Take me to another place where clarity is found

[disentombs]

WHO: Gansey and Annabeth Chase
WHERE: Over text and in De Chima
WHEN: The week during which Ronan is gone.
WHAT: Gansey has been isolating himself and Annabeth wants to make sure he’s okay (he’s not)
WARNINGS: Cur...sing? Maybe?



It hasn’t been a pleasant few days for Richard Gansey.

His best friend Ronan Lynch has been ported out, confirmed by Ronan’s sleeping dream-brother and sleeping dream-farm. Noah has been mourning on his own. Adam is trying to hold it together, insisting he’s fine to the point of driving Gansey away, his temper with a shorter fuse than usual.

And so that left Gansey all on his own, wandering the property for full days and not bothering looking at his phone at night, missing the near nightly late evening texts he would send Annabeth. He’s far too distracted and inside his own head to think to message her.

Comments

[disentombs]

He raises his eyebrows a bit. This is new, wanting to go on a walk instead of keeping each other company in one or the other's rooms. But, he supposed it wouldn't be a bad thing getting out of the main house. He hasn't been able to sleep anyway.

"Sure, sounds fine with me," he replies. Reaching behind him, out of thin air, he grabs a maroon sweater and puts it on over his t-shirt. He also bends down and again, seemingly out of thin air, pulls a pair of Topsiders into view and slips his feet into them.

Gansey stands up and steps outside, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Can't sleep this evening?" he asks by way of starting the conversation, as he begins to walk towards the fields.

[athnvas]

At his raised eyebrows, she raises her's back in return, partially challenging him to challenge her, partially waiting until the moment that he would give in and just come with her. Which happens quickly enough, and Annabeth watches with a kind of easy curiosity as he pulls the sweater and shoes out of nowhere- his powers, while familiar at this point, still a bit unbelievable.

"Too much on my mind."

Which might exactly be why she is here, but she'll let Gansey think about that for a few moments instead, walking with him into the fields. She's been around the property only once before - the party, when they'd all been stuck in the time loop - but the rest of her visits tended to stick to Gansey's room. It gives the area a new, but not entirely different, quality to it.

"What about you?"

[disentombs]

"No different than most nights," he replies easily and as they walk, Gansey reaches his hand out for various glowing lights as the two of them wander the fields--they aren't moving around as usual, simply hovering. His expression goes blank every time they come across one and it highlights the bags under his eyes and behind his glasses from lack of sleep.

Gansey wonders what Annabeth's ulterior motive is for visiting as this is already unlike most.

[athnvas]

She watches his movements, the way he interacts with the ball of light. There have been bits and pieces she's picked up on, things she pieces together, and now that she's seeing him, Annabeth feels a bit ridiculous for taking this long to figure it out.

Which is why, for a few moments, she just lets them walk in silence. Silence, where she thinks about how exhausted he looks, and how it must feel being in the house. How, not that long ago, the roles had been switched.

"You're not fooling anyone, you know."

[disentombs]

That statement gets a look of genuine confusion as he turns towards Annabeth.

"Beg pardon?"

[athnvas]

She does come to a stop, then, the two of them standing in the middle of the field as she watches him. There's no aggression there, no accusatory stare, despite the feeling like she maybe should be.

"How long has Ronan been gone?"

Getting right to the point.

[disentombs]

"Oh."

It slips out before he has a chance to stop it. He stops too a couple steps ahead of Annabeth and turns to face her, expression neutral--arranged as such of course.

"A few days. 5 at this point," he answers matter-of-factly.

[athnvas]

She resists the initial urge to ask why he hadn’t said anything, why didn’t he tell her, because in the moment she thinks to ask she can also think up a list of reasons. That it’s selfish of her to assume. That Gansey doesn’t need to tell her anything. So rather than asking, she takes a breath.

“He could be back any time.”

It’s said with a hint of a joke - mimicking his words for her from not too long ago. But then after another moment of silence, she lets out that breath. Not a sigh, but something else.

“Why do you do that?" Annabeth motions towards him. "Holding things in, compartmentalizing, arranging yourself like that?"

[disentombs]

"I'm not sure what you mean by that," he replies politely--he knows he internalizes more than he should and Magnus has encouraged him greatly to externalize a bit more, but in the end, he's still Gansey. A Gansey. And Ganseys don't show other people what they're thinking or feeling. It's a default setting for him at this point.

[athnvas]

Oh Gansey. Annabeth pauses - definitely not rolling her eyes - but her brows do lift at him, unimpressed with the deflection. She lives with Magnus, who is very, very talented at it too, and she's familiar enough with what it looks like.

