safe_as_life | (no subject)

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gansey noooo

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The rain starts early in the day, pouring down on Henrietta in sheets. It's the kind of rain that tends to keep people inside, but mostly they're just glad it isn't snow anymore. Spring is approaching quickly and this kind of rainfall is definitely the first sign of it. Gansey doesn't mind that it rains all day long, from first period to last.

It distracts him some, makes him feel nostalgic for things he can't quite put his finger on, and then worried for those same reasons. Then again, he's been a lot more distracted at school lately, not able to concentrate or pick up on his studies as much as usual. He wonders if it has to do with his anticipation to see Blue, because even now, that's all he's thinking about. Rain, the Camaro, Blue Sargent. Somewhere in the back of his head he's constantly thinking about Ronan too, but he supposes that's what best friends do.

By the time the last bell rings though, it's all about Blue. He certainly isn't going to let the rain stop him. Dinner, a movie, possibly sleeping over tonight. Yes, he definitely wants to ask her to sleep over tonight. He grabs his books and neatly puts them away, then goes to meet up with Ronan, Adam and Kavinsky by the front entrance. He has a good feeling about tonight.

Gansey practically races out of his last class, waving when he sees his friends, smiling as he hoists his bag over his shoulder. "Can you believe this rain? All day. Roads must be slippery."

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"Don't." She can't hear Gansey apologizing for things he had no control over. It wasn't his fault that Ronan deceived them all. She shakes her head and stares at him, trying to make him know this was in no way his fault. "It's over now. You're here. It'll... get better."

Blue's bowled over with the hug, an odd noise that was somewhere between tears and laughter coming as she rubs Adam's back and hangs on tight to Gansey. He really is there, and talking to them. Blue opens her eyes and pulls back some, smiling as best she can at Noah, then she's watching Gansey again like he's the best thing she's ever seen.

And yet, still, inside, she's mourning the Gansey who died today. It's a very unsettling feeling she doesn't think is simply going to go away because he was a dream thing.

Adam stays there, sobbing lightly while also laughing into Gansey's neck. This time it isn't from hysteria but relief that this horrible day isn't the end of everything. He stays like that for a long while, refusing to let him go and letting the pain that's been plaguing him leak out like a lanced wound.

At last he does pull away, letting himself actually look, and everything comes back once more, the sight of his friend up against his windshield, blood everywhere.

He flinches.

He laughs again, trying to feign the same relief he'd shown earlier, but it rings too false. "I'm glad to see you're okay." It's true, of course, but his eyes don't meet Gansey's face, avoid Blue entirely because he knows she'd say something if she saw the look there. He stands up then, tentatively running a hand through Gansey's hair before starting to walk away. "I'll. I'll give you guys your space." Go back, part of his mind tells him.

He keeps walking. Out of the Barns, past Kavinsky and Ronan, and away from everything, through the rain and the long walk back to Monmouth.

He doesn't know if it'll get better, because he still doesn't quite understand what happened. It hasn't sunk in yet. All he knows is that he died, but he didn't, and these two in front of him had everything to do with it, because they were forced to. Part of him knows that it was all his doing, too. He told Ronan to do what he had to do. He can't let his friend take all the blame.

But right now, having Adam and Blue in his arms, everything does feel like it'll get better. "It'll be okay. We're all here, I'm okay, I promise." He doesn't know if it's true, but he wants it to be, so he's saying it. "Are you both okay? I feel like... well, I've just been laying here. I don't even..." He shakes his head, watching Adam. He knows that laughter is more pain than anything.

When Adam gets up, ready to leave, he's not having any of it. He gets up and tugs Adam back to them. "You think after all of this, I'm letting you out of my sight? Stay. We're going to figure this all out. I feel like I'm completely in the dark here."

Blue's doing her best to keep it together. Gansey's there and that's what matters now. She'd have to deal with whatever was going on in her head independent of this moment, because she needs to be close to Gansey and being a sobbing mess wasn't going to help anyone with anything.

She watches Adam try to leave, and Gansey stop him. It feels like everything is splintering. Whatever places they'd all slotted into were the wrong shapes at the moment. And Gansey is completely in the dark. "I'm just... really happy to see you." She sits back a little, watching Gansey, watching Adam and seeing that pain on his face that some part of her feels.

Blue pulls Gansey's hand over into her lap, and holds onto it with both of hers.

Adam jerks with the contact and almost pulls his arm away, a scathing comment on his tongue before he can even think about it. Don't fight with Gansey. He gulps and lets out the tension in his limb, but doesn't bring himself to look at Gansey. He can' with the fear of reprisal of those images. When he asks if they're okay, Adam shakes his head. "No. I. I killed you today." He shivers as he says it. "I don't think I'm okay at all." He doesn't sit. He just stays where he is, ready for Gansey to let go so that he can get out of there. Run away from this.

