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[He looks over, surprised for a moment.]

Hey, zip it-

[The magic snaps through the air, and Billy slaps a hand over his mouth, and Billy dismantles the spell almost right away, but he turns to Teddy.]

Gansey's just a guy who works at the shop.

[There's a pause, and he waves his hand.]

Kavinsky, this is my boyfriend.

[kavinsky looks at the hallucination in a calculating manner. or he just looks at the hallucination and that's just kind of how his eyes are shaped, how his brain works. like a rattlesnake watching the neon rainbow of its heat vision twist around inkblots and resolve into horizons.

gansey has kind of big shoulders, actually.

after a moment, philosophically, kavinsky offers a skinny hand. teddy takes it without hesitation. he is a nice guy. (also like gansey.) (not that kavinsky is making such assumptions necessarily— halucino-teddy also has bat wings, and his thoughts are stereotyped enough that he necessarily thinks there are infernal connotations.)]

Is that a mononym? [teddy asks, grinning.] Cher, Madonna. Kavinsky.

Man fuck you. I'm not that kinda queer. [kavinsky wrinkles his nose. doesn't notice, or doesn't care when teddy's smile vanishes and his hand tightens a little around billy.] It's Joseph Kavinsky. How long you fucks been together, anyway?

Joey.

[Billy giggles. He's starting to get into this euphoria, high as hell, and pleased about it. He presses his head against Teddy's shoulder and by some magic, it's like the hallucination has mass.]

Joey K.

[He looks over, pleased.]

Four years. Four years and...another...two here. Six years? Four years back home.

Yeah? [there's a funny pang in kavinsky's chest that doesn't bear analyzing too closely. he's super high anyway, albeit differently than billy. but the thing about being high all the time is that you can kind of tell when someone's high and trying to run from shit, and high but genuinely happy. and you can kind of tell when somebody's gotten themselves tangled in both things.

he reaches over to poke teddy, only to find the big green boy grasping his wrist. holding it just long enough to warn him, politely, then letting him go.] So, you. [kavinsky juts his chin at teddy.] Giggletits. [nods at billy.]

And the big fucking timey-wimey dimensional warp shit that happened the other month, totally fucked me and a dozen other ImPorts in town. Any connection?

[teddy blinks. his non-kavinsky arm is definitely a billy arm right now, automatically shifting to accommodate billy's silly face. he shrugs the other boy up higher, tries to get the little mage to turn his eyes up so he can look at him.] Hey, [he says.] Is your weird friend just messing with me, or is this something I should know about?

[His smile drops, and his eyes widen a bit. For a moment, he looks really uncertain.

And possibly a little bit nervous. Shit. Shit shit shit.]

Uh, so, last month? I cast a spell? And it's fine like it got dismantled but-

[He holds his hands out to Teddy.]

Look, it's okay, it was a bad idea, that's all.

That seems outta character, [teddy says, wry, making fun a little but only very gently. he senses something's wrong. not that it takes a genius to do so. billy's upset. (and teddy's a figment of his imagination, besides.)] Hey.

[he looks at kavinsky.] Can you give us a minute?

[kavinsky is in the middle of mouthing 'gay' at some unseen audience, so he raises his hands, slowly, a sarcastic surrender. he essays backward a few steps, glances around. parks are so boring, unless you have like, a ton of shrooms and beer and ecstasy and something to burn, but he gave at least two of those four things away today.

he's still eavesdropping, to the best of his ability, when the hulkling turns back toward his beau.] Billy, [his face is serious, his voice low, his hair bright in the sunshine.] Come on. I know you're not gonna tell me everything, and there's no point saying you can tell me anything. But you can tell me about this.

[Billy's eyes are dilating like crazy, and at the very least, there are weird sparks of color and flares of blue to entertain Kavinsky.

Also there to entertain Kavinsky - Billy's voice probably louder than it needs to be, because he's high, and it's fucking with his usual levels of control - which aren't that controlling to begin with.]

Okay, look, but you can't get angry, okay?

[He rubs his eyes.]

Shit, I feel like I'm underwater or something-

[But there's a breath.]