"I mean that you are upset, understandably, and you're acting like it's nothing." For a brief moment, she pauses, like she's going to stop there, before giving an exhale and continuing.

"I mean that you do this with anything that bothers you, because you have this weird built in idea that you shouldn't show your thoughts or feelings on things- which, by the way, is very hypocritical considering you can sense everyone's emotions all the time if you wanted to- but you're leaving your friends in the dark."

She crosses her arms over her chest, waiting for him to respond.

[disentombs]

It's not something he thinks about often, that other people are interested in what he's feeling.

"There's nothing really I can say or do that would help with the situation at this point," he answers carefully, eyes flicking away from Annabeth's as he looks off into the fields of peacefully sleeping cows--ones that would never wake up while Ronan was gone. He also means his answer to apply to the second part of Annabeth's scolding.

[athnvas]

Which is kind of incredible, considering he is close with both of the Chases.

"There is a lot you can say and do at this point." He can answer as carefully as he wants, but Annabeth continues to stare at him, to refuse to pull her eyes away. "I can start listing them, if you'd like, but I assume you have a basic idea of where it begins."

Because knowing something objectively and doing something are two different things, and Annabeth can recognize that much. She just doesn't quite feel like assuming Gansey is so unwilling to think about opening up that he doesn't even recognize it.

[disentombs]

He can sense Annabeth's adamance on the issue and knows better than to think she will back off about it. Gansey's grief at losing his best friend is deep and something he doesn't necessarily want to acknowledge.

Gansey lets out a deep sigh and a hand comes up to rub his eyes--the first crack in his veneer. All the rubbing does his make him look more tired. He hates feeling this vulnerable, and fights back the initial surge of resentment he feels. It isn't Annabeth's fault that the two of them are so similar.

"It's...been difficult," he starts.

[athnvas]

She appreciates the fact he doesn't try and test her adamance, because while she did come here to make him talk, she'd rather not get aggressive about it. Which...even the chance of that falls away as Gansey's hand moves to rub at his eyes, immediately aging him, and the tension in Annabeth's shoulder dissipates.

"Hey." She takes a step forward, towards him, and sets a hand on his forearm in what she hopes is a supportive touch. "It's okay. I understand." Which doesn't sound all that helpful to her own ears, but she's trying. "Has he left before? Been 'Ported out'?"

[disentombs]

He looks down at her hand on his arm but doesn't move away. He appreciates that Annabeth is trying to help him but what he perceives from her is pity, and that's exactly the reason he doesn't want to tell other people when things are going on with him.

His brows furrow a bit. "No. Since I've arrived a year ago, only Blue has ever been ported out." Things were as they always should be otherwise--Noah, Gansey, Ronan and Adam all together. Losing Ronan was like losing a chunk of his heart. He'd sat in his room this week a few times simply trying to quell the sadness that threatened to overtake him.

[athnvas]

Oh, it’s definitely not pity. Annabeth wouldn’t get within a 100 foot radius of that even if she was paid to. But if Gansey can’t see that, it might be a different conversation they’ll need to have. For now, she just squeezes his arm. Nods.

“He’ll come back. I have a good feeling. But you can be upset about it. Angry, sad, numb. I don’t know....you’ve been quiet lately. And I know how it feels to want to just hold it in.” This is when Annabeth drops her hand from where she does been holding his arm. “I also remember you doing exactly what I told you not to when I tried.”

[disentombs]

A "good feeling" unfortunately was not something Gansey was going to hang his hat on, even if it did come from Annabeth.

And here is another Chase, telling him he's allowed to be upset--but really what they're telling him is that he's allowed to show that he's upset. There's no denying that he is. He does give her the ghost of a smile when she brings up when he visited her.

"Payback then?" he jokes lamely. But his smile fades and there's a sadness that he doesn't think he can put words to. A thumb comes up to his bottom lip as he appears in thought.

"It's difficult, I suppose, because the others are mourning and isolate as well."

[athnvas]

She wouldn't expect him to. A good feeling was hardly enough of a reason to even mention it, but Annabeth does anyway.

At his ghost of a smile, she gives him a small one in return. "Returning the favor. Payback would look a little different." And would probably involved a lot more harsh words and dragging him back to deal with both her and Magnus, so. He can be thankful for that.

And then there's the thumb, and Annabeth watches him, a little worried. "Has Noah disappeared again?"

