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Is it better to be an extraordinary person in a mundane world or an average person in an
extraordinary one?
This is the question that continually pops into George’s mind as he absently taps his pencil against his desk and wills his paper on the prevalence of hedge witches in stage magic to write itself. History of Illusions is probably his most dreadfully boring class yet, thanks to a professor who puts half their class to sleep every day without noticing and an oversized textbook that seems to be written in a hodgepodge of at least four different dead languages. There might be more— he’s only about a third of the way through the semester.
George has always worked hard in school but he’s never worked quite as hard as he does now that he’s at Brakebills. Magical university seemed truly otherworldly when he’d chased his cat through the wards on the day of the placement exam but now that he’s been here for over two years, he can’t help but wonder if he might be happier if he’d never stumbled upon it. Before this, he’d been a top-notch student on his way to one of the best computer science programs in England. Now, he was one of the most unimpressive students in his class even though he feels like he’s working about three times as hard. Sometimes he wants to march into the dean’s office and tell him to erase his memories and send him home.
But then he wouldn’t remember Dream and Sapnap, his former roommates who got to continue to be roommates because they both ended up specializing in physical magic. They’re the best friends he can ever ask for and he thinks that they’re probably closer than he ever was with his friends back home. The problem is they no longer live in the same house and half their classes are entirely different from his. So they’re off doing who knows what while he’s stuck in the illusions house on a Friday night trying to draft a paper before his obnoxious roommate turns up and tries to distract him.
As soon as the thought flickers into his mind, the door slams open and Karl bursts in with an annoyingly wide smile, tossing his backpack on his bed before grabbing his own desk chair and pulling it up next to George’s.
“Are you dabbling in psychic magic now?” George mumbles, erasing the opening sentence of his second body paragraph for the third or fourth time.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “What do you need, Karl? I’m doing homework.”
Karl cranes his neck to get a better look at George’s essay. “I can see that. You know that isn’t due until Thursday, right?”
“First draft,” he tells him. He knows that Karl is a one-draft person, perfectly content to turn in his papers with little to no editing. He also knows that it somehow seems to work out for him every fucking time— Karl has top marks in nearly all of their classes.
Karls hums in understanding anyway. Maybe he’s faking it. “Well, you can worry about that tomorrow. We’re going out tonight.”
George snorts, not even bothering to go out. “Going where? I know for certain that the physical kids aren’t having a party tonight and the naturalism house is pretty much under lockdown after some first-year hit a bong and got stuck in the mirror world for six hours.”
The other houses can’t throw a decent party for the life of them, but that goes without saying. Illusions parties are always fun— it’s admittedly the best part of living in this stupid house— but they’re also incredibly trippy and are best as more of a monthly affair. Or biweekly, if Karl has anything to say about it.
“Try New York City.”
That makes George finally stop writing and look up. “It’s not break. We can’t just leave. Even if we do manage to inconspicuously get off of campus, we won’t be able to find our way back.”
“Actually, we will.” Karl holds up an alumni key, the only way to get into Brakebills without a proper invitation. Also, as the name implies, only given to people who have graduated.
“Where the fuck did you get that?”
“For a psychic, my sister is not that good at preventing theft in her apartment.” He twirls it around in his hand with a basic levitation spell.
So he stole it from his sister which is almost certainly illegal and now he wants to use it to sneak back into the school later just so he can prance around New York for a few hours. In an alternate universe where George was somehow tempted to spend a night out with Karl, he knows for a fact that they could probably get expelled for this. If George is leaving this school, it will be out of his own mental breakdown, not expulsion.
“I’m good.” He returns to painstakingly writing this stupid essay.
This is not an acceptable answer to Karl, apparently, because he walks across the room to stand directly next to George’s desk and snatches the pencil out of his hand.
“C’mon, George. Live a little! This school is going to fucking tear you apart unless you actually embrace the magic and have a good time. It’s fucking college!”
With a huff, Geoge meets Karl’s eyes, ready to go off on him about how he just wants to write his stupid fucking paper and then go to bed. But then he sees a little sparkle in them, something between mischief and excitement, and it pulls some of the tension out of George’s shoulders. Maybe he’s slightly (and he means slightly) correct. Brakebills has been wearing George out.
“Just for tonight but if we get caught, I’m telling Dean Halo that you kidnapped me against my will.”
Karl grins. “Deal. Grab your wallet, man. We’re going to New York City!”
