newcomb | mingle log | the quad and elsewhere | we were young and drinking (coffee) in the park

Entry tags:

mingle log | the quad and elsewhere | we were young and drinking (coffee) in the park

Characters: Gansey and whoever shows up
What: Interpersonal interaction! Meet each other face-to-face while nothing is on fire
Where: the quad, unless elsewhere seems cool to you
When: loop 1, day 10 (6/10 irl)
Content Warnings: nothing yet. please use and check thread subjects

It's a pleasant day outside. There's a nice breeze and the sun is doing its best. At very least, it's not raining and warmer than it was yesterday. This is, statistically, likely to bring college denizens out of their dorms and offices since rain seems to often be on Newcomb's horizon. Fall in not-at-all-New England is lovely that way.

Gansey, for his part, can be found throughout the day in several places! He likes hanging out near the clocktower to study, since he's found time works best there (at least for him). It's nice to have a watch that's doing something vaguely akin to timekeeping for once.

But he's an explorer at heart, so he can probably also be found in the library, the computer lab, and wandering the grounds. Gansey isn't sure he's interacted with anyone outside a classroom or on Fermii since the train crash, so he's more likely than usual to strike up conversation instead of waiting for it to come to him.

The real question is this: where's everyone else hanging out today?

[ i'll be throwing gansey at anyone who doesn't note that their tag is closed. please mingle! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Iggy hums.

"Well," he says slowly. "I can't say I agree, because I come from a long line of pacifists." He isn't kidding either - it's a big reason his ancestors moved to Canada in the first place.

"I can say I understand feeling helpless in the face of violence, though. I mean. Look at me. I've had my ass kicked."

"Pacifists?" He doesn't think Iggy's kidding. "Political dissidents?"

He frowns--Gansey has never been a fan of bullies. Iggy would have been terribly bullied in every school he's ever attended. "You're an empathetic kind of person, aren't you." Gansey has the odd feeling that he's never really spent much time with the kind of people Iggy probably runs with, but the fey-faced ginger is so easy to talk to.

"Yeah. And religious."

Iggy smiles. "I mean... I like to think so? That's the sort of thing only other people can judge though, isn't it?" He shrugs lightly. "I just know that kindness is always the best option."

"That's an explosive combination."

The concept of kindness always being the best option is a devilishly complex idea wrapped up in a veneer of simplicity. "Other people might judge it, but it seems like the kind of thing they'd tell you." It is hard, Gansey thinks, to be kind. It involves a lot of thought and care, and that makes it admirable. "I think you are. It's too easy to talk with you." The last is stated like a compliment. There's a huge difference between talking to people, which Gansey does easily, and talking with people.

Iggy laughs completely silently, the back of his hand pressed to his mouth lightly. "It can be," he agrees.

Iggy leans in just a little more. "Do you find it difficult to talk with people?" he asks softly.

"Chronically," Gansey answers wryly, and he doesn't mind how close Iggy is. "I hate not being presentable for company and almost everyone counts as company."

"Honey, you look presentable as fuck," Iggy says honestly. He grins.

"You like to have a certain mask?"

"Thank you, I've put a lot of effort in." Gansey grins right back like it will keep the words from being too true.

"A few, just in case, polished every morning. A Gansey must never lose face, after all." There's a pain in his eyes that betrays how much of a decision it was to admit it. Truly a poster child for how the socially wealthy fuck their kids up. Somehow it doesn't snag on his near-painful sincerity.

Iggy is a creampuff, but his eyes are sharp. He nods, lightly gnawing at his lower lip.

"Well. You're not a Gansey here. You're just a guy."

"I'm not sure I'd even know what to do without the pressure." Sometimes Gansey isn't sure that he's not one of those undersea creatures that require the crushing weight to be anything but a blob. But he's so very grateful Iggy even said the words, and he reaches out and squeezes Iggy's shoulder. The gesture was meant to be one of those gruff, masculine things, but it fails to be anything but tenderly thankful. Iggy, he thinks, is a precious thing. "Maybe I can work on figuring that out."

"Oh, sweetie. C'mere."

Iggy is extremely affectionate. Having been given some physical touch, he assumes that it's okay to return, so he opens his arms wide for a hug.

He gives great hugs.

The hug is completely unexpected before it happens and seems completely inevitable once it does. How long has it been since someone hugged Gansey? Long enough that he's initially tense, but after a few seconds the tension crumbles into softness. Gansey hugs like someone who is unfamiliar with the practice but holds a lot of promise. His arms are strong and his body is sturdy and accommodating to another person's shape. He's taking care not to hold too tightly; there are no hands fisted in Iggy's clothes and his forehead rests on Iggy's clavicle instead of in his neck. It's not a worry about Iggy being delicate, it's a certain knowledge that Gansey himself is.

"Thank you." The words are whispered close to Iggy's ear. "Thank you."

Iggy is willowy and he bends and curves easily to be the most welcoming thing in the universe. He has spent almost his entire life using his body for the benefit of others, in one form or another. It's as easy to him as breathing.

He strokes Gansey's back softly with one hand.

"It's okay," he replies. "I promise, it's okay."

He's the most welcoming thing in the world and Gansey would hate the reasons why if he knew them, but in the moment Iggy is a blessing Gansey didn't know he needed.

