#its beeen 84 years since I posted ANYTHING on here

[smokeandjollyranchers]

Let’s do our best to kill our own funk by projecting hard on a funkless character shall we?

It’s the unfamiliarity, Gansey thinks, that makes it so hard to look away.

Perhaps he’s heard the word “no” less than most people. Perhaps he’s just fought against being told no longer and vehemently, ever since he nearly said yes, breathing his last as a child, the sound of buzzing still echoing in his chest. I don’t quite think I enjoy being denied. He hums, mind slow but still unable to lose consciousness. Which brings him to the same place it always takes him, the soft beat of his heart, the only noise in the open warehouse he’s made his home.

Then again, for someone who doesn’t like being told no, the voice that he often seeks first, in the haze, in the silence, in the sorrow, is the first one to tell him no. Gansey can’t close his eyes, not right now, because if he does he’s going to be met with the small pieces he’s collected, the pull of smile on a split lip; the silent shake of laughter on shoulders already carrying the world, the absolute rage staining eyes that shift from blue to green to brown to gold to blue—disgusted at the idea of Gansey’s help.

On anyone else, his dulled, slow mind offers. You would hate that face

Fuck, he would rather be asleep right now. He moves his head, eyes falling on the miniature city he lords over, a giant against the Henrietta skyline both in and outside of Monmouth. He tries so hard to settle into a place that will never be big enough, but he tries. He needs to make the trailer park next, but his traitorous hands clench into fists at the idea. He doesn’t want to make the one corner of this beautiful little city that makes him ill, he doesn’t want to create a little trailer, knowing his perfectionist mind will insist on adding that crack in the siding that he couldn’t help but notice was exactly at Adam’s head height, didn’t want to create the small graveyard of cars that Adam would hide himself under when he knew Gansey would be coming. He doesn’t want to make the tiny door that always houses that empty eyed woman in it, the one that makes his jaw clench and temper flare.

Adam’s mother watches him like a hawk every time he comes over, like she wants to say something. Like she wants to say nothing. Like she’s the sentry who’s only orders are to keep Adam close enough that he stays miserable. To keep him from reaching enough water, enough sun, to keep his roots half dead and desperate on what little sustience they can find. If Gansey searches back through his entire day, his entire life, his mothers eyes were always alight, excited, loving.

How could you feel nothing toward what you’ve created? Gansey arguably has only created stories, things he dreams and hopes and wants to be real, and these dreams, these ideas, he loves them. He loves mystery and hope. He loves the faith and the trust and he loves the people who return his own faith, hope and love to him. How could she not—

I hate your parents, Gansey imagines saying, to Adam. No preamble, no tip toes, none of that editing that Gansey carefully does before he speaks to Adam. Nothing but the truth from one Richard C. Gansey III.

And the moment makes him feel so light, right up until he has to imagine Adam’s eyes the millisecond after he finishes speaking. He and Adam don’t tell each other the truth. Not like this. Not when Adam hasn’t admitted it’s a truth. He hates ultimatums, he hates having to chose, he hates perimeters and confusing boundaries and the way people who are trapped in darkness seem to dig their feet in and refuse to save themselves.

On anyone else… the voice in his head is more awake now, more angry. You would hate that face.

Gansey wonders if it means something that he doesn’t hate that face when Adam is wearing it. A deep, deep thought in his mind, in his chest, hits his bloodstream like epinephrine, toes and fingers going numb like he’s had to use the pen he carries around with him. Like he narrowly skirted death. Again.

Problem is, you’ll let that face keep hating you.

It’s a mean, bitter voice, and Gansey isn’t quite sure if it’s his or not. He doesn’t often dwell in mean, bitter thoughts. They aren’t helpful, they aren’t productive, they aren’t befitting of a Gansey.

Besides, that face doesn’t hate him, at least he really doesn’t think so. Adam does not have the patience to put himself through any sort of encounter that he doesn’t want to be in. He won’t entertain anything beneath him, so long as Adam makes the ruling something is beneath him. Adam won’t put up with the constant prattle of their classmates, or even some teachers. Adam will go home to the same trailer every day, and maybe die at his father’s hands.

Why isn’t that beneath you?