George tucks his wallet into his pocket even though he doesn’t have that much cash on him and the mere thought of the international exchange rate that comes with using his debit card makes him shiver. He hopes that Karl isn’t planning on spending big tonight.
Sneaking out is pretty damn easy, at least. If it weren’t easy for two illusions kids to sneak around at night, George would honestly doubt every aspect of his schooling.
Despite their common discipline, their magic presents itself very differently. George has always been great at making himself invisible in a nonphysical sense: his magic has more to do with subtly drawing the eyes elsewhere, allowing him to slip by unseen when needed.
Karl’s magic is colorful, powerful, and loud. He typically manifests crystal-clear images of the type of shit that George is pretty sure that most people see on acid trips. It’s certainly distracting in its own way, but it’s George’s magic that they use to get around campus without drawing any attention to themselves.
Despite being here for more than a year, George had no clue that there was a gate on the edge of the woods but as he watches Karl knock two adjacent trees in a very specific pattern, a shimmering portal opens up to what he’s pretty certain is Central Park, he supposes that he shouldn’t be surprised. It’s fucking Brakebills.
“Last chance to back down.” Karl teases, just as George thinks the exact same thing.
He scowls and marches through the portal just to make sure that any notion that he might pussy out drifts out of Karl’s mind.
Karl pops out directly behind him and when he turns around, the portal is already gone. He had assumed that it was probably a one-sided portal anyway but the thought of being stranded with no easy way to get back to school makes him shiver until he sees the glint of the golden key poking out of Karl’s pocket.
George gestures for Karl to walk ahead of him. “I imagine that you invited me out here already having sorted invites to some party.”
He slaps him on the back and walks with him instead, leading him down one of the intersecting paths they’ve found themselves on. “There’s no party. We’re in New York. Life is our fucking party, baby!”
God. Karl might just be the most insufferable person that George has ever met in his fucking life. Perhaps if he’d been a bit more of a dick to him earlier, he could be finishing his essay in a peaceful, empty room right now.
Admittedly, though, it’s kind of nice to be anywhere but campus right now. He’s so fucking burnt out from school and he’s seen very little of this country even after being here for more than a year because he’s only ever left campus on breaks to go home for the holidays or that one time he visited Dream’s family for Thanksgiving last year. He’s never visited anywhere in the U.S. just for the hell of it.
Plus George loves cities. He likes that there’s always something happening, even in the dead of night, and revels in the sight of glittering buildings towering up into the night sky. Just breathing the air and walking through the park, George feels like he’s part of something bigger. It’s the same thing that he loves so much about living in London.
Once they get out to the street Karl hums for a second, looking in each direction. “I guess that we could start with a party. I do know a bar.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Neither of us are 21.”
Karl stares at him like he’s the dumbest guy on the planet for a moment. “First of all, it’s an underground place that we can definitely get into. Secondly, we’re fucking magicians.”
As much as he hates to admit it, Karl is right. He could quite literally change the age on his ID with a snap of his fingers or just as easily trick whoever looks at their ID into thinking they’re older.
He leads him through Manhattan with practiced ease. If George didn’t already know that Karl grew up here, it would still be obvious. He moves about the streets as if this is exactly where he belongs, keeping pace with the flow of the foot traffic and weaving his way from street to street without having to pull up a map or even glance up at the street signs.
Instead of stopping in front of some trendy bar front, or any bar front for that matter, Karl leads him into an alleyway that seems to back up into apartment buildings, from the layout of the fire escapes and the curious-looking tabby cat peering down at him from one of the windowsills.
He holds up his hands in front of a dumpster and speaks a few words in Lycian, silently pushing it out of the way. Next, he walks up to where it was and stomps three times. A staircase starts to tumble down into the ground, step by step. When he said this place was underground, George didn’t think that he was being literal.
Karl motions for him to walk down. “I’ve gotta close up behind me.”
George stares at him for a moment, half-convinced he’s about to trap him down there just for laughs, but walks down the stairs anyway until he reaches what appears to be an old-fashioned speakeasy-style bar, with ornate decor and big red tables.
The people there don’t quite match the vibe, though, seeing as they’re mostly heavily tattooed and he can see a girl literally doing a line of coke at the bar while the bartender serves drinks next to her.
He catches a glimpse of a star tattoo on her neck and as he looks around at the other patrons, he sees a lot more stars, some of which have numbers inscribed inside of them.
“Are these all hedge witches?” he whispers to Karl, careful so that nobody hears.
