciting." Blue didn't sound as sarcastic as she wanted to, her focus was still split between the present and what she witnessed back at the Underground. Her fingers ghosted over his side, where she had seen him take a hit in one of his matches.
"Pshaw, luck," Blue said, waving him off, waving the words out of existence. "It's not luck. This is a time where I absolutely expect you to be a little egotistical and say it was your skill. Maybe you're not as battle ready as some of the other people—" And Blue liked that he wasn't, that somehow this bookish, anxious, brilliant person in front of her could still win a match. "—but you have to give yourself credit sometimes, Gansey. This is one of those times."
Gansey drew in a breath when he felt her fingers over his sensitive side - there probably wasn’t a bruise there yet, but that one would be good. One reminiscent of his early rowing days, or when he had first started training with a sword. The ladies he had fought against hit harder than he’d ever felt before, and Gansey would wince at the memory for a while to come.
But he had done better than expected, and there was a sense of pride swelling up in his chest as Blue reminded him of that. “It’s a little luck,” he argued, halfheartedly. Gansey was always the first person to give someone credit where it was due, but the first to take away his own, that was true. In this case, he still hadn’t expected to get half as far as he did.
“I think I’ll save my battle readiness for something else that crops up around here, however. Fight Club was an experience-” One he wasn’t thrilled about repeating if it meant going up against Ronan again. “But I don’t think I’m cut out for it monthly.”
"But you'll do it again?" Blue asked. She didn't not want him to, and she didn't think he would be a repeat contender, but it still took her a little off-guard when he said he wasn't cut out for it monthly. Blue could read between the lines—maybe not monthly, but that also didn't mean never. She was quiet, quieter than usual, as she messed with the hair he had been so anxiously attempting to fix, then settled on touching his cheek, his brow, his lower lip. All the places she wanted to kiss better.
"Why did you?" That sounded too accusatory, and her face scrunched up as if the words tasted sour in her mouth. Blue tried again. "I know because it's you, you didn't just want to punch people for fun. You're not that type of person. Neither is Ronan, but his is kind of more obvious as to why he goes." No one in this house was as unknowable as they thought they were, but it didn't mean Gansey stopped surprising her.
She liked that, she liked him for it. Her boyfriend was not as predictable as previously, well, predicted. "If it's for reasons you don't want to tell me, you don't have to," Blue said, not even sounding upset about the possible rejection she was setting herself up for. "I'm curious, as your girlfriend, I think I'm allowed to be."
Gansey let her work through her defensive argument, a little smile playing at the corner of his lips. He had seen her work through an entire range of emotions in a short span before - he loved it about her. But he hadn’t second guessed giving her his actual reasons, since even if Gansey could blush his way through a little embarrassment to wanting to prove himself, that was something his closest people knew about him already.
“I-uh-” He didn’t bat her hand away but did move his own down the back of his head, letting her mess his hair back up again. “Wanted to see if I could? It has been a while since I punched someone incorrectly. I don’t particularly enjoy it,” his eyes went down to his red hands, which, even having been wrapped were sore and he could feel every hit. Gansey flexed his fist once, twice. “But you never know what might happen in this place and a controlled environment is more gentle on my brain.”
Blue didn't know how she felt about Gansey using the fight club to see if he could do it. She knew he could. Blue had seen him fight goblins and vicious bunnies and swing a sword in a way that was absolutely inappropriate and traitorous to her calmly collected thoughts. Blue was not someone to find brute strength to be appealing—ugh, machismo, gross—but Gansey? He was always so confident and sure, he brought something else to the table for her. It never left doubt inside Blue.
She worried that he would be trying to prove himself to himself forever. And that meant Blue had failed somewhere, right? She should have done some of that emotional heavy lifting. Her attention dropped down to his hands as he flexed them.
"How can I help?" Blue asked. "Not just now, not just with this." She made a gesture to his hands, his body, everywhere. "But with this." Blue touched his hair line, right by his temple. She wanted to kiss him there but she was not tall enough and she wasn't going to watch him wince again just so she could reach.
“Oh,” Gansey’s voice took on a soft tone, “Jane.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and back, pulling her in for a gentle hug that gave him an opportunity to press a kiss to the top of her head. The fact that he didn’t even need to put his hand down first was a novelty in itself, and Gansey just let them have a moment like that before he continued.
He appreciated that question, possibly more than he could say. While he wasn’t jumping at the opportunity to talk about anxieties or his personal need to prove his own self worth, having someone ask how to help both calmed him and made his stomach flutter. It was an interesting combination.
“You always help,” It sounded cheesy, but was true. “I mean that, truly. My feelings of inadequacy are practically at an all-time low these days.” It was both honest and a teasing joke, the kind of self-deprecation usually his friends strove for instead of Gansey.
Instinct made her want to squeeze Gansey tightly, as if sheer contact could protect him from bad thoughts. Logic told her that was impossible and unrealistic. Reality reminded her that actually holding Gansey too hard was only going to exacerbate whatever building bruises he already had. Her arms fell loose, but snug, around his waist, her cheek pressed against him. He was warm, and Blue could have probably stood here forever in his embrace.
"You are hardly inadequate," Blue reassured, slightly muffled in his shirt. She twisted to tip her head up, chin against his chest. This was where she would have had to stop, nose at his jawline, bury her face somewhere to not be so close to kissing him. She pressed her lips to his throat instead, that was a reachable goal.
"But if, if they start to rise and you want to do something incredibly dangerous and heroic to prove something to yourself, promise you'll take me and Henry with you?" Blue asked. "I know I don't have any control over your thoughts, but sometimes I don't know when it's happening. I don't pick up on them as quickly as I should."
