who: Eliot & Eliot Waugh when: August 1st, after the news about the Odair's where: The Physical Cottage What: Fueling one another's coping mechanisms. warnings: Alcoholism, references to character death status: Complete.
The sound of the bottle being yanked from the shelf reverberated throughout the main living space, where Eliot had not quite picked it up, so the edge drug along the wood of the shelf until it was fully off of the surface and solely in his hand. The cap was twisted off and there was a clink of the neck hitting the edge of the tumbler before he poured the gin over the array of ice cubes. Once it was filled to the brim, there was a moment where the bottle was set down, with his hand sweeping out to take hold of the glass. He brought the glass to his lips and tipped his head back, downing it in one fell swoop, without any amount of effort. While he'd cut back on his alcohol in take in recent months, largely since his last big party and the embarrassment of having to send Kylo to retrieve his daughter, his tolerance hadn't changed much. With it all drank, he topped off the glass again, before spidering his fingertips over the top and walking in the direction of the assortment of seating possibilities. He flopped down on a favored couch and lifted the glass once again to his lips. This was a slower drink and when he broke his lips away, he sighed.
He set the now empty glass down on the arm of the couch and shifted to pull out his cigarettes. One was lit within seconds, brought to his lips for a drag, and then promptly positioned between his index and middle finger.
Up until this past week, it'd been a long time since he'd lost anyone of consequence. Penny was gone, of course, and that was frustrating but it wasn't as though he and Penny had ever been terribly close. Prior to Penny, the last was Emmeline, and that was far worse than a departure. This week? There'd been Han, which indirectly affected him, Damon, and now the entire Odair family. He brought in a shaky breath and shut his eyes, his hand lifting to press his thumb against his temple, even as he held the cigarette.
--
Eliot the Second, The Last Crusade, The Vestigial Tail of the Physical Cottage, had grown some interesting habits since his time in Hotel Kairos. One was the very distinct change in grooming. Each time the week reset, Eliot awoke in his bed, dressed as High King, perfectly groomed in his royal finest. It meant toward the end of the week it hardly mattered if he stopped shaving, a week was never long enough to get a serious growth on his face anyway.
There was nothing trying to eat them. Nothing required him to get dolled up. So, Eliot 2 was slumming it.
Secondly, he’d developed a taste for bourbons and scotch. Eliot always preferred wine or a fine cocktail before but desperate times and friendship with survivors of a zombie apocalypse meant he’d learned to make do with straight, harder alcohol. Hearing Eliot, and seeing the state he was in, Eliot 2 did not go back to his room with the bottle of alcohol he’d confiscated and instead plopped down on the couch next to his doppleganger with the longer hair his boyfriend would have approved of and wordlessly offered the bottle with one hand, patting himself down for cigarettes with the other.
--
He'd been aware enough to know someone was in the relative vicinity. He'd not opted to open his eyes to see who. When the sound of footsteps neared, he let his head fall back against the cushions of the couch, but did not open his eyes. He felt the couch gain more weight and there was a moment where he ran through a checklist, trying to deduce the likely Cottage member who had come to be near him. Kylo was at work, Quentin wasn't home, nor was Margo...
He opened his eyes and gave a side gaze to his counterpart. Eyes flickered down to the wordless offering. Maintaining the silence, he reached out to take the bottle, gave a nod of his head in gratitude. With the bottle in hand, he shifted, sliding his hand into his vest pocket.
He pulled out his own package of cigarettes and held it out much in the way the bottle had just been offered to him.
---
Eliot the Sequel took the pack and wordlessly, pulling out a cigarette and putting it to his lips. With a smooth gesture, it was lit. He took a slow drag before exhaling, and knowing exactly the pocket Eliot One kept them in, reached over to replace them himself.
Then he took possession of the bottle -- a Johnny Walker Green Label -- and another swallow. It was delicious, like swallowing smoke, and was probably intended for something grander. But alas, it would have to do on its own.