Karl shrugs. “I mean, it’s a hedge witch bar so probably. Occasionally, a few alumni hang around here. Usually, they’ll give you free drinks all night if you teach them a spell that’s not in their binder yet but you can get in a lot of fucking trouble for that if you’re caught so it’s best to be choosy with what knowledge you pass on.”
George shivers a bit. He wonders if, in another world, he becomes a hedge witch. All of these people have magic, just like him, but none of them have enough natural ability to make it into Brakebills or any of the other magical schools around the world. Instead, they scour the internet for anything that might be real and fight the feeling that they’re actually just insane as they take years and years to make the most elementary spells burst from their fingertips. The knowledge gaps between the educated and the self-taught are immense due to the heavy gatekeeping that exists even though hedge witches have become a bit more respected in the magical community over the last decade.
Teaching yourself magic is inherently a desperate task. Many of them would do almost anything for knowledge, which leads them to places where they’re willing to take other risky behaviors. That’s why people can do drugs at the bar and they’ll never card at a place like this. People can do whatever the fuck they want.
Truthfully, it sends a thrill up George’s spine just to exist in a place like this. The magic here is raw and messy, not like the refined spells that he and Karl produce with precise motions and careful enunciation. Most of the people here probably moved the dumpster by shoving it to the side with battle magic or some sort of strength enhancement that allowed them to move it physically. They take the pieces and make it work.
He goes to the bar and orders himself a drink, opting not to provide a spell for their binder. It’s a pretty egregious offense if he were to be caught and he’d much rather endure international fees at the ATM in the corner than wind up spending the rest of the year in Magicians’ Court before ultimately getting stripped of his memories and status as a Brakebills’ student.
When he lifts the glass to his lips, he notices the faintest tingle as the liquid slides down his through. It feels kind of like a buzzing sensation but it’s perfectly pleasant.
“The drinks are spiked with a bit of magic,” Karl explains, winking as he sips on his vodka cranberry. “It doesn’t really change the effect long term, but it feels a little nicer to drink.”
It certainly does, because George drains his drink and is ordering another within five minutes. Fuck it. If he’s going to be away from school just for tonight, he better make the most of it, even if his account balance and ability to walk in a straight line will suffer for it.
Karl makes the rounds as they drink, socializing with a bunch of people that he appears to vaguely know. It makes sense— he lives here, which means he probably visits on breaks, and he seemed to have the knocks practiced when they were sneaking off campus. It’s still interesting to see, though. Most people at their school consider themselves above engaging with hedge witches but Karl talks magic with them like they’re cut from the same cloth. It’s slightly admirable.
He’s four drinks in when a girl offers to sell him a bag of what he’s pretty certain is actual, literal pixie dust, causing Karl to sweep in and tell her that they aren’t interested, as if it weren’t something that George could do himself.
“We’ve got half the night ahead of us, I can’t have you turning into a frog,” he explains as he settles both of their tabs.
“Too scared to kiss me back into a prince?” he bites back, not realizing the implication of his words until they’ve spilled out of his mouth.
“I mean, if you’re asking nicely…”
George scoffs and rolls his eyes but he can tell his cheeks are going red. He didn’t mean it that way at all— he doesn’t want to kiss someone as obnoxious as Karl, not even if he has a nice laugh and his hair would probably feel really soft if he were to run his fingers through it.
Maybe the magic infused in those drinks packed a bit of a stronger punch than expected.
Karl drops it, though, and leads him back up to the street, replacing the dumpster as they make their way through Manhattan again.
“We need to get you some food,” Karl determines, looking over him for a second.
He’s probably just trying to get George to sober up a little, which he finds supremely annoying because he’s fully capable of knowing his limits when it comes to drinking, thank you very much, but George is pretty hungry so he’s not about to reject the idea.
“I could eat.”
There’s no conversation about what he might want or where they should go, Karl just starts down the street again and expects George to follow behind. When he stumbles a little on the curb and nearly falls into the road, he grabs his hand to keep him stable as they walk down the sidewalk together.
Karl ends up dragging him down into the subway, where they get through the turnstile for free courtesy of some basic spellwork, and then getting off at Canal Street. He takes him a few blocks over and pulls him into some hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant that George wouldn’t have looked twice at since all the other Chinatown storefronts seem to be a little bit more flashy than this one, with its dim lighting and the chipped paint on the sign.
They’re seated almost immediately by a woman who knows Karl by name and put in a spot right by the window, which is honestly super nice considering the restaurant seems to be fairly busy.
“Their General Tso’s chicken is unmatched throughout the entire city,” Karl tells him before he has the chance to even reach for a menu. He decides just to trust him on it.