[disentombs]

If Gansey knew what she was thinking, he'd probably be unsure if Annabeth was more dangerous alone or with Magnus in this situation.

He removes his thumb, knowing it's a tell, and puts his hands in his pockets. Gansey takes a couple steps forward and looks back over his shoulder, tilting his head, wanting Annabeth to follow. He wants to get moving, walk around at least. Not feel like he's being interrogated.

"Not completely. I can tell he's around, he just doesn't seem to want to be in his corporeal form much."

[athnvas]

As Gansey moves to take his steps and then turns back to look at her, Annabeth moves to step in beside him - close, only inches from brushes against his arm - but not too close. There is still space between them if he wants it.

"And Adams up on the moon, right?" A pause- Annabeth had met Adam, once, but she knew there was a lot going on between all the boys than she really understands. "Is it okay for you to be here alone?" A beat, and then she sighs. "I'm not saying you can't handle it, just that doesn't exactly sound like the best idea."

[disentombs]

"Yes, or holed up in the tower that he and Ronan sleep in." Adam hasn't been emotionally available for Gansey...almost ever. Not that he expected a sudden change.

He doesn't move away from her. In fact, when they step out of sync with each other, they lightly bump shoulders, but Gansey doesn't find it unpleasant at all.

"What do you think would happen if it wasn't okay?" The absolute last thing Gansey wants Annabeth to think is that he would do something drastic without someone around.

[athnvas]

The fact he lets her close at all is a better space than she was fearing - knowing her own reluctance to be around anyone when she was hurting, she's happy he'll let her in that much, if only by proximity.

"You sitting alone in your room staring up at the ceiling for days on end, not eating or drinking, until someone shows up because the smell has gotten too much." It's said half in jest- the sarcasm evident enough that she could shrug off the entire statement if she wanted to, except that it wasn't all untrue. Still, Annabeth shrugs - causing that bump in shoulders once more - before she looks over to him.

When she speaks, her voice is a bit more honest than it was before. Intent. "When you're used to having a lot of people around, solitude can be dangerous. Not directly, maybe, but in ore subtle ways. Ways that sit under the surface, and catch you when you least expect them."

A pause, and then she sighs.

"If you tell me- honestly and truthfully- that you wanted to be alone, I would leave you alone."

[disentombs]

He smirks slightly as he looks at the ground in front of them, glancing up at a sleeping forest creature every once in a while.

"I'll have you know I showered today, thank you," he says playing along.

They walk in silence another minute or two as Gansey contemplates.

"I don't...want to be alone," he says carefully. I just didn't think I had anyone else to turn to.

[athnvas]

She doesn't realize how much she'd been hoping to make him smile - even the slightest bit - until she feels the relief when he does.

"Oh, well, thank the gods." Because she can play along equally well, too, even if her eyes do linger on him a little longer, just to make sure. Just to keep checking. When he speaks again, the breath she releases is more tension than air, pushing out of her in a rush.

"You don't have to be." If Gansey turns to look at her, she will smile, bumping into him once again. "You have more people who worry about you than just the ones from your home."

[disentombs]

He’s certain Annabeth can appreciate just how much Gansey trusts her by having said that sentence alone. Admitting it aloud makes him feel raw, like it’d been building for months, not the past few days. He does turn slightly to see her smiling face, not minding the shoulder bumps one bit. It makes him feel grounded—there are others around. It’s always been difficult for him to open up. He’s a Gansey and Gansey’s don’t show other people anything but a polite smile, no matter what they’re feeling on the inside.

His face falters slightly, as though just realizing that Annabeth had come to care about his well-being. It’s an odd phenomenon, separating out the role of “friend” from the true meaning of it, but Gansey had learned a long time ago that for the most part, he wasn’t worth worrying about. He was always the super privileged kid that had anything he could ever want. Why should anyone worry about him?

He bows his head in silence as they continue walking.

“Thank you, Annabeth,” he replies, heartfelt.

[athnvas]

She does, don't worry. The second he admits it, lets the sentence hang for the briefest moment in the air between them, Annabeth understands the weight of it. They're similar enough to know what it would take for herself to say, so she can imagine how it makes him feel. It's why she does what she does - why she smiles, why she watches him, supportive and understanding and open, whatever he needs.

The faltering is what catches her attention most, and Annabeth wonders if she should ask about it, pick at it until Gansey is forced to take it apart himself. But she doesn't think that would help, so instead she just keeps walking with him. Huffs a very gentle laugh at his thank you.

"For...what? Worrying about you?" Asked half jokingly.