(no subject)

[likepalegold]

The light grows brighter as Jay Gatsby turns away from this moment and begins to understand that this is a striking pivotal point and nothing will ever be the same again. The absent scattering of autumn leaves scratches along the stone paving, but even that is a world away. Sinking, he's sinking, and there may not be a way up for him. And yet, that too is a world away.

Jay Gatsby is a self-made man in control of his own destiny, but he stands on a spot of land he doesn't recognize, clutching his dripping chest to ease the hurt of a wound he didn't plan. His life, his whole life, had been the accumulation of riches achieved in the pursuit of a dream; a dream he's unwilling to abandon because his blooming flower gleams and glows as brightly as the summer they met. Distantly, he hears the shrill cry of the phone and he thinks ...

Daisy.

He thinks of Daisy the way he's thought of her for years. Every dollar, every fabric in his closet, every square inch of his floors accompany thoughts of Daisy Buchanan, but the phone's cry begins to dim down, growing quiet as the hush blankets him and brings with it a wave of uncertainty.

His fingers tap against his beating heart. He eases his hand away, but there's no wound. Numb, Gatsby stands there with the ghost of cool water haunting him and chilling his fingers and toes until they're blue and still, he thinks of Daisy. The blood had bloomed, but not like her. The water had claimed him, but delivered him to this new whirligig as though God above has insisted that his life is not over, that Jay Gatsby's destiny is not done. He is far from complete and yet he is without direction for the first time in his life.

His life, so often full up of rumors, now affords him possibilities the likes of which he has never dreamed. For a man so preoccupied with his past, it's now his future that calls his attention forward.

Comments

[incurablydishonest]

The name was a barb, a sharp shot of pain that almost instantly settled into a bitter ache. The blue of Jordan's eyes grew icy cold.

"No," she replied, and pressed her mouth into a line as she turned and strode briskly inside without further comment. He'd want to know about Daisy—Of course he'd want to know about Daisy—but the entire affair had become a bore long before it had become deadly, and Jordan was well sick of it.

[likepalegold]

Their friendship remains brittle and convenient, then. Gatsby does wonder for the briefest of moments what Jordan must have thought of him after the incident, but the thought is fleeting and escapes as quickly as a coin spent poorly. It's no matter what she thinks of him so long as Daisy knows he did it for her, he did it all for her, and he'll still do everything in his power for...

Her. It seems routine, but new, because murder is a new chapter in the book and Gatsby is hardly sure what this means for him. He follows Jordan steadily, not quite matching her pace (content to amble despite the chill in his toes) and surveying the property as they enter it. "Trading palaces, I suppose," he murmurs, hand gripping for a cane that isn't there.

[incurablydishonest]

The sheer, horrible worst of this was the immovable feeling of obligation. Just this side of sympathy but not entirely without regret, it was a weighty pulse behind Jordan's eyes, like the preface to a headache that felt more oppressive than painful. Gatsby'd always been like this: Over polite, practiced charm; trying so hard to fit into a role he had no true understanding of. He was too pleasant to be moneyed, too courteous to aspire to the aristocracy. But of course, he had anyway, and Daisy had loved him despite the subterfuge, and Jordan hadn't many genuine friends but Daisy was one of the few.

She felt bad. Not for Gatsby, but herself, in being obligated without her consent. But the feeling was impossible to turn away from.

Sighing, she motioned him toward the stairs instead of the front desk, the originally intended destination.

"Come on, then," she said, the expression she turned back to him less harsh than the moment before, more softly confounded. "You can stay in my room while I fetch you something reasonable to wear."