They put in their orders and while they’re waiting for their food, he notices a few things are off about this place. For one, it’s pretty late for a dinner place to be this fucking busy. They’re pushing midnight now but it feels like they’re in the middle of a dinner rush, with people happily chatting over plates of food or large glasses of red wine.
Another strange thing is the fact that there seem to be people filing in and out of the back pretty regularly and when they come back, they either look fucking exhausted or higher than a kite. It’s pretty alarming.
As soon as the dim lighting he noticed earlier fully registers, everything clicks together and he leans closer to Karl. “Did you take me to a vampire restaurant?”
“Jiangshi,” Karl corrects. “Though they definitely cater a lot to what to Western vampires too since they’re much more prevalent here. Despite being different in their origins and how they consume lifeforce, the two communities are very intertwined and they look out for each other.”
He thinks for a moment, trying to recall his lessons on supernatural creatures from last semester. “I thought they had to kill instead of drinking blood. And I thought that they hop around.”
“George, it’s 2023. If they hadn’t figured out an alternative to killing, there’s no way they’d be able to maintain relative secrecy. Cameras are fucking everywhere, man,” Karl points out. “And the hopping thing is super fucking offensive. You know enough about magic to know that folklore and reality don’t always line up one to one. They just lose some joint function in their legs when they really need to feed. It’s not like a huge deal.”
Shit. He knew that he probably should have paid more attention in that class. He barely remembers much beyond the fact that lycanthropy is apparently an STD that has broken out at Brakebills an unfortunate number of times.
It dawns on him that the people coming back exhausted are probably being fed off of, presumably having a bit of their life force drained from them on a small, renewable scale. He looks to Karl in alarm. “I came here to eat, not to feed people!” he hisses.
Karl rolls his eyes. “Relax, dude. We’re just here for dinner. This is a dining establishment, they just offer some extra menu items as well as alternate payment methods at night. Believe it or not, I like your soul a little too much to see any part of it stripped away even just for a few hours.”
That makes him freeze for a second. Truthfully, he didn’t really think that Karl cared about him more than he did anyone else. Karl likes to have fun and uses the people around him as a means to achieve that. George always thought he sought him out because he was easily accessible, not that he might actually want to hang around him. But if he likes his soul, perhaps that’s not entirely the case.
The food, admittedly, is fucking delectable. The chicken is this perfect blend of sweet and tangy, and packs just enough of a punch to make him want to sneak out of Brakebills more often just to get a taste. Fuck, with food like this, no wonder people are willing to donate bits of their life force to jiangshi in need.
It also comes with the realization that he’s actually enjoying this night out with Karl. It’s like he’s seeing this opposite side of him: this cool, connected guy who loves the world in the same way he loves magic. Someone who takes Brakebills to be more than just a vehicle for education but also a door to a hidden part of the world that most everyone doesn’t even know exists. Fuck, even other magicians don’t bother to look at this part of the magical world because they’d sooner cast it away as dark or dirty than actually experience life beyond the confines of their own pride.
Karl was always this way, George was just too fucking stubborn to see it before. All of the annoying shit he did was just him trying to draw George out so that he can actually fucking experience things with him. Why did it take him so long to finally give in?
He doesn’t actually have to settle for being average in a world of extrordinaires or secretly talented in a world of normal people. He can experience life’s magnificence in his own way, just by taking a few extra steps out of his comfort zone. That’s what Karl has taught him tonight, and what he’s spent the past year refusing to fucking see. It’s like George has been casting illusions on his own mind without thinking about it just to keep himself from seeing the truth: magic is fucking outstanding, and Karl is amazing too.
It doesn’t even pain him to admit that anymore.
Karl glances at his phone and sighs. “We should head back soon, probably, but there’s one more place we should visit tonight. You said that you’ve never been to New York, right?”
“Not before tonight.”
He smiles. “Good. I’m going to show you something fucking incredible.”
George pays this time, braving international fees because he feels like he owes Karl after he paid for their drinks earlier, and suddenly they’re back down on the subway, riding together under fluorescent lights until Karl pulls him off it again, knowing his way around the train system by heart.
Karl takes him to the Empire State Building.
“I think it’s closed.” George stares up at the building in front of him. It seems near-infinite as it climbs up into the black sky.
He raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, sure, George. Let’s just fucking go home then,” he teases.
The edge of his lip curls into a smile. He knew that Karl probably had some sort of trick up his sleeve. He’d just wanted to mess with him a little. Mission accomplished.
