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

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?"

It's been awhile since anyone managed to make Gansey blush. Iggy should be proud.

"Exactly!" Someone understands, and Gansey points at him in agreement. "Not everything can be learned by observation."

"No forgiveness needed," Gansey says and shakes his head. "You're not wrong. Henry's not like that, but he and I were out-of-towners. By the time I landed in Henrietta, I'd traveled. I had acquaintances all over the States and Europe, most of them eccentrics. Ronan didn't give a damn about much beyond his family's farm, and Blue and Adam mostly cared about the quickest way out of Henrietta. They grew up there, and it soaked into their bones. 'Good small-town values' and 'repressed' are siblings, if not twins."

"Honey, if we're left to observation alone then eye gonna put all sorts of assumptions on people."

Iggy puts one long finger against his cheek and grins impishly.

"So you're telling me you're not repressed. A blessing for all the fellas on campus who enjoy a little eye candy."

"I'm differently repressed." Gansey laughs at the ridiculous face Iggy's making. "I like facts, even when they don't make sense. Efficiency. Logic. Magic. And live in a world that's much messier than that." It certainly sounds better than anxiety disorder and PTSD and an inexplicable thing lives rent-free in my mind. "But I don't mind being eye candy. What kind of world do you live in, sunshine?"

"Magic?" Iggy asks, fascinated. He's already met at least one person who seems like some kind of actual wizard. Besides that, he's not used to having anyone put 'logic' next to magic.

"You're eye candy whether you like it or not," he says.

"Me? I'm starting to think the most boring one! I'm from the year 2024. We've got climate change and TikTok and no wizards or themed villains or superpowers or anything like that."

"Well, the supernatural more broadly, but yes, magic. I spent years looking for one very specific thing and found a bunch of less specific ones along the way. Then I found the specific thing and a whole lot else besides. It's all a part of me now, or I'm a part of it. Both, probably."

"2024 is a few years ahead of me. We haven't hit the twenties yet. Global warming's a thing and Tiktok exists but we're still in mourning for Vine." Something about Gansey looks slightly wild, all bright eyes and scuffed polish. "It's all just hiding from everyone who doesn't look. Have you looked?" There's a something in his expression, maybe a barely directed wanting, maybe just a waiting for a verdict when the jury's perpetually out.

"Sweetie, that's all gonna require a full storytime, I think, because it doesn't make any sense to me."

That wildness in Gansey is electrifying and Iggy can't help but respond to it. In many ways he's a mirror for others, reflecting back their own energy and desires, but in this case he feels it.

"...I don't know," he says carefully. "I know of things. Dead English guys with pyramid hats, spirit guides, that sort of things."

He pauses, unsure what to admit.

"I know ghosts."

"It's the kind of story that goes with alcohol, definitely. A nighttime story." Because there are bright autumn afternoon stories and then there are middle-of-the-night stories, the ones that can only be told in murmured voices when the world is soft and quiet. "It's about Dreamers, psychics, Magicians, a ghost, a King, a Demon, and me."

I know ghosts. Nothing obvious changes, but Gansey may as well be a live wire with good manners. "As friends or dangers? Or something else?"

Iggy looks at Gansey. His eyes, usually disguised with sparkling cheer, are piercing. He's trying to suss out if he's supposed to be frightened, or impressed, or what. He doesn't know what to make of such a collection of words.

"As people," Iggy replies with some surprise.

Iggy's not supposed to be anything other than what he is. It's a ridiculous jumble of words and also the most serious, true thing in Gansey's life. His expression still doesn't change, but his eyes are warm, almost playful. There's no wrong answer here.

"Even better," he says, "since they're people." Then: "I'm being intense, aren't I? Terribly uncouth." As he speaks all that energy coils back in like someone clicked the lock off an extended tape measure. "Sorry. I won't push." Gansey's put himself back on a leash that's only obvious from the moments where he'd slipped it, someone who knows that they're too much and keeps it throttled for special occasions. Ganesy never had the kind of power that Blue's mirroring amplified, but some part of his mind wonders if maybe Iggy is the kind of mirror that amplifies Gansey. If this is what they all felt like, a lot of things make more sense in retrospect.

Or maybe he has a crush. There's not a supernatural explanation for everything.

Iggy watches this transformation raptly. It's so rare to find someone so open, so enthusiastic... and someone so able to disguise it.

He reaches over without thinking, putting a hand over one of Gansey's.

"No, no," he says. "Be uncouth. I love it. I'm just not used to people who understand strangeness."

He squeezes Gansey's hand.

"I'm a fifth generation medium." It feels so bizarre to say out loud, and yet so freeing. "I've seen ghosts my whole life. I thought it was normal until I was a teenager, and then I found out it wasn't. So I don't talk about it anymore."

His heart is somewhere in his throat as he admits it.

"Please. Be uncouth with me. Tell me about your magic, and your king, and your whatever the fuck, because I've spent my whole life without knowing anyone my own age who could possibly understand."

"Oh, sunshine," Gansey murmurs, and turns his hand over to cradle Iggy's like it's a baby bird. His palm is warm like summer as he squeezes Iggy's hand in return.

While he explains, Gansey listens to like a scholar committing everything to memory. "You can talk about it. I want to hear about it. You. Both of those." The promise of something more is a gong between his ribs. Exspiravit vox! Cabeswater rustles approvingly in Gansey's left ear.

He chuckles, warm as his hands. "That's practically an engraved invitation to talk your ear off. I'd be a fool to turn it down."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: sex work

cw: sex work

cw: sex work

cw: sex work

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject