maskormenace | Entry #004

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Entry #004 | Video

[ Here is Gansey, looking a little strange. He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater emblazoned with a raven – an Aglionby school sweater, over what appears to be ordinary clothes. His shoulders and hair are damp, like he’s been rained on, and he looks strangely pale. Despite that, he’s displaying a welcoming smile, and his hazel eyes are bright and vital with some emotion he’s holding back. ]

Apparently, I vanished yesterday.

I say apparently because it feels more like several weeks ago, but according to this – [ he holds up one of De Chima’s daily newspapers – a tabloid, headlined with speculation about the upcoming import elections ] – it’s only been a day.

A lot can happen in a day. Sometimes things that give you perspective.

Can I ask – the school year is almost over. Some of you will be graduating. I will. Which is odd, because I was here for eight months, and then I went home and it was Fall again, and Senior year was just beginning. I’m not completely sure what age I am now. I turned eighteen a couple of months ago.

[ Which, he actually never mentioned. It had seemed like there were more important things to be getting along with, and the thought of getting older in the wrong world had annoyed Gansey anyway. He’d kept quiet. Now, if he could do that over again, he thinks he’d celebrate it more – even though he’s only mentioning it now because it’s relevant to this. ]

Then I go home, and I’m seventeen again, so now I don’t even know what counts. Graduation will, though, I know that much.

So: to everyone else who’s graduating. Or even if you’re not, even if it’s just that you see change coming for you. What are your plans? Will you work, will you travel? What would you like to do, ideally? I think I’m ready for it to be summer again.

Private to: Billy Kaplan, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, Matthew Lynch

[ This part goes to everyone’s private inboxes. Gansey’s smile is less presidential here, but his eyes are even sharper. He seems energized, like he’s on the edge of something. His voice is trying not to sound like it. ]

Hey, everyone. I very much hope I didn’t worry you. I think I was mid-conversation with you, Billy. I’ll have to blame my rudeness on the Porter.

Listen, I’m on my way home. Could someone bring the car and pick me up? I’m getting pizza from that Italian place near the porter in De Chima. I’m absolutely famished.

I’d…like to know if anyone else vanished, too. Ronan, Adam?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Look, I know all about had tos, so go ahead, I'm not going to-

Just-

I'm sorry about your king.

Can you break down what happened next?

[ Gansey looks down. It's all so fresh, it's all just there.

He had died before. He is not unfamiliar with flashbacks. Far from it. But this feels even closer than that, like time is slipping again, and he's back in that moment - ]

There was a demon.

[ He takes a breath. ]

It was hurting Cabeswater, and hurting Adam, and...and it was killing Ronan, Billy. I thought with Glendower's favor we could...

But we couldn't. So the only thing we could do was...was right the wrong that brought the demon in the first place.

[ He makes himself look up again. ]

A willing sacrifice. That's what I had to do.

Shit.

[There's a part of Billy that panics. It curls itself up and starts screaming. He thinks of Gansey dying and he -

He doesn't show it. He takes a breath. He pauses. He breathes out. Gansey. Gansey is that kind of person. (Billy did that once. Offered to kill himself to stop a demon. They didn't let him.)]

Are you all right? I mean. I know. That's a stupid question, I'm sorry.

[ They hadn't wanted to let him. He knows they hadn't.

But in the end they did, because what other choice was there? Ronan would have died if he hadn't. For Gansey, there had been no other option.

He could not have watched Ronan die. ]

I am.

They brought me back. Or, rather, they asked Cabeswater to, and it did. It...gave itself to me. Remade me. And then it died for me, the way I tried to die for it.

[ He breaks off, lapsing into silence. ]

That was tonight. For me, that...I was just there, Billy.

Okay, hey, you're okay, your friends are okay, we will work through it, right?

You might be in shock. Like. Do you need-

Company? Sympathetic magic? I can send over a galaxy to keep you company. Or me. Whichever.

Company.

[ Yes, definitely company. ]

Tonight? I won't be able to sleep, and I can't...

[ He takes a breath. ] I can't tell them why. Adam and Ronan. They can't know yet, because this is their future and they were in danger, and I don't know if it's fair to tell them at all.

New York? We can go to New York.

The Statue of Liberty. It'll be private and quiet and pretty?

[He pauses.]

Yeah. I know. Trust me. I know.

Okay. Yes, let's go to New York.

[ He'd like that. He could talk about everything that's happened, without the guilt that would come with telling Adam and Ronan their future.

He needs that. He needs to talk about it, before he decides what's right to say to them. ]

Are you sure you don't mind?

I don't mind.

Really.

I'll pick you up. Just let me know when.

Thank you, Billy.

I'll call you when I'm alone, okay?

Okay. Okay.

[ This takes a while. After Ronan has taken Gansey home, and Adam has come back, and he's managed to see everyone and talk to them and then finally retreated to his not-room...

Then, he calls Billy. ]

Hi.

I'm ready now.

[ There's that blue crackling light of Billy's magic, and there's a portal. Billy's on the other side - when Gansey steps through it will close, and he'll be at Billy's favorite spot at the top of the statue of Liberty.

He really likes it up here.]

[ Gansey steps through. As always, the practical fact of Billy's magic is astonishing to him, and he can't help smiling as he looks around himself. A breath of relief follows, while he goes forward to stand beside Billy. ]

You know, it's beautiful up here. Hell of a view.

It's why I come up here, you know.

[He's sitting, and he smiles at Gansey when Gansey comes closer.]

It's quiet and I can think. Like, if I miss Teddy too much? This is the best place.

[ Gansey moves to sit beside him. He's careful about where he puts his step, but doesn't otherwise react to the height. Eventually, he leans back on his hands, lifting his eyes skyward instead of cityward. ]

Statue of Liberty. There's worse places you could go.

You can't see many stars from here, though. It must be because of the city. All the ambient light, blotting them out...

You want to see stars?

[He lies back, and it might occur to Gansey that Billy is not lying on anything actually physically present, but there's a blue glimmer in the air around his shoulders and hips. He reaches for Gansey's hand, tugs him a bit.]

Lie back.

[And he reaches out his hand.

The stars gleam - all of them - bright and just this side of overwhelming.]

[ That Gansey does what he’s told without thinking twice is a testament to how much he trusts Billy Kaplan. He settles, feeling not the statue supporting him, but Billy’s magic, and then -

Well, that takes his breath away. Gansey is quiet for a moment, literally stunned into silence while a galaxy unfolds before him. He’s never seen the stars so bright. Not even in the most rural parts of the country, where there’d been no ambient light. ]

Jesus. You never actually fail to amaze me. Do you know that? That’s incredible.

[ He tears his eyes away to look at Billy instead. ]

Thank you. I’d forgotten how much I love this.

[It's dark so he can't see the flush on Billy's face, pleased. He looks up at the night sky.]

Sure. Anytime, really.

[It's always night somewhere.]

I mean, you like it, and I like...it makes me happy when you're happy.

[ That is not a sentiment that Gansey hears very often. He looks at Billy, a little surprised by the sweetness of it. It makes his neck feel warm, which is strange. He finds somewhere else to put his eyes. ]

I am happy.

I think I am. This week has just been very…full. I spent so long wanting to go back, Billy. Like I was running out of time, and now I’m not. I don’t know what to do with that feeling.

[ He’d never been sure of what he would feel when the quest was over. Now, so much is different. It leaves him with no clear plan.

He had never expected to enjoy that feeling, but he does. ]

You find something new. You reassess your life. I mean there's a hundred of ways to figure it out.

[He looks over at Gansey, just a little.]

You love someone, or you don't, or you-

-or you learn how to be yourself again.

[ Gansey is leaning against Billy's magic, trusting it entirely. His knees are partly drawn up, and he doesn't seem sure about what to do with his hands.

This is the most vulnerable he's felt since he's been back. The most vulnerable, because it's the first time he's let himself be vulnerable. Until now, everything has been about staying strong in front of Adam and Ronan, not letting them see the depth of what has happened to him. ]

I'm not sure I know how to be myself.

[ He recognizes himself that it sounds ridiculous, and dramatic. But he's been through something that most people would term a dramatic situation. He thinks it fits. ]

I spent seven years looking for Glendower, and seven years waiting to die again. And these last few months, I knew it was supposed to happen. Blue, she...saw my spirit, on St Mark's Eve. She told me. It meant I was destined to die within the year. I've been running from it, and then...

Waiting for it to happen, and not that it has, I don't know what the future holds anymore. And there's no more Glendower to look for. So what am I, Billy, now that all of it is done? I'm not sure I know.

Do you want me to break you down?

[He lifts up his hand so that Gansey can see it, ticking off points.]

You're Richard Campbell Gansey, III, he of the absurd name, long may he reign over the ungrateful court he holds at the Meadows. You're a student of history, a student of magic, the rare student of magic who loves it despite being unable to access it's plethora of wonder and it's garbage can of horrors.

You're full of wonder about things that are Welsh Kings that will move to things that aren't. You're the kind of friend someone calls for coffee and the kind of friend someone calls to get them out of a Montana jail at untold hours of the night. You're probably the kind of friend who would move a dead body.

You're honest. You're wonderful. You're easy to like. You don't sleep, which really, you should sleep. You're a fussy eater. You speak like an old man on TV who is trying to convince us that gold is a solid investment. You're going to be incredible one day, even if what you choose to do is train lice for the louse circus, but I think you'll probably go into archaeology. You found me when I needed someone to find me.

[You're a boy I fell in love with despite all my best intentions, Billy might as well say.]

You don't need a Welsh King to show you the way. You're a king all on your own.

Edited 2016-07-06 11:19 (UTC)

[ Gansey listens to all of that, first with a smile that hints at amusement, and then self-deprecation - and then, as Billy goes on, genuine surprise bordering on disbelief.

He'd had no idea that Billy - that anyone around him, really - thought so highly of him. What's even more strange is that Billy isn't telling him what he wants him to be, or what he thinks he is. He's saying what he sees, and Gansey feels known, like he had when Henry brought him to a hole in the ground and talked about testing his mettle.

But it's not only about feeling known. He feels known and liked, more than liked, maybe. This is a step beyond casual observance. At the end of it, he's very quiet, and his eyes are a little wide. His fingers are fiddling with something, warping it; a mint leaf, on close inspection. ]

I...don't know what to say. To any of that, I...

Didn't know you felt that way. Or thought, any of those things. I think you're more sure of me than I am. I'd like to be that boy.

[ Gansey's not a fool. This is an idealised image of him. If it's really what Billy sees, then he's either not seeing, or not speaking of, the faults that go along with it. ]

I think you're better to me than I deserve. Thank you, for being my friend.

[He flushes, red, and covers his face with his hands for a moment, a nervous tic.]

No. You deserve a lot. Don't sell yourself short, I'm saying.

[He looks over at Gansey, quickly.]

I'm the lucky one.

Entry #004 | Video

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