Who: Quentin Coldwater & Eliot Waugh & Margo Hanson What: Q’s arrival Where: Outside the Welcome Center, then Eliot & Margo’s house When: Backdated to Saturday Warnings: TBD Status: closed/g-doc/continued in comments
This wasn’t Brakebills. Or Fillory. Or the Library. It was someplace else, and according to the people who met up with him immediately, he was stuck here. Quentin wasn’t entirely stunned by that. After everything he’d been through this was just one more thing for magic to throw at him.
What kept him standing on the sidewalk outside the Madison Valley Welcome Center was a decided lack of knowing what to do first. He apparently had an apartment…in a building he didn’t know where it was. They had given him a bank card with $1000…which wouldn’t go very far. And he’d been given the briefest of explanations on what not to do and what he could do.
Quentin Coldwater had no direction so just kinda stood there.
It was only pure happenstance that had Eliot walking near the welcome center. He was supposed to grab takeout for himself and Margo from the Chinese place a few doors down and was pretty focused on getting the food and getting home when he spotted Quentin.
Madison Valley being Madison Valley, he assumed that he was hallucinating. Or having a very vivid dream. So all he did was stand there and stare.
Pure chance made Quentin turn around. He blinked when he saw someone he knew. “Eliot?” What the hell was he doing here? Why wasn’t he in Fillory being High King or something? There was only one way to find out.
Quentin walked toward Eliot with a relieved smile coming to his face. “Hey. Nice to know I’m uh, not alone in whatever this place is.”
Okay, his hallucination was talking to him now. Awesome. He didn’t think he’d done that many drugs lately. He ran his hand through his dark curls, continuing to stare. “Oh fuck,” he swore. “Is this one of those things? Now we’re seeing ghosts?” Eliot looked up at the sky. “Can’t you cut us a break for like a week?”
He was going to need so much booze tonight.
Quentin blinked. Was Eliot high? It wouldn’t be surprising, but he kind of needed Eliot to focus for a moment. Then he could go back to magic mushroom land.
“Uh. I’m not a ghost, Eliot.” Quentin tried to be reassuring, but he never was any good at it. “It’s me. All though I’m a little disturbed and worried about why you’d think I was a ghost.”
Eliot frowned. Shouldn’t a ghost know they’re a ghost? This was confusing him and he had no idea what to think. Tentatively, he reached out and poked at Quentin’s shoulder, eyes widening in shock when he actually felt his arm. “Q?” he said, still wary though there was a spark of hope in his eyes. He knew that sometimes people came here from different points in time, but was it really possible that the dome brought Quentin? That seemed far too nice.
The poke to his shoulders lifted his brows, but it was also kind of amusing. A smirk came to Quentin’s face as he watched Eliot puzzle this out.
“Eliot,” he said in reply in the same tone of voice Eliot had used.
Something about the combination of the smirk and the tone of his voice finally penetrated and made Eliot realize that this wasn’t a hallucination or a ghost or whatever the fuck else the dome might do. This was Quentin. Here. Alive. Standing mere inches away from him.
Eliot grabbed his friend and pulled him into a tight hug, burying his nose in his hair and inhaling the scent of him. “Oh my god,” he breathed. “You’re here.”
Also surprising. Quentin blinked again then belatedly put his arms around Eliot to return the hug. “Oh uh..ok. Yeah. I’m here. Wherever that is.”
This was worrying, how Eliot was acting. What was going on? What had Eliot been through that made his react this way? Quentin knew magic could screw with time…just look at what he and Eliot had gone through with the mosaic.
“Here is a town in Indiana that rivals Fillory for most fucked up place I’ve ever been,” Eliot said, loosening his grip on Quentin and pulled back enough that he could look at the other man’s face, though not actually letting go completely for fear that if he stopped touching him, he’d evaporate or something.
There was a lot to discuss, but the most important thing Eliot needed to know was the first question he asked. “What’s the last thing you remember at home?”
The constant touching was really amusing. Quentin smiled as a chuckle slipped out. “I uh…just told Dad about bringing back magic.” Which would result in his father dying again, but Quentin knew it was for the betterment of a lot more than one person to finish the quest.
He paused for a moment then smirked. “Eliot? If you keep this up, people will get ideas and start taking pictures.”
Eliot didn’t give a damn what anyone in this town thought of him. Especially since he had Quentin here. Though he did stiffen slightly when he realized that his friend was a few years behind him. Fuck. How much should he tell him about the Monster? About his own fate? Christ, he needed Margo.
“Let them get ideas,” he said, trying to cover his discomfort with his customary bravado. “So we just got magic back? That, um… that was a few years ago for me.”
Quentin’s brows came back down as he tilted his head and took a really good look at Eliot. Oddly enough, he recognized Eliot at this age thanks to the lifetime they’d lived together for the Quest. But it didn’t surprise him that they came from different times. Magic was funny that way.
“Yeah. It’s back.” Despite Alice’s attempts to stop it. “Are you ok? I mean you look…stressed.” Which was probably the biggest insult to give Eliot Waugh, but Quentin was awkward that way, even after all the progress he made thanks to the Quest.
Just when Eliot thought his life couldn’t get more complicated, this happens. Clearly someone or something out there has it in for him.
“I’m fine, Q,” he said, the strain in his voice belying the smile he forced. “It’s just… this place is strange. Worse than Fillory in some ways.” Hard as that was to believe. “Seeing you here caught me off guard. But, listen, did the welcoming committee talk to you yet? Give you apartment keys? Cause Margo and I have a house and you’re living with us instead. Fen did when she was here.”