He wouldn’t be over the kissing anytime soon. Each press of her lips made Gansey’s spine tingle, and if he thought his muscles would cooperate (they wouldn’t), he would have been tempted to throw her over his shoulder and drag Blue to wherever Henry was. Dangerous was usually Ronan’s avenue, and Gansey went along more times than he could count, telling himself that he was going to have Ronan’s back.
That was true, he would always have Ronan’s back, but there was always that small part of Gansey that wanted to be more like that. More dangerous, more carefree. As if traveling the globe as a teenager wasn’t carefree enough. But those were the days where nothing quite felt like enough. That had tapered with age and the mystery of Glendower being solved before his very eyes, and a second death that left him a little more grounded now.
“I promise,” it was an easy one to make, since Gansey was fond of dragging them places. “But,” He pulled away to look down at her, “Don’t take this to mean you’re responsible for picking up on any of that. I know I should be better about talking about things going on in my head.” Knowing that and actually doing it were historically two completely different things for Gansey. Parental dismissal and a desire to help others first had always knocked that aside in the past.
Blue bit hard on the inside of her cheek. She was a hypocrite, a big stupid hypocrite. Here she was asking Gansey to talk to her about things that were bothering him, admitting that she had been a little less than stellar on seeing inside his brain, and putting a lot of pressure on each other to be better at communicating their relationship. And yet she was holding back a bunch of conversations she should have had with him and Henry. Ugh.
Her eyes searched his face, hoping there would be a sign there that would tell her this is the right moment. But nothing appeared and that was enough to keep her mouth closed.
"I'm a little responsible," Blue said, squinting at him in her defiant way. It was half a joke, and half serious. "I don't expect things to change overnight. Saying and doing are two different things but I just want it on the record or something, to remind you that we're here, I'm here, to listen." She gave him a tiny, hopefully comforting, smile and touched his side again, concerned
"How much does it hurt? Really?"
Gansey had enough of his own thoughts rattling around in his brain that he didn’t pick up on any of Blue’s cues, enough to question the way she was looking at him or what might be going on in her brain. He was blissfully unaware as he stood his ground and stared right back, chuckling at the fact that her defiant edge somehow meant she grew at least three inches, despite not actually being any taller.
But that was the wonder of Blue Sargent. If his eyes could have been shaped like hearts every time he looked at her, no one would have been shocked. “I know,” and he did. He was soft as he leaned forward to lightly rest his chin on the top of her head before wincing at her poking and prodding him. “Like the dickens, so I would greatly appreciate it if you kept the touches to light kisses only if going for my bruising.”
She couldn’t see his eyebrows wag a little from this point, but Gansey didn’t mind, it saved him from being seen blushing again. “Unless I’m being punished already.”
"I don't even have to push on them to punish you," Blue said, turning her touch light, lighter, at his request. It was an unconscious thing, running her hands up and down his sides as if cataloging his injuries through uncommon senses—an impossible feat when she couldn't see them covered by his clothes. "Getting yourself out of your shirt with or without help is going to be punishment enough."
And okay, Blue had to drag him down a little bit, and a little pain would be worth it; she had promise in her eyes as she stood as high as she could go to make his bending down less wince-worthy. Blue kissed Gansey, all slow-building and uncomplicated and unfinished. Like there was more where that came from, there would always be more.
"We should find Henry. For the ice," Blue said, breathless as she settled back down to her own height. "And I've never done this congratulations on winning multiple fights thing, so maybe we can figure it out as we go? Do we feed you food? Massage the non-bruised parts? Convince you to sleep? I kind of like that one."
“Mmhmm,” Gansey looked a little dazed when Blue pulled back, and took a second to compose himself. When his eyes fully opened, there was a fire in them that only flared up occasionally, and a mischievousness to go with it that rare came at the same time. “I feel like I just won all over again, Jane. But we really should go find Henry. Now. The rest can come later.”
That was all the warning she had before he mustered up his sore muscles and pushed the last burst of adrenaline through his body and leaned down to toss Blue over his shoulder. He wasn’t proud of it, as it might’ve been too masculine of a display for Blue to appreciate, but Gansey suddenly had a goal and Blue’s kissing had pushed him right to that limit.
He immediately started walking, Blue thrown over his shoulder, before stopping to look around to figure out exactly where he was going. “Henry went to the house, right?”
Well. Then.
Being lifted off her feet by a thoroughly-kissed Gansey was definitely not in her this is how the rest of the night would go plan. She imagined something softer, calmer, relaxed. Something that wouldn't make everything more sore in the morning, blanketed by ice packs and the relief of ibuprofen. This was the opposite of that, and Blue was torn between being angry at him for being ridiculous and being thrilled because he was being ridiculous.
Blue chose the latter, and readjusted herself on his shoulder. This was new, this was nice. Blue could let herself not be bothered by this display, let herself be picked up and hoisted around, because some tiny part inside of her, much like at the fight club, liked it.
"Yeah, in the house. If you hurry, he might already be waiting in the bed for us,” Blue said, her voice teasing and full of intent. She tried to twist around, but from this vantage point it was impossible. Blue stretched an arm to squeeze his hip instead as he walked. "I hope that's where you're intending, or this is going to be a very short trip."
Gansey wasn’t masochistic enough to want to smack Blue where he could reach, preferring a much more gentle touch as he squeezed a hand on her leg right back, and held her as steady as he possibly could. He huffed out a laugh and went straight for the house, no hesitation in his long steps as he sped up. “That’s the end goal, Jane. Watch your head.”