I cast a spell to try and get you back. Only it folded time funny. It made people's decisions in the past change, and spat them out here the way they were in that changed timeline.

It super fucked everything with donkey di— [kavinsky starts to say, loudly in the background, but teddy raises an arm, shushing him.

which is to say that kavinsky is definitely still yelling in the background, but teddy ignores him in a way that, thanks to lovely blond charisma, makes ignoring him easier for everybody else too. he looks kind of angry. well, angry isn't quite the word for it. upset. as he gets when billy's incredible gift comes up, either because he isn't using it enough or apparently when he's using it wrong.

but he's just quiet for a long moment, while kavinsky drones on obnoxiously in the background.]

Will you do it again? [he asks, finally. he reaches around billy's shoulders to clutch the edges of the other boy's cape, tug them closer, turning his boyfriend into a cape burrito. it softens the edge of his question, maybe.] If I disappear into the Porter again. What's it mean to you now, that it got all screwed up?

[Billy is good at ignoring people yelling at him anyway. Teddy makes it easier.

He rubs his hair.]

No, I wouldn't do it again, I mean. I thought I got the spell right, but even if I thought I fixed it, I wouldn't do it again. I was. It was bad. You know. Two months staring out the window bad.

[Meaning Billy went to his depressed place again, only this time, he hid it a little better.]

But no.

I wouldn't do it again.

[it doesn't occur to teddy to worry that the boy is lying, which is probably only half because billy knows he himself is telling the truth. or as much of the truth as he's going to tell while he's tripping balls in a sunny park as kavinsky, still standing nearby, scares off a child by yelling, what are you bitches doing here at it.

by now, teddy is a less greenish shade of blue. and standing just the right height that when he leans his forehead forward, it touches billy's and their eyelids tangle for a brief moment.

(in the background, kavinsky has switched his phone to selfie-mode. he's applying the native equivalent of snapchat filters to himself over photobombs. the tabloids, he thinks, are gonna love it.)]

I'm sorry I left you alone, [teddy says.]

It's okay, it's not you.

[He leans his forehead in, and then there's suddenly a few flying pigs around. Like tiny pigs with tiny wings.

They are mostly clustered around Kavinsky, cheers hallucination.]

Oh, what the hell-

[Billy holds onto Teddy's arm, but it's starting to slowly feel less solid.]

[kavinsky should definitely be worried that reality is about to unravel right now, but he merely angles the camera around to take an even more stupid selfie with one of the flying pigs.

and then he pulls a pistol out of the back of his pants, and points it at one of the improbable little pictures, experimentally. fortunately, neither billy nor his ex-boyfriend are actually in his line of sight.] Hey, [he calls out.] Can I get chicken pork if I cap one of these little fuckers? H--whoa.

[he notices finally, billy's fingers going through part of teddy's arm. and blinks.] Ummm.

[teddy says,] Maybe tomorrow, [and then that's the last thing teddy says.]

No, no no no-

[Teddy vanishes through Billy's fingers and he looks stricken, torn up. He looks at Kavinsky, wide-eyed, and back down at his hands. The pigs are still fluttering about.

Then Billy's hands are over his face. He's not crying, but it's a close thing.]

Shit, shit, shit.

[And he looks back at Kavinsky, and reaches a hand out, as if to say, no, it's okay.]

Um, I should go back to the shop, right? Fuck.

No, baby.

[kavinsky catches the other boy by the wrist, unconcerned. at this point in his life, he's very much under the impression that it'll take a great deal more than this to kill him. he tugs billy over, then promptly wraps his arm around the mutant's neck.]

We're going to the fucking beach. You're gonna see patterns in the sky and the fucking sea. I'm gonna get fifty vodkas with umbrellas in them.

[apocalypses never start at the beach, anyway. kavinsky's teeth are huge and white against his face.]

[He stills a moment, and there is a crackle of electricity around them, but it doesn't hurt. The air smells like ozone.

And then Billy presses his forehead against Kavinsky's and breathes. No one has called him baby in a long time.]

Okay.

[And he'll go and ride out the rest of this high with K. Nothing bad happens on beaches.]

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