Now he was rambling. He almost sounded like Quentin. “I was just grabbing takeout for us.” He should text Margo and give her a warning rather than simply showing up with their dead friend in tow.
“Uh huh.” No Quentin didn’t buy into Eliot being fine, but that wasn’t top priority right now. He’d get it out of him eventually.
“Uh…yeah.” He held up the keys as if they were diseased.Then he perked up. “Margo is here? And Fen…was?” Yeah this place really was weirder than Fillory, apparently.
“I’m actually really glad I’m not on my own, then.” He was a lot more confident than he used to be, but this was really strange territory.
Eliot smiled, this time more genuinely, and dragged Quentin into the nearby restaurant. “I put in an order already and there’s plenty, but do you want me to add anything?” he asked before giving the worker behind the counter his name.
While they waited, he slid his phone out of his pocket and texted Margo Be home in twenty with dinner and a guest. Then he switched the phone to camera mode and held out one arm, the other sliding around Quentin’s shoulders. “Smile,” he said, snapping a selfie to send to his best friend.
He was caught a little off guard when Eliot dragged him into the restaurant. Eliot went from stunned motionless to high gear in an eye blink…but that was normal. And reassuring, actually. “Uh…ok.”
Quentin looked at the posted menu for something he liked then was suddenly posing with Eliot. He blinked then obliged with a confused smile, not sure what was going on, then chuckled a little. “Uh, whatever you ordered is fine. I think.”
Margo was waiting patiently, for her, back home for Eliot to show up with food. She’d managed to wind down, put her hair up in a braid, and was actually wearing comfortable clothes for once. So what if ‘comfortable’ was a pair of silky pajamas and slippers.
She was just cracking open a bottle of wine when the text came through, with a picture of a dead man.
“Oh fuck.” This was going to require more wine. A lot more wine.
I’ll air out the guest room.
Their order would easily feed three, it would simply mean less days of leftovers, which was perfectly fine with Eliot because having Quentin there was better than any kind of food. Now that he’d accepted his friend was really there and really alive, he’d swung to slightly manic and was tapping his foot impatiently while he waited for the workers to bring their food.
“Margo’s excited to see you,” he said. Okay, she hadn’t exactly said that, but Eliot was assuming.
It’s his room now. I told him he’s living with us.
Moments after he sent his response, he was handed several large bags of food and he shoved one at Quentin. “I’m going to make you work for your dinner,” he joked. “Come on.”
It was a short walk to their house since they lived very near the main business district.
“Oh!” A baffled smirk came to Quentin’s face as he blinked again. Fortunately, he didn’t fumble the bag that got shoved into his hands.
When they got to the house, he slowed to stop to just stare. “Uh, Eliot? What exactly do you uh, do? Here?” Because this place was huge and fancy. Not for one minute did he think Eliot and Margo would live anywhere else, but how could they afford it?
He caught up quickly and was just as impressed by the inside. “....wow.”
In the time it took Eliot to bring home the wayward Quentin, Margo had finished one bottle of wine and started on a second. No, she wasn’t about to admit to drinking it straight from the bottle, even if that’s what she had done.
“Wow, indeed. Mama works to pay for this shit,” she said as she waved a hand. “Q. Welcome, you look really good for a dead man.”
She was at least reaching for the bag he was carrying as she said it.
Eliot was about to make a joke about Margo being his sugar momma when she said it. With a sharp intake of breath, he set down the bags he was carrying and turned to look at Quentin, wondering if there was any way he could divert this conversation without outright lying to their friend.
There was nothing he could say, only wait, barely breathing, to see how Quentin reacted.
Quentin got a big smile to see Margo, but it only lasted a moment. It was a good thing she took the bag when she did because his grip went loose. He looked at her then to Eliot then blinked.
“...dead?” He went pale. “Wh-what do you mean? I’m uh…dead?” Last he knew they had returned magic, he’d made peace with his father and they were all headed toward happily ever after.
“Remember how I said the whole getting magic back thing was a few years ago?” Eliot said, shooting Margo a glare. “A lot happened during those years.” A lot that he would really rather not have to tell Quentin, but knowing the other man, he knew they weren’t going to get away with glossing over much.
He huffed an irritated sigh. “Look, let’s eat and there’s plenty of time to talk about things.”
Margo shot that glare right back at Eliot, and was less polite about it. “You could have mentioned that in one of the texts you sent,” she hissed out at him.
“Q, sweetie, save your crisis for after dinner. We have food, wine, and me punishing Eliot for not giving me all the details on things. I’ll even do the whole hair petting and tear wiping that I usually only do for El.” She did feel a bit guilty for saying it. Just a little bit, but that was because it wasn’t how she would have chosen to break it to him.
No one needed to learn that shit sober.
“Come, we’ll tell you all about how this place makes Fillory look normal.”
Quentin blinked some more as he allowed himself to be led away. “Why will I need hair petting?” The last time he needed that was when his wife had died during the Quest. Had something happened to another person he loved?
He sat where he was pushed as he just looked at Eliot and Margo. To say he was Stunned was an understatement, and he felt he’d need more than one hit from Eliot’s flask before the day was done.
“Can I uh…have a drink first?”
“I didn’t expect you to lead with that,” Eliot hissed back at Margo, though in hindsight, he really shouldn’t be surprised.
He sighed. “You can have all the drinks.” It was too bad they couldn’t all jump in bed together again without the boys catching Margo’s lycanthropy. They still needed to figure out a way to work around that so she could have fun while she was here. There were so many pretty people here.
How did he even begin to explain what happened with the monster? Those were memories he kept locked up tight and did not relish the idea of revisiting.