The trick up Karl’s sleeve, it turns out, is named Javier, a security guard working the night shift. He’s not a magician or a hedge witch or some sort of creature. He’s just a normal guy that Karl knows well enough to get access to the top of one of the most famous skyscrapers in the world past midnight.
They ride the elevator up— no magic involved— and George doesn’t even try to pull away as Karl grabs his hand and leads him out onto the observatory.
He doesn’t know how this might feel in the day, to stand above it all and look at so many people living their lives, but at night it’s something entirely different. New York spans out below him in twinkling lights and the glow of Times Square not too far from here. It feels a little like magic in some ways: mysterious, bright, and seemingly infinite as George looks on. It’s fucking beautiful.
“Sometimes I feel like the Empire State Building after midnight is the only place you can go that’s quiet without being lonely,” Karl tells him, dropping his hand to step closer to the glass. “There’s nobody here so you get the comfort of the silence, but most of the lights out there are people’s apartment buildings. It’s their lives lighting up the view below in a million tiny little dots. There’s no need to entertain but I can still feel almost like I’m part of it all.”
George frowns, turning his gaze from the city to glance at Karl’s profile, dimly illuminated in the city lights. “You don’t have to entertain all the time, Karl.”
He shakes his head. “I do. Making people laugh is the entire point, George. What is any of this— magic, life, anything— good for if not to put smiles on people’s faces? Besides, if I’m not making them laugh they might just figure out that I’m just as boring as everyone else.”
Stepping forward, George takes his hand in his own again. Karl looks down at their joined hands and then meets his eyes, something raw and sad swimming in them.
“I don’t think you’re boring. In fact, I’ve always found it infuriating quite how interesting you are,” he tells him. “It’s as if you have everything. You’re the talk of every party, you do well in your classes, your magic is flashy and fun, and you’re friends with the entire fucking school. Deep down, I’ve always wished I could be half what you are.”
Karl makes a face. “Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? You’re twice what I am. You actually fucking work hard, you have two real, genuine friendships in a school full of people who don’t actually give a shit, you’re super fucking hot, and best of all? You get to go unseen when you want to. I have to draw eyes— I always have— but you just get to exist without anyone even really watching.”
“Maybe I want somebody to see me,” he admits, not realizing how achingly fucking true it is until the words slip out of his mouth. “All I have is Dream and Sapnap, and they live halfway across campus now. I work hard, sure, but hard work without recognition is fucking awful.”
There’s something soft in Karl’s eyes. “George, I’ve always seen you. Why do you think I invited you out here?”
He shrugs. “You were bored and your usual list of friends to sneak out with were busy tonight.”
“I’ve never snuck out with anybody but you,” Karl confesses. “I don’t think I’d even want to. I wouldn’t share all of this— all my secret spots, all my favorite little moments— with just anybody. You’re the only one who’s worthy of all this.”
“Why? Because I’m halfway to dropping out of school?”
Karl just stares at him for a moment. “Because I like you, George.”
For a second, he doesn’t believe it. What’s there to like? He’s a dick, most of the time, the only people he really speaks to are Dream and Sapnap, and he spends all of his free time rotting away at his desk, willing himself to be more productive. Really, Karl should hate him because, if anything, he’s always been particularly rude to him for no reason except a desire to be someone a little braver than he is.
The look in his eyes is so fucking genuine, though, that George couldn’t deny his honesty if he tried. Despite everything, Karl actually likes him. That probably makes him certifiably insane but it also makes George’s heart beat a little harder in his chest. Not only does Karl actually see him when most people don’t, but he actually likes what he sees.
“You’re alright, I guess,” he replies, smiling a little. Maybe that wouldn’t be the right response for most people but for George, praise like that is fucking huge.
Karl cups his cheek tenderly, a question in his eyes. George rolls his eyes but nods, just slightly, and Karl leans down and kisses him softly in front of the city lights, the crescent moon hanging over them.
After they pull apart, George can’t stop smiling. God, he can’t believe he was going to spend tonight writing a fucking essay. It feels good to let loose a little, to explore the world with Karl instead of succumbing to his burnout. This is the first time in a long time he’s been truly fucking happy to go to Brakebills.
It reminds him just how incredible magic really is. Karl is everything wonderful about magic, and he’s here, lips lingering inches from George’s. It’s the same as the sparks between his fingers.
He kisses him again, just to feel those same sparks again. And again. And again.
Out here with Karl, George feels fucking extraordinary.