--
In the meantime, Eliot had held the bottle in his hand with his gaze landing on it. There was a moment of debate between pouring himself another glass or simply drinking from it straight. Drinking straight from the container was usually relegated to his flask more than the bottle itself. He liked the routine of pouring himself another glass. But it did not feel like an evening for this and he shifted, picking up the glass with his cigarette still in hand, and setting it on the floor. He took a drink from the bottle afterwards and it was set upon his knee just as Eliot the second replaced his cigarettes in his pocket.
He didn't protest the apprehension of the bottle.
Instead of talking about what was bothering him, Eliot the First raised his cigarette to his lips, took a drag and then made a gesture along his own chin, in reference to the Second's noticeable growth and raised an eyebrow.
--- Eliot Two looked at the First as though not understanding the question. Forgoing a razor had become so normal to him at this point, and was certainly nothing no one back at the hotel thought to comment on, that his doppleganger might as well have been speaking another language.
“What?”
It hit him afterward.
“Oh.” He scratched at his chin thoughtfully. “We just reset at the beginning of the week anyway.”
As if that was a normal explanation. Eliot both took it for granted that would happen, and had somehow lost track of what day it was. Day One? Day Three? Was Day One Sunday or Monday in terms outside of the hotel? It changed sometimes. It was more practical to count seven days than worry about the specific date. It was Day Six, wasn’t it?
--
He didn't say anything at first, just tilted his head to accent the non verbal question, while reaching toward the man to take hold of the bottle again. He pulled it toward him and took a drink, before lowering it to rest between them, though his hand still held it for the time being. He expected the other to take hold of it.
"Mm," he vocalized. He didn't completely know what that meant. "You get a clean face at the beginning of the week?" He suspected there was more to it than that.
--
Eliot needed a drink before he could continue this conversation. He swallowed appreciatively from the bottle before setting it back down between them.
“Each week, you wake up in your room exactly how you arrived. Same clothes. Same hair. Same age. If you wake up that week with any kind of variation it always means it’s going to be a bad fucking week.”
Once the explanation was given, Eliot took a long drag from his cigarette. Maybe it wasn’t exactly true, but as a general rule it worked.
--
He side eyed him for a moment. He knew himself and knew that while they were drinking heavily in one another's company, the last drink that had been taken was out of necessity for the conversation. And he was still not drunk enough to be dulled of his critical thinking skills. He was already combing through the pieces of information he'd accumulated about his other self. There was larges pieces missing but what he did know was that the Last Crusade had been away two years, living in a murderous hotel, and was away from everyone he'd grown to care about while away from Earth, Brakebills and Fillory.
It being as simple as magically waking with a fresh shave at the beginning of the week seemed unlikely.
That explanation made him uneasy and he turned his gaze away and in matching his response, he took another drag from his own cigarette. "There've been times where we go away here and when we come back, people act as if we were never gone, even though it'd been months." It wasn't the same but it was a fact that served as giving the Second a new expectation of where life would lead and space to cope with the answer he'd offered up.
--
Eliot Two frowned.
“How bad has it gotten?” he asked. Perhaps this place wasn’t any better than the hotel and he wouldn’t have to feel any guilt at all. He’d only traded one set of unfortunate circumstances for another? Possibly.
It strangely made his escape a little easier to cope with.
--
"We've lost people and they don't come back," he said, with a bitterness that could only come from the statement referring to one of his own. Emmeline was fresh on his mind this past week and a half. How could she not be? He leaned forward and snatched the ash tray from the coffee table, setting it between them. He flicked the end to have the ash fall into the container. "Typical pattern is we stay here, in Tumbleweed, a few months. Then we get an all expense paid traverse around another world. I showed up while we were in Space." He hesitated for a moment.
"That ended with the ship we were on being sucked into a black hole. We all thought…" he didn't need to say, did he? He brought in a breath. "Woke up in Tumbleweed instead." That didn't mean it had not been traumatic. He took another drag. "Had to handle a Xenomorph during that trip, too. Lost a few then."
He cleared his throat. "Got thrust back into the 50s at one point. Last thing was an ocean cruise. Fought pirates on that one." With that statement, his eyes tilted down and he swallowed.
—
Eliot nodded and took another drink. There was no need to compare. It wasn’t a fucked up alternate hell dimension olympics. He paused to flick the ash from his cigarette, take another swig from the bottle, before handing it to Eliot One in solidarity.