Gansey sits up in his bed, sheets falling from him, comforter long kicked off and abandoned. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, until stars explode in his eyelids, and it makes his chest ache. We can make our own stars, we can make our own world, so little can stop us, and you go home to Death.

“How aren’t you afraid of it?” Gansey mutters into the darkness, like somehow he can reach Adam in his dreams, in the ether, in the other. “What has happened to make you so unafraid of death?”

Gansey knows his classics, Gansey has been moved by Odysseus, he’s been smitten with Achilles, he has run after each mythical king knowing that he means to stand among them someday. But he is terrified of the darkness, the dance with the Reaper, the buzzing sound that stopped his heart. He’s paralyzed by death, for how gleefully he wishes to spit into its face. And Adam? Adam wants to live, he’s made of fire and spite and anger and an unstoppable force. But the light dims and the fire dies when he gets closer to his home. Someone else leaves Gansey’s car to walk up those steps, and it makes him sick even now.

Gansey exhales, and it seems to echo through the open air. He narrows his eyes, and flops back on his bed, trying to ignore the phantom feeling of insect-like feet crawling on his skin. Something is wrong. He decides, firmly.

Something is wrong, and he can’t hear Ronan screaming, there’s no nightmares plaguing the angriest Lynch, there’s no noise from Noah’s room, which is ideal and typical. Noah keeps long, quiet hours when the sun goes down, and it’s no different now. There is nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong in Monmouth.

Gansey closes his eyes, hard, screwing them shut against the implication of this feeling. You can’t even call him. Is he alive? Did they kill him? Will they tell you if they did? Will you go to pick him up and there will just be police cars and that woman’s empty eyes watching him from the porch. Would she fucking cry? Does she know you’re her child?

He’s on his feet. He’s on his feet and grabbing his keys and he has to stop himself. Since when does Gansey stop himself, but he stands, the moonlight from the high up windows pulling his shadow into long, splintered directions. You can’t go. The voice in his head hisses, desperate and low, the hair on the back of his neck standing up as Adam seemingly speaks directly to his heart. If you go and they hear you, you wake them—

Gansey throws his keys against the wall, grateful for any noise to interrupt the way that voice sounded afraid even in his own head. He can’t go on like this, but Adam will insist on it. He will insist on bruises and beatings and missing the school day he cares so much for he puts up with this life. What is the point of getting everything you want at the cost of everything you are? Adam is smart. Smarter than this. Smarter than him, so how did he logic this out in his head? How is accepting the help, accepting his help, somehow worse than being beaten to death?

Why in the fucking world would Adam rather die than just. Live. Survive. Thrive?

Ain’t one of your fucking dolls, Gansey.

Christ, Gansey thought, taking in a shaky breath as he hears the thought. Jesus fucking Christ.

They aren’t his. That’s what’s so fucking frustrating. Ronan isn’t his, Noah isn’t his. Adam isn’t his. Why can’t Adam understand that, when Ronan never didn’t understand it? Gansey is theirs. He belongs to them.

Maybe he doesn’t want you.

Gansey sighs, pressing the hell of his hand to his eyes, heartbeat suddenly intensely noticeable behind his eyelid. If he doesn’t, he offers the voice, coolly. Then he could just say so.

But Adam doesn’t say that. Adam doesn’t…he doesn’t act like he doesn’t want Gansey around. Most of the time. Some of the time. All of the time. It’s only when Gansey pushes, that he takes steps back. But if Gansey doesn’t push, how long before they’re at a small service for a boy with eyes that are never the same shade, standing several hundred feet back so as to not pull ire from the people that killed their son.

God. God.

Gansey is tired. But that night, he’s more afraid to wake up than he is to sleep, a bad feeling settling across his bones, his heart, his eyes, vision swimming and the echoing of a grunt desperately hidden by the person making it.

Stop. He offers his mind, quietly. Uncharacteristically small, even in his own head. Please. Please stop showing this to me. He’s fine. He’s okay.

Sleep doesn’t come, but the sun does, hours later, where Gansey is found curled up in his small city, a giant among men, ruining cardboard with what could be sweat but is unfortunately tears. Gansey listens to Ronan come alive, hears Noah’s voice without hearing his door, and he sighs.

He’s fine, he’s okay. He’s fine, he’s okay.

Please. The voice in his head whispers, mantra long having become a prayer. Please.

Please let that face that hates me be there today.