He lets things lapse into silence. Not sure what he can say that wouldn't make things worse. not right now when everything is still so raw and right at the front of his mind.

"I'm happy to see you too..." Gansey starts, but he's cut off by Adam jerking, almost away from him, like its all too much. It is too much. They both look like they are falling apart and Gansey doesn't even know where to begin with all of this. Suddenly he feels like he wants to run away, too.

"But I'm right here. You..." You didn't, he wants to say, because it isn't fair. It wasn't him who died, and yet it was and everything is a god damn jumble. "Adam..." He doesn't want to let go. He doesn't want to let go of either of them. He's scared of what will happen if he does. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry you had to go through that. I'm sorry I wasn't there. Damn it." He looks at Blue, then back over at Adam. "Please... there must be a way we can work through this. Adam, I don't want you to be alone right now. Lets just all go back home."

"Gansey, this isn't your fault at all." It's Ronan's, she wanted to add. She wonders how much they were all lied to by Ronan Lynch, someone who purported himself above lying. Lies, all of it. "Don't apologize. This is just... hard." Not even two hours ago, they were planning a date. Since then, Gansey died and lives again, and he has no memory of a single thing that happened between the two of them, let alone anything else.

It's hard for Blue to sit there and not feel like she's completely in the wrong too, when it comes to Gansey. She watches his mouth, knowing what it's like to kiss him, and wishing she could then, but she can't. Too much risk, if all of this was for nothing.

Adam hit Gansey with a car, and now he's sitting here and talking to them. She doesn't blame Adam for wanting to run. "Adam, stay." She looks away from Gansey's mouth then, turning her eyes to level at Adam's shoulder. Some part of her blames him, and doesn't all at once. Everything is wrong and painful, but the only two people she doesn't hate in all this were there in the room, and them leaving, going away... It would make her break again.

She doesn't want to break again. And she can talk to Gansey later, when everything calms down. It would be a long, strange conversation.

He sighs and sits back down on the bed then. He can tell what Gansey was about to say, and he's glad it was left unsaid. By now all the things that had gone down in the past few days have returned clearly, and he wants to pretend for a while longer that he didn't contribute in his own way. That to ensure that even the universe itself was fooled that he'd tethered the shadow to the original. A part of Gansey, the real Gansey, may have died and it's his burden to bear on that end.

It's selfish, but Adam's decided that after tonight's events, he deserves to be selfish, at least for now. Until Blue figures out what extent Persephone helped out, and how the two of them figured out a way to help without anyone knowing.

His phone blares then, and it takes him a minute, but he fishes it out of his pocket and glares at the name of the sender. Finally he checks it before shoving it back in his pocket. "Lynch says there'll be a ride here for us in about an hour."

"Isn't it? It's just as much my fault as anyone else's." But he doesn't know how much he wants to get into that right now. Blue and Adam have had enough. He knows he can't put more on them right now. He wants to know everything, but he doesn't think he can or should drag it out of either of them.

He's glad Adam is staying though. He can't handle another person running away from him now, when he's been out of it all for days. "How many days has it been?" He can't help but ask, because as much as he wants to tiptoe around, he needs answers, too.

Gansey checks his phone as well, furrowing his eyebrows. "How did you all get here?"

"No. It's not your fault at all." Any conversations Ronan and Gansey had had were mysteries to Blue. She's in the dark about more than revealed to her already, and will defend her misdirection to the end right now. She wants to blame Ronan, but more, she doesn't want to be assigning blame about anything. Blue would rather focus on Gansey being alive.

"About a week. Kavinsky came and picked us all up after... everything and we went to Cabeswater. And that's where we remembered. Well. They remembered and told me what... happened." She can't look at him then. She lets his hand go and picks at her broken nail polish. "And then we came here to get you."

Blue glances briefly at Adam, then back to her fingernails. Someone was picking them up. That meant they'd head back to Monmouth. "I think my bag is still in the Pig. I'll have to get it before I go home."

Adam nods along to Blue's words, confirming everything she says. He feels trapped, but he stays where he is, knowing that him running off would only cause the others to freak out in turn. And maybe that's enough to keep him calm and out of the worst of everything for now. He keeps trying to clear his mind, but it doesn't work.

He looks up at Blue at that request. "Can it wait?" He doesn't want to see any of it, not his car, not the Pig, not even the site.

"A week.... good god. A whole week? I was just..." He looks toward where Noah was standing, but he isn't there anymore. At least he was here with him the whole time. He remembers what Noah said about the favor. It might have been better than this. "Kavinsky? Right, of course. So you all thought I was..." He doesn't even want to say it. Eggshells. So many eggshells.

"Where's the Pig?" He asks, before he can stop himself, as if a car should even matter right then, but it does, because everything feels so far removed from him. It feels like this is suddenly not even his life anymore.

"Had I known..." She picks her nail polish off her nail, one thumb against the other. Had she known, she would've ruined all Ronan's plans and woken Gansey up, had nothing to do with the dream version of him, wouldn't have kissed him. And then this Gansey would still have a death sentence. Was her vision from the tree null and void now? She has to go back and see. Not now, though.

Now it's figuring everything else out. "On the road between Fox Way and Monmouth, last we saw it. You'd... He'd picked me up and we were headed back so you... he could change." She trails off. It's all too complicated. It was Gansey, but this is Gansey and Blue feels like she betrayed him in the worst possible way. Adam's question gets a shrug of her shoulders. "If I don't go home, yeah. My keys and stuff are in there, but... I can sleep on the couch at Monmouth."

"Neither of you noticed that it wasn't me?" The last he remembers, Adam was away. Ronan and Kavinsky had done this all under everyone's nose. Gansey knew it was coming though. He knew, when Ronan has mentioned it. He knew that Adam was upset about what they were doing, too.

He wants to ask about the car accident, but he sees the look on Adam's face and he can't. And then Blue starts going on about this other version of him, and how he picked Blue up, and he wonders what else might have happened in that week. "Sleep wherever you're most comfortable. We'll get you there. I have to speak to Ronan before we leave, though. He ran out of here before I had a chance to talk to him."

Blue's guilt spikes when Gansey questioned if she knew it was him. "It was you. Something screwed up my memory, or I would've known." The minute Gansey tried to kiss her without a care in the world, Blue would've stopped him, if she'd had her head about her. She'd have known something was wrong. And Gansey would still have a death sentence.

It was hard to be happy about that part of it. "I should've known." She murmurs it quickly and quietly, and then gets up off the bed. "Go talk to Ronan, then. Car'll be here soon and I'm sure that's not going to be a quick conversation." Blue reaches over and touches his shoulder, something in her checking that he's really there, and then she steps out of the room in the hallway as tears decide to start again.

She's very much done crying in front of them.

"I...wasn't there for the switch. And we didn't remember anything until we went back to Cabeswater." Why they were there hangs heavily in the air. He drops his gaze from Blue. "None of the fights. None of the visions, or plans. We. There was nothing. We were all happy." And he feels awful for saying it, because things had been so tense for so long. Gansey deserved to be a part of all of that, to forget that he was doomed and that Blue's true love was doomed, and that his only care was to find Glendower.

He watches her go, and he pats Gansey's leg lightly. "She'll be fine. It was just...a rough day for all of us."

He feels bad as soon as the words are out of his mouth. As soon as he sees the guilty look on Blue's face. How could they have known? Ronan's dream things are perfect. There's no way they could have known and yet a small part of him is angry that they didn't, and then Gansey feels bad about that, too.

"They used magic. They messed with everyone's memories. They used something on me, too." Tell them, he thinks. Tell them that you told Ronan is was okay. He can't bring himself to say the words. He has to talk to Ronan first. "Jane..." he starts, then sighs and nods, watching her walk out of the room. He wants to follow and comfort her, but he's not even sure if that's what she wants.

Then he looks to Adam. "Everyone was happy." Without him. Because it was a different version of him there. One with no worries, no insecurities, no prophecies or looming deaths. But he died anyway and then.... then he wonders... did Blue kiss him? His heart nearly stops. "Adam... stay with her, please? I'll be right back. I don't want to leave things like this with Ronan."

He wants to reach over and hug Adam tightly, but he remembers the flinching from before, so all he does is take the hand that pats his leg and squeezes, then pulls back and gets up slowly, heading out to find Ronan.

Blue stays in the hallway, finding a dark corner to stand in while Gansey goes to talk to Ronan. She feels massive waves of guilt for not knowing, something that hadn't even occurred to her until Gansey said it. She kissed him, but someone else. She nearly spilled her feelings for him, but to someone else. She's mourning someone else, but her heart tells her it was him.

It's all confused and painful and she knows she can't stay at Monmouth. She has to go home. She has to get as far away from this as she can, to let it all settle and figure out where her head is at. She can walk home. Someone will be there to let her in. She can get her things later.

For now, she stands hidden away. She betrayed Gansey, because of things out of her control, but that doesn't make her feel any less horrible for it. And it just makes her anger surge even greater.

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