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

It's a well-worn tale in Gansey's mouth, one he's told so many times that it has a comfortable rhythm to it.

"I searched in Wales back at the beginning, but we found him in Virginia, on the ley line not too far from Henrietta. There's an enormous system of interconnected caves that runs along the line, and we found everything down there." That's part of the nighttime story, but it's all right to sketch the vague shape of it in the day.

"The legend was that whoever found and woke the sleeping king would be granted a favor. Reality wasn't anything that fantastical, he was just dead. But that was fine, even if it didn't feel very fine at the time--finding him was enough." Enough sounds like sacred, it sounds like anticlimactic, it sounds like a burden I was ready to put down. "It was a bit overshadowed by everything else going on at the time."

"Virginia?!" He's hung up on that. "How does a dead Welsh king wind up in Virginia? And Gansey, sweetie, you shouldn't go in caves! There are things in caves, everybody knows that!"

Everybody most certainly does not know that. Iggy has half formed thoughts of goblins that might be aliens that might be interdimensional guides; of Indrid Cold and spirit boxes and stories that don't go anywhere.

"What else was going on that could possibly overshadow that?"

"I assume there was a boat involved. They followed the corpse road--the ley line--across the ocean, and went inland until they hit a crossroads." His face goes wry.

"I only know this bit because of Noah--my friend who was also a ghost. The best way to help a spirit stay in the world if they want to be seems to involve keeping their remains on a line. When we found his body and he was removed from the line temporarily, Noah...faded. When we brought him back he improved for awhile." Talking about Noah draws shadows into Gansey's voice. This is another part of the nighttime story.

"Trust me, Iggy, I now know far too much about the things one can find in caves." He gives a theatrical shudder that's only half theatre. Gansey hadn't minded caves much before he really understood what kind of things could be in the dark.

"Well." His smile goes pinched. "Do you know anything about St. Mark's Eve?"

Edited 2024-06-17 06:31 (UTC)

"Corpse road," Iggy mutters. It's a terribly evocative phrase.

Iggy's eyes widen a little. "I wouldn't know about that. Maybe for them to be strong enough for non-sensitives to see."

His brows knit together. "Okay... and no, no I've never heard of that."

"They have lots of names. Fairy roads, spirit paths, song lines, dragon lines, dream paths, the old tracks, corpse roads. Ley line is the least evocative name possible for a place you can tap into a magical powerline. It's like walking around with lightning singing under your feet."

Gansey tilts his head to cede to Iggy's greater experience in the realm of spirits. "Noah was tied to Cabeswater from the beginning, so that might have made a difference. The psychic ladies of Fox Way--Blue's family--were very tight-lipped about what's normal in a manifesting spirit." Noah was not a normally manifesting spirit, judging by the pull of Gansey's mouth.

"All right. Saint Mark's Eve." He straightens his shoulders, takes a breath and holds it a moment before letting it out. "It's a...well, holiday is deeply overstating it. It's a tradition that began at a few of the oldest churches in Britain. On the night of April 24th, the spirits of those who are going to die before the next Saint Mark's day walk to the church. It's tradition for someone to keep watch, sometimes to collect the names of those who appear." He runs a hand through his hair. "I spent an overnight outside a church with a digital recorder to see if I could hear anything. Miles away, Blue and her aunt were at another church, writing down the names of whoever passed through. "

He fidgets with his watch, adjusting the face of it to sit properly against the bone of his wrist. The hands are completely still, the second hand ticking in place. Gansey makes a face at the watch as though it is making a joke in poor taste.

"We hadn't met yet, Blue and I. The first time she saw me was when a spirit gave her my name. The first time I heard her voice was the next morning, there with mine on that digital recorder."

Iggy's eyebrows lift. "Fox Way? ...cute."

He listens, frowning lightly in concern. Then he studies Gansey again with his frank, piercing gaze

"Are you dead?" he asks simply. He doesn't think Gansey is dead, but then who knows? They don't know this world's rules.

The smile Gansey offers up is an odd one. It's brittle and a little bitter, but also very glad. "Twice over," he murmurs. Careful fingers take Iggy's hand and place it against the side of his throat. His pulse throbs like a trapped bird beneath sun-warm skin, quick and vital. "But I'm very much alive."

Edited (wasn't florid enough :)) 2024-06-18 04:46 (UTC)

Iggy stays still, feeling that steady beat. It soothes him in a way he can't explain.

"You're a very unusual man, aren't you?" he asks softly.

Iggy leans in just a little more.

"You've been touched by strangeness."

"I suppose I am," he agrees, voice a rumble under Iggy's hand. Nothing is holding Iggy's hand against his neck, exactly. Gansey's hand rests over Iggy's hand, tan fingers draped over pale ones. His breathing is slow and even, his pulse is rabbit-fast.

"It's a bit like strangeness and I played cat and mouse for years, and then one morning I woke up and realized that strangeness had moved in, stolen my favorite sweater and rearranged my bookshelves." Gansey smiles, bright and fond. Metaphors sometimes get away from him. The second hand on his watch is moving again. "The most interesting people in the world seem to be the ones who've been touched by strangeness."

Iggy makes a soft, thoughtful noise. Then he blinks hard and smiles, withdrawing his hand. He stays close, though.

"Are you saying you find me interesting?" he asks coquettishly.

