louds | duplicitynet

I'll put some coffee on.

( the offer doesn't really do anything to soothe over the next, necessary step. permission for gansey to visit her, to enter the up and move about without being tossed back to the down. it leaves a bad taste in her mouth but she does it anyway, because the alternative is gansey potentially not being allowed in at all.

she hates this place more every day. some days, blue doesn't know how she had ever possibly felt settled in the city.

she does put that coffee on, though the results are probably going to be terrible. her attention is split at best, torn between eyeing her device and eyeing the door, even though she knows full well that gansey can't teleport. )

( he doesn't enjoy the status quo here either. doesn't like being considered lesser than. but none of this is blue's fault. and if there was anyone gansey would give that kind of pull over him, blue would be high up on his list of trusted friends he would hand over the reins to. she sends over permission, and gansey makes his way through the check point. trades pleasantries with the guards who will acknowledge his existence, and makes his way over to her cottage.

traveling is much slower, when he doesn't have his own vehicle. public transport isn't something he's too familiar with, but he manages to get through it. gansey has been here long enough to--manage around the city's rules and regulations.

it takes him a good half hour, from point a to blue's little cottage. gansey raps his knuckles against the door, before he's turning the door knob to open it up and let himself in. )

Jane?

In the kitchen.

( she doesn't look away from the door until it's already opening, and then she busies herself with pouring out her atrocious coffee into mismatched mugs. it's an eclectic collection that they have, hand-picked by henry and blue during the months that they lived together here.

it still stings, that the place is empty, but she doesn't know how to rectify that anymore, so instead blue just--keeps chugging along, pretending like everything is normal. right now that translates in the form of handing over one of the mugs to gansey. )

Shoes off. ( she murmurs automatically, and her gaze flicks up to his face a moment later. not quite embarrassed, but something close. ) if you want. Is this a sitting talk, or a standing one?

( he's already toeing off the slip-on shoes before blue voices it, but he confirms it with a soft hum, leaves them close to the door next to whatever other pair he spots there. he has ankle socks on today, which. should count for something. )

This is a sitting talk. ( easily taking one of the mugs with a soft thank you, before gansey's gesturing over to the sofas. ) Would you--?

( sit, so he can follow her lead. they have a lot of conversation topics to cover and not all of them are particularly comfortable ones. nor ones gansey had been looking forward to. )

( there's a little sitting room just to the side of the front door and that's where blue leads them, a room set up to be cozy and with furniture awfully reminiscent of the sorts of pieces that could be found in fox way. she takes a seat on the couch, big enough for two, and she gestures for gansey to join her there before she pulls up her legs to tuck up underneath her.

he could opt for one of the chairs littered around the room, she wouldn't begrudge his desire for space, but she'd rather a sitting talk happen with the little comfort of closeness. she's always liked it, an idle hand on a knee, fingers brushing through her hair. blue doesn't especially look like she's welcoming it right now, both hands clasped firmly around her own hot mug, but a shared seat is a half-step in the right direction, at least. )

What's on your mind?

( gansey follows her lead.

waits, until she's made herself comfortable on the couch before he's moving to make himself comfortable beside her. sits close enough that their legs press together, but he doesn't reach for her further than that. especially given how--closed off her body language is.

he raises his own coffee mug to his lips. takes a sip of it, and tries to keep his composure. there's a twitch to the corner of his lips that's barely noticeable, but no other sign of--his reaction to her coffee. it reminds him a little of her mother's tea. he'll have to remember to try and get to the coffee pot first. )

I wanted to talk about our relationship, and the. . expectations Duplicity puts on us. What that means, for us.

( she shifts a little once he's settles, just twists enough that her leg runs up against the side of his. it makes a difference, a big one, and not for the first time blue wonders just how things got this twisted.

she's spent months wishing, guiltily, that gansey would be a part of each new group of arrivals, and now that he's here, she doesn't know what to do with herself. )

That stupid group chat.