"It's not," he says, and his fingers touch the ends of Iggy's curls. "But it will get better."

After a minute Gansey pulls back without pulling away entirely, a gentle extrication of himself that doesn't actually prohibit Iggy's stay in his personable bubble. "Okay, that was enough about me. You, sunshine, are a marvel." He wants to understand.

Iggy lets Gansey retreat, smiling at him the whole time.

"Don't be silly," he says, waving a hand. "I'm just a guy."

A marvel seems entirely too lofty a description when he's just trying to be kind. He doesn't think it's anything special.

It's the most special, actually. It's extraordinary even to someone whose life is full of small miracles. He'll figure out how to say that in a way Iggy will accept eventually.

"I have met many guys," he says, leaning in and extending a finger like he's about to boop Iggy's nose, "and exactly none of them do what you just did." So there, his eyes say, slightly squinted with amusement. Deal with it.

Iggy's eyes widen a little.

"Nobody's hugged you?" he asks incredulously.

Then he flips his hair. "I've met many guys too, sweetie. Nobody's ever called me a marvel before. Well. Not while we were still clothed."

"We are not a hugging family," he says like that was an edict passed down by his elders, "and my only friend that is even slightly a hugging sort of person went back to Vancouver for college." In some ways Gansey misses Henry the most out of everyone from Aglionby.

Gansey laughs at the hair flip. "I cannot speak to your unclothed charms, but I'm sticking by the word."

Iggy perks up. "Vancouver BC? No way! That's where I was going to art school! I'm from Nanaimo!"

He settles down again though and just leans in for a second shorter hug. "Well, you can have all the hugs in the world now," he says. "God knows I've done a lot weirder with strangers."

When he sits back he's smiling again. "You fuck dudes, right?" So subtle and classy, this one.

"Well, if you ever ran into a Henry Cheng, I might know the guy. Korean, gravity defying hair, drives a Fisker, going to change the damn world. You can't miss him." The pithy rundown is endlessly fond.

Hugs are lovely, and Gansey decides to just drape an arm over Iggy's shoulders so that they can both have one. This doesn't change when Iggy asks about his sexual preferences, but his ears go red. "We aren't strangers anymore." That's not an answer, so he tries again. "I don't fuck anybody," he says after a false start or two. "Not because I'm ace or anything. Relationships are complicated and figuring out who is interested in me and who is interested in my bank account seemed like more trouble than sex was worth." Not to mention the scandal if it got back to his parents that he'd fallen into bed with a boy, which was even worse than getting played for his money by a girl. "Missing out on a vital part of the collegiate experience, I know."

"If I ever get back and meet him, I'll tell him you say hi," Iggy promises.

Iggy beams. He is not a man who makes close friends easily - or ever - so he's visibly pleased to have been elevated past stranger already.

"Ohhh," Iggy says, nodding. "I understand."

A pause.

"...well, okay, no, I don't. Not like, personally. But I understand the thought process. I've met guys with that same problem before! They're some of my best clients." God help him but he honestly thinks this is useful information. "With guys like me, you know we want your bank account. But at least the prices are fixed and you're guaranteed to bust a nut every time."

"He'll adore you," Gansey says, because it's true. Iggy has the something more that resonates in Gansey's chest like a gong.

He's had five close friends in his life, four misfit teenagers and one deteriorating ghost of a misfit teenager. They chose each other despite the ways their jagged edges cut because nothing worth it is easy. None of them are here, and that's both terrifying and incredibly freeing. If you must, be terrified, but also be happy, Henry's voice echoes in his head, and Gansey smiles. He can do that.

So he laughs at Iggy's description of his clients. "I like the honesty of that," he says, because honesty is something Gansey values highly, "but I'm not sure I could deal with my own angst about transactional relationships." He tilts his head in query. "Like, is it more respectful to pay for your time or just enjoy your company? In my experience people get very tetchy about that kind of thing."

"You're so nice! If he's your friend I bet I'd like him right back."

Iggy blinks, then grins. "What, with me? Like, right now?" He laughs silently and shakes his head.

"Sweetie, I'm not working! I do mostly cam work back home anyway - my in-person clients are all older gentlemen who, like you said, don't want the fuss and bother of a relationship. They want someone young who'll treat them right when they want it, and who'll leave when asked."

He shakes his head again, smiling. "You're so cute. What people get tetchy? You hang out with a lot of sex workers?"

The red that has Gansey's ears practically glowing spreads to stain his cheeks. "No," he splutters, "no, not like that or right now!" He's not upset but he's absolutely embarrassed. "Questions pop into my head and I wonder, but people act like I should be able to intuit the answers when I clearly cannot or I wouldn't be asking, y'know?"

He hides his face briefly in one hand. "If I know any sex workers, they weren't saying. Blue would eviscerate me for even thinking it in the realm of possibility, Adam and Ronan barely unwound enough to date each other, and Henry is a self-proclaimed Henrysexual."

Oh. He's a blusher. That's just adorable.

"Ohhhh. Well, you can ask anything you want to with me because I'm the same way. Like, I don't know shit, I'm gonna have to ask about all sorts of things!"

Iggy shakes his head. "You'll forgive me for saying that your friend group sounds a little... repressed? Backed up?"

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cw: sex work

cw: sex work

cw: sex work

cw: sex work

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