"I thought that was obvious." When their eyes meet, Gansey's are green-gold, almost glowing. He's squinting just a little, as though Iggy is a very bright thing to look upon. "Like I said, sunshine: you're a marvel."

Iggy shakes his head. His curls bounce a little. His own eyes betray no supernatural ability, no wild talents. But they are warm with amusement and affection.

"Careful - you keep talking like that and I'll never stop flirting with you."

The truth is, Gansey knows that the supernatural and impossible things he seeks out are best when they remain things. When they can think, when they're sentient beings trying to interact with the wider world, they're too big to fit into a person-sized space and end up getting their Otherness all over the carpet. It's not bad, but it's also not easy.

Warm, affectionate eyes that are seeing Gansey? As miraculous a find as anything else Gansey's stumbled over.

"Oh, I thought my opinion on that was obvious too." The fingers that had just held Iggy's palm pressed to Gansey's pulse reach up and tuck an errant curl behind Iggy's ear.

"You like the attention, then?" Flirtatious on top, genuinely curious underneath.

People are so fascinating, he thinks. And Gansey more than most, with his multiple deaths and his summer smile.

"Doesn't everyone?" The flippant answer comes with a shrug and a hand gesture of sweeping oversimplification. "But no, that's not why."

Why has some sort of relationship with the way Gansey's fingers chase another wild ringlet and then utterly fail to tame it. There's an overabundance of unvoiced why between fiery curls, tanned fingers and the pale shell of an ear. "You interest me."

Iggy drops his gaze for a moment, lips still curved in a smile.

"You interest me, too."

"Then I suppose that makes us a pair of interesting people." Gansey can't sit still any more. His nerves are strung with so much potential that the energy converts itself kinetic in self-defense.

Many moments feel timeless to Gansey, stretched and syrupy from being lived over and over. It's especially frequent in places of routine. For example, a university. On an autumn day students constantly are-were-will be sitting in classroom seats, professors will be-were-are at the blackboard lecturing them. Someone is always making coffee. Deja vu is less an odd sensation and more his life experience. This moment feels like fledgling so brand new its wings are still wet, or maybe like the point of a needle. Either way, it's not a moment to sit idly through; he's never been in it before. Gansey stands, an uncoiling of limbs, and offers a hand to pull Iggy up as well.

"Walk with me? There has been an overabundance of Gansey in this conversation. You've been terribly patient. I would love to hear about you."

Iggy takes the hand up, pleased to discover once they're standing that they are about the same height. He's grown used to being taller than most people.

He falls into step beside Gansey easily, content to walk wherever he's led.

"There's not much to tell," Iggy says, and he really believes that's true.

"I think you pretty much heard it all. Art student. Weird family. Canadian."

They're aimed in the vague direction of the lake, ignoring any obvious pathways in favor of meandering through the grass. There's no real destination in mind, it's just a path that's familiar enough to his feet that it doesn't require navigation.

"That was a recitation of facts," he teases. "Each of them has a story. Like your grandmother founding the place you grew up, or why you decided to become an art student when producing art on a deadline seems like a path of great suffering. There's generations of tales hiding beneath the words weird family."

Iggy has to concede that Gansey is right, but it's difficult to think of anything beyond bite-sized bits of information. He is used to talking to fill silences, but the subject is rarely himself - usually he turns the focus back on others.

"I like art," he says with a shrug. "I always have. My grandma had tarot cards and I loved them when I was little. I got older and found out they were all painted by a woman named Lady Frieda Harris. My dad had books on Austin Osman Spare, and William Blake. I would look at their paintings over and over, and I thought... this is the purest way I know to show people what I see. What I feel. So. I decided to go to art school to learn how."

Gansey knows almost nothing about tarot other than that the women of Fox Way used it frequently and almost never in his presence. He makes mental note of the artist names for later.

"Can you read cards? I can see how they'd inspire you. Have you learned how to show people what you see and feel?" Managing to communicate those things in any medium seems like one of the greater secrets of the universe.

Iggy laughs silently, hand pressed to his mouth. "Me? Gosh, no! I just like the pictures."

He himself as he considers the question fairly. "I think so," he says. "Hard to say for sure, since art is so subjective, you know?"

"Hey, you never know. I've only really got the Fox Way ladies to go by, and it all seems tied together for them." Ghosts, cards, scrying in mirrors and bowls of blood-dark cran-grape juice (wine is for drinking, jesus mary!), the whole nine yards.

"Hmm." Gansey ponders the nature of art and artists. "I think," he says after a moment, "that if you're content with what you've made, there will be people who see the right thing, even if it's not exactly what you see."

Iggy can't get over the Fox Way ladies because it's just so uncomfortably closed to Fox sisters. It makes him think of his great-great-grandma, and he doesn't particularly want to do that.

"I have to hope so," he replies. His smile breaks forth once more. "I think at the end of the day, we all just want to be understood."

The Fox Way women are mostly not sisters, but there are mothers and daughters and undisclosed levels of cousin. They also make the supernatural seem as inevitable and everyday as doing laundry. Nearly everything about Fox Way is the polar opposite of the Fox Sisters, thank goodness.

"I think so, at least in glimpses." There's no power in the world that can keep Gansey's face from mirroring that smile. "Art creates a legacy. With art, you could be known by people whose parents' parents haven't even been born yet."

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