( she's not annoyed, exactly, because she knows and loves them all, and in her more charitable moments she knows that the intentions were good. fun, even, and were she in a better mood she might even have found it amusing too. but it's different, because it's gansey, and because back home they're nowhere near the level of expectation that this city has for them, and because an accident could kill him.

it's an awful lot of pressure. )

I know...that there's only so much time. But I don't want to rush you into something you're not ready for. ( she chooses her words carefully, deliberate. blue remembers the consequences of her own failed quota all too well, but the vague sense of shame that still lingers around being unwillingly driven to the point of begging just to be touched doesn't outweigh the very weighty meaning of quota, and gansey.

it means something different, with him. ) How do you feel, about any of it?

You've taken the words right out of my mouth.

( softly, leaning forward to put the coffee mug down so he can place a palm on blue's leg, instead. although really, it's more an excuse to abandon the mug than anything else. another sip of that might have him keeling over on the ground, and this isn't the appropriate moment for that. )

I love you, Blue. ( words he knows she's already well-aware of, that don't need to be repeated but that gansey needs to say. ) I dislike the thought of moving forward simply because this place dictates that we have to. But I would be lying to say that I hadn't thought about it before having a line drawn down my throat. You're important to me, but I don't want you to feel as if you need to ( the tips of his ears flush red, as does--the rest of his face. ) make love with me, due to city requirements.

I love you.

( she says it back, not because he's any less aware but because she needs to say it too. needs to remind herself, a little, sometimes. it doesn't have to be this complicated — blue desperately wants it to be less complicated, and there's something about the very simple, very clear way that gansey lays it out that makes her feel like maybe it could be.

she transfers her own coffee into one hand — still untouched, lucky for her — and lays a warm palm over the back of his hand. squeezes, after a brief moment, and she makes a point to look at him when she speaks again. )

I've been here for nine months. This— it isn't new for me, not like it is for you. ( she refuses to look embarrassed, or apologetic about that, but there's a distinct heat flushing in her cheeks all the same. it's not intended to be some kind of flex, just a point that needs to be made even if it's already well-understood. )

But this place likes to take choice away from people, and--I don't want it to get to that, not with me and you. I want it to be your choice.

You are my choice.

( one hand stays under blue's own, fingers curling in against her thigh. the other moves up, palm cupping along her cheek to tip her head back. he leans in--not for a kiss, just to press their foreheads together. leans into her softly. )

Regardless of circumstances or where we end up, you, Blue Sargent, are my choice. I want you.

( he sounds confident. not the fake, politician-gansey confidence he exudes at his parents' parties, or when facing down an enemy he isn't confident they can take. but genuine confidence. he's still working on--figuring out things here, the new dynamic, but blue has never been a question.

this place complicates things, but he's certain of his feelings, what he wants with her. )

( he tips her head back, and she almost forgets for a moment. blue has grown more indulgent of kissing than she'd care to admit, least of all to gansey, and there's a split second where her face tilts to meet his, and she isn't thinking about the curse, or what her lips could do to him. that's dangerous.

but blue lets him lean in anyway, and remembers exactly how much this particular wanting could ache when she closes her eyes. it still hasn't happened for her, not quite yet, and she's eternally grateful that she still gets to live in a world where she hasn't killed gansey, just a little while longer. )

I could hurt you. ( he knows. he knows, but she says it anyway, because she thinks that he probably needs to hear it again right now. it would be so easy to forget, to slip. she's done it before, with henry, when she was still convinced that anyone who loves her could be in danger. ) You--we, would need to be careful.

I know. ( he remembers dying the first time. remembers how it felt, how his heart had just--stopped. how everything stopped. remembers coming back, the rush of magic flowing through his veins as his heart began beating once more. remembers the feel of blue's lips on his, her warmth.

gansey tips his head down, presses his lips against the bridge of her nose. )

We kissed once before, as I remember. We'll just have to be very, very careful not to repeat it.

( whether or not the deadly kiss was a one off or a permanent thing isn't something gansey has explored, yet. and it's not something he wants to find out either. they can be careful. they can--avoid a repeat. he believes in them. )

I haven't. Not yet.

