Quentin Coldwater (lostinbetween) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2019-08-25 18:27:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, julia wicker, quentin coldwater |
Who: Quentin Coldwater & Julia Wicker
What: Dinner and serious conversation
When: After these
Where:Their apartment
Rating/Warnings: PG | Some talk about mental health & asylums
Status: Log | Complete
Quentin had gotten home earlier than Julia and had also made sure to stop off to grab some wine and her favourite ice-cream as well as cake because you could never have too much cake. Plus they might need it to soak up all the alcohol depending on how their dream conversation went.
He shrugged out of his jacket and busied himself with picking up around the apartment. It was the least he could do considering Julia was going to make dinner and he didn't want her to be carrying the whole load of adulting on her shoulders alone.
The next thing he did was unload the dishwasher.
Julia had left work early to get to the store and get home. She felt so guilty for not seeing earlier that Quentin had been withdrawing and then, when she'd noticed, not being the one to call it out. Though she was reliving the refrigerator dream over and over and seemingly not getting any further herself, Quentin was obviously having nightmares, the dreams for him turning into something else entirely that were less enjoyable now he was getting further in.
Monsters and magic and a despondency she'd noticed that had come over him since he'd started dreaming. Something she recognised from the Quentin in her dreams.
She should have been more attentive.
Grabbing ingredients to make a stir fry for them, she made her way home to find that the hallway had been sorted and the kitchen counters were clean and the coffee table had been cleaned of all the shit that they'd been leaving on there because they were lazy and busy.
"Uh, hey, Q, place looks good."
Quentin popped up from where he was putting a couple things away in the kitchen and offered a smile. "Yeah? Okay, that's good. I figured I might as well do something productive with the time that I had especially as you're cooking tonight." He closed up the cupboards and rose back to his feet, brushing his hands off on his jeans before he moved over to grab one of the bags she was carrying.
"So, uh, what are we having?"
"Okay." Julia put the bag she had left after Quentin had taken one from her on the counter. "No. We're not doing this small talk shit."
She guided his hand to place the bag on the countertop and let go of it before she caught his shoulders, touch gentle but firm.
"First, before I start cooking anything, we're gonna talk. I've been a shitty friend for not calling you out on avoiding me like I promised I would, so here I am. Tough love. What's going on?"
Oh crap. Julia had tone and Quentin knew that this was serious. Really serious. Also no escaping it.
Fuck.
“It’s just a combination of the dreams. First the um-“ he stopped and rubbed at his wrists idly. “Then everything that happened with you and me then the Beast and all the Brakebill stuff but you know I was handling that until the most recent dream.” He shook his head and rubbed at his hair. “It was horrible, Julia. I felt like I was crazy and that there was something wrong with me and you were there but it felt wrong, like you were there to get something out of me instead of wanting to help and it just...”
He trailed off and worried at his lower lip, holding back the whole ideation that had been bugging him.
Julia's hands dropped to catch Quentin's wrists, thumbs rubbing gently along the scars she knew were hidden there. She'd be lying if she said it didn't frighten her, the memory of that dream.
And then he spoke more. Though that wasn't familiar to her; her dreams were firmly stuck on her being trapped in a freezer with a zombie and getting her first tattoo which had appeared about two inches above her wrist, the thought of her being present in his dreams and not helping him made her stomach churn.
"It just what?" She asked, "Don't censor yourself, Q, I can't help you if you don't tell me."
“It felt really fucking wrong,” Quentin finished off. “I mean I know we’re screwed up in the dreams but that? That’s pretty bad.”
He looked at her hands and where they’d taken a hold of his wrists.
“And I keep telling myself that they’re just dreams and it’s stupid to be affected by them but I can’t shake this feeling, Julia. Like I’m carrying a monkey on my back and it just keeps getting heavier.” He bit out a humourless laugh. “Jesus, listen to me.”
Julia felt... afraid. She didn't know what to do or how to fix this. Other things she could just move around, change something - one thing - and it'd be okay. She could fix most things with enough time but Quentin slipping away from her as his Dream depression slipped through the cracks of his mind? The way that they seemed to no longer be friends if what he was saying was true?
She wanted to hug him. She hesitated for only a moment before doing exactly that, lips pressing a kiss to his forehead before she drew him into her arms.
"It's not stupid, Q. It's not stupid at all. Motherfucking dreams, we could leave, if you want? It all started here, when we moved to OC. If we left, maybe things would get better?" She rested her lips against his temple, "Say the word and we pack up and leave, Q."
See, this is why Quentin loved Julia so much. She had his corner no matter what and it's why the relationship between himself and Julia in the dreams had been so jarring as of late. He curled his arms around her and just let his fingers tangle in the material of her top, not really caring that he might be clinging a little bit.
"Running away from problems doesn't solve them," he pointed out softly. "I'm pretty sure a smart friend of mine once told me that. I just- I just need to get a decent night's sleep and I think I'll start feeling better."
"If leaving is what we need to do," Julia said, hand cupping his head and holding him tight, "then that's what we do. It's not running away. It'd be... a tactical retreat."
Quentin decided to keep the other thing to himself because Julia was already talking about leaving the OC and he didn't want her to go too far with that thought and he knew that if he said anything about it then that would be it, they'd be gone. "I'll think about it and let you know, yeah?"
"Yeah," Julia said, nudging his nose with hers before she let go and went to start unpacking the groceries. "You do that."
She sighed, leaning her hips against the counter. "Hey, since we're talking about that dream crap again," she lifted her sleeve, tugging it up her forearm and revealing a small, black tattoo on the inside of her arm. "I survived being trapped with that zombie."
Quentin's brow drew together when Julia tugged up her sleeve to reveal a black tattoo on the inside of her arm and he moved forward to clasp it gently between his hands. "Well, surviving is good, but did it come with a tattoo?"
It was definitely scary how things from the dream could creep over into the real world.
"Better this than the gash we had to stitch up in the middle of the night, right?" Julia asked with a weak smile as she lifted her arm, letting Quentin see the tattoo and sighing a little. "It- yeah, I got that after coming out of the freezer. The hedge witches said they'd teach me magic."
Since Brakebills had kicked her out and all.
"Well, yeah, anything is better than you being hurt and bleeding," Quentin admitted with a small smile as he rubbed his thumb over the tattoo that was definitely fully healed. Hedge witches, he knew about them, had been told about them in his dreams and the general consensus was that they were bad news. Not that he said that.
He glanced up at her. "You're okay though, right?"
"Yeah," Julia said, and it was only partly a lie. "Yeah, Q, I'm fine."
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead. "Now, I'm pretty sure I was meant to be cooking dinner, wasn't I? Get the wine, I feel like we're gonna need it."
Quentin smiled in response to the kiss to his forehead before firing off a mock salute as he turned to rummage out the wine because Julia was not wrong they were definitely going to need it.
That and cake, but cake could come later.