( is it weird, that she's a little jealous? she wants to know what it would be like, just once, but not at that price. it all works out back in henrietta it seems, more or less. god knows what could happen here.

she can't — she won't — but she wants to. it's harder than she expected, remembering how to not kiss someone. she's gotten careless. it's going to be blue who has to be careful, really. but she raises her hand to find his cheek, smooths her fingers along his jaw until she can cup her palm along it and just thinks, very hard, about what it might be like.

and then she lets it go again, because she has to. her voice is quieter, softer, when she speaks again. )

Is that all you want to talk about?

( it'd be easier if it was. if that's all they needed to cover, currently. but it isn't. gansey keeps close to her, slouching over and leaning in. he likes--just being able to be this close. it's been a while for blue, hasn't it? but he's always found her--grounding. in a way the rest of the world isn't. )

No. I also wanted to ask you about Henry.

( no other contextual clues. he assumes she'll understand regardless. this home was built by the both of them. they had both lived here, before. and now he's gone, as is their mutually shared pet. gansey remembers climbing into ronan's dreamed copy of the pig, with it's lack of an engine. climate friendly, no gas required. no need to find a mechanic every time something went wrong with it that adam hadn't shown gansey how to repair. remembers all the weeks they had spent bonding prior.

friends fight. have disagreements. but this feels a little heavier. )

( henry. blue doesn't want to talk about henry, because everything that went wrong with henry is wrapped up so tightly in what happened with sam, in dying, and she's fought so hard to keep that from gansey. she can't explain one without the other, it just doesn't make any sense.

but keeping her cards close to her chest hasn't gotten blue anything more than an empty house and a whole lot of misery. blue sighs, doesn't quite slump into gansey but it's something close. she's just--tired, in a way that has nothing to do with sleepless nights and everything to do with the tension that's knotted up her limbs for a month. she's sick of being tired. )

Henry moved out, while I was—

( she pauses, swallows, corrects. sucks in a deep breath, and closes her eyes as she starts again. )

It's a long story. And if I'm going to tell you, I need to do it all at once, and you need to just...let me finish all of it, okay?

( he's missing a lot of context here. there are a lot of things that feel--off, different, strained, and gansey doesn't know how to manage them because he doesn't know what they are. blue stops, then starts up again, and he lets her finish her sentence before he's giving a gentle nod against her.

leans out of her immediate space, so he can wrap his arm around her shoulders instead. hold her tightly, but giving plenty of room for her to shove out of it if she decides she's done with him. )

You have my word.

( a promise that he'll hopefully be able to keep. )

( blue doesn't really want to tell the story any more than she did before, but the prospect is certainly easier with gansey's arms wound tight around her. she lets herself sit in it for a moment, leaning into him for support and tries to--enjoy it, for what it is. blue is hardly lacking in unconditional support here, but that doesn't make blue any less glad to be getting it from gansey right now. )

It was...it happened, a little while ago now, I guess. We all had this weird week, we thought that we were born here, and when we woke up, everyone was acting a bit strange, that first day. I thought it was just that, I didn't think—

( blue's hand raises, but it falls short before it actually gets to her throat. there's no evidence there of what happened, and some days that's a relief. some days, though, she wishes there was something. some kind of tangible evidence for what happened. )

He was our friend. I think— I think probably he was something more. But something took over him, controlled him, and he...

( she still hasn't said it out loud. not so directly, not to someone who needs it all spelled out, because he's lacking all of the context clues. the few occasions blue has talked about it, it's been with people who knew at least some of the story, if not all of it. )

He killed me. ( she says it quick, all in one breaths like ripping off a bandaid. ) And my contract expired with Henry, while I was dead. I came back, the month before you got here. It took some time for my memories to come back, and now...

( she still sounds very calm, against all odds. blue's voice strains a little around the edges, but she very deliberately holds it together, and if it weren't for the balled fists in her lap, she might seem just fine about the whole thing. )

Now, I don't know.

( gansey had promised to listen, so he does. he listens to blue very vaguely bring in another figure into her story, remembers when adam had gotten overtaken by an outside force. when he'd hurt blue, when ronan held him back to keep him from doing any further damage.

and this time, there was no one to hold back this other person. she keeps her hands balled tight during it. gansey presses his lips together, brows furrowing. remembers he's listening, not participating in this part of the story. when she pauses for a breath, he doesn't interrupt. doesn't offer his condolences, doesn't break into it. just bites the inside of his lip, waits until he's certain that blue has finished.

and takes his arm back from behind her. reaches for the hands she's holding so tightly in her lap and takes them in his own. )

Oh, Blue. ( voice soft; he can't fix this, he wasn't here, gansey was notably absent from their lives when this occurred. when complications were present. when blue had died, and gansey wasn't there to save her. wasn't present when she was gone to try to hold them all together, or when she came back to see what he could do to fix it. he tries to settle for being present now. tries to unball her fists gently with his thumbs. ) I'm--so sorry. That it happened. That I wasn't here.

( apologies won't fix it. nothing can mend what has already happened. they can only move forward. gansey knows this, but he doesn't want to. he wishes he could turn back time, arrive before this happened and prevent her death. but he can't. he could offer suggestions, solutions, but he doubts there's anything that could make it better. )

What can I do?

( there's probably a lot more that needs to go into that story, he'll probably have more questions eventually, but for now at least it's enough of an achievement to have gotten the basic details out at all. blue died--was murdered, specifically--and henry was kicked out in the weeks stretched between her death and return.

but a month has passed since then, and things are still broken. blue lets gansey prise her hands back open, because there's very few things that still feel impossible when she laces her fingers through his. this can't be more impossible than an ancient, medieval quest. surely. )

I don't know how to fix it. ( she admits, and her voice is very quiet, and very small, and very unlike blue in every way. she hates asking for help, that's half the reason this situation has ended up the way it has. with the rest of the raven's at arms length, and blue here, all alone in a little cottage built by two and intended for three.

she clears her throat as if it will change anything, but it helps a small amount, because her voice is just that little bit louder when she speaks again. ) I on't know how to bring him back, the right way. I don't want him to just--agree, because I asked, because I died.

( her hands loosen, and gansey intertwines his fingers with the hand that's closest to his own. raises her other hand up, to press her palm against his cheek. offers contact, and uses the few silent moments while he's doing that to--think. to try and figure out how to clearly and concisely voice his thoughts without them coming off as rude. it wouldn't be intentional. )

Henry wouldn't do that. He wouldn't let guilt be what made his decision for him.

( gansey's certain of that, at least. )

I know my arrival here might cause some additional strain, and I am sorry for that. I want. . to talk more about what happened, but I know it might be even more difficult given everything else. Have you talked to him about it yet?

I tried, early on. It was--too soon, probably.

( back when henry was still the only one who understood the full story, and blue had opted not to hear it. when she couldn't even think about what happened without getting choked up.

the hand on her cheek helps though, and it helps even more when she closes her eyes and leans into him. it's as much about his presence as it is anything to do with what gansey is saying. sometimes, she wonders how they ever survived here without him.

...ha. )

He hasn't...asked, you know. Hasn't even mentioned it. I had to push him so much to get him to agree, the first time. He said I could give someone the spare room, and give his to--

( she is going to finish that sentence, it just takes a moment. her words catch in her throat, and blue doesn't know exactly when she started second guessing every decision of her, but she's very much over it. )

...give his to you.

I'll talk to Henry.

( at the very least, he came in time to try and assist with this. he wasn't there to help blue pick up the pieces after her untimely demise, wasn't there to prevent it, wasn't there to support henry, ronan, adam, and noah through it but he can be there to--try and resolve residual problems that have come up since.

then deal with everything else. it's easier, to put off his nerves and anxiety and focus on someone else's troubles. focus on finding solutions to theirs rather than deal with his own.

blue leans in, and gansey bridges the distance. presses a soft kiss against her cheek, just below the far corner of an eye. the scarred eye. )

We'll work through this. Together.

duplicitynet | inbox

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject