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The Monster makes Eliot watch everything. It's revenge, Eliot figures, revenge for breaking free, revenge for proof of concept and being alive in here. He spent what feels like eternity being trapped inside his own mind, in that eternal party with ghost-shadows of his best friends that at first, he thinks it's just another elaborate trick of his addled mind. He's realized, lately, how much he loves torturing himself. The memories and the crying and the crushed-glass glittery feeling of a sharp high, yanking him out of real life with just enough pain to remind him that he's terribly, awfully alive. So it's not a stretch to assume that Quentin's glassy, blurry eyes are just another form of torment he's built for himself.
But normally, he can move when he's hallucinating Quentin, normally he can pull his body together enough to cry or scream or apologize. But he's paralyzed.
He can taste the Monster's sickening pleasure like bile in his throat.
It staggers in his body, swaying side-to-side. His hair is greasy now, fingernails chipped and bloody. He wants to claw at his own face, scrub the dirt free but the creature coiled in his mind steps towards Quentin. Quiet, gentle Quentin who watches with empty eyes.
"Why do you care about him so much?" It asks with Eliot's voice. Eliot tries to scream, tries to do something, but all he can do is watch as Quentin arranges his face into a stony, blank slate.
Eliot knows what Q looks like when he shuts down, that distant look in his eyes like he's trying to pretend he's somewhere else. He saw it when he turned Q down, saw it after he came back from the boating quest with the fourth key and the depression monster. No light in his eyes.
He's got the same look now, but there's something dangerous in it now, in the furrow of his eyebrows and the too-steady eye contact.
"Because I do," Quentin says, "You kill him, and we are done." His voice is clear and powerful and about to break. Eliot wants to shatter. Wants the Monster to go back to pills and tequila and anything that might numb Eliot too. "I swear to God I am serious, I will abandon you and I will die trying to burn you to the ground."
He inhales to continue but the Monster steps forwards, gaze to the ground and Q's breath evaporates into a shaky stutter as the Monster speaks, "That's cute," It's hand - Eliot's hand - goes up to Quentin's neck, gripping around the back of his head with barely restrained bone-crushing strength that Eliot couldn't possible muster, "But I'm strong."
Eliot gets pulled out of the moment like he's falling. The Monster crushes him back down to the shadow-cottage with his shadow-friends. He screams and sobs and claws at the door, scratches bloody lines down the side of his face from his shaking fingers because what is it doing to Q. Fuck, it could kill him. It could kill Q with Eliot's soft uncalloused hands, he could have Quentin's blood on his palms right now.
The Monster starts to let him out at the worst moments.
He just gets flashes.
Sticky red blood on his hands, slick and wet and dripping.
Quentin, broken-eyes and broken-limbs, pain and pain and pain. He screams when his bones knit back together, when the gashes heal by Eliot's hand, the Monster's hand. And he's not dead but the Monster brings him close. He won't let the others kill it, though, won't let them kill Eliot's body.
(Maybe he should)
All of this despite the blood that drips from his mouth and stains his teeth like a whiskey beet cocktail.
The Monster heals him. It's a punishment, although Eliot's not sure who it's for. Probably both of them. Perhaps Q spoke out of turn or It thinks (knows) Eliot is trying to escape.
He's flung back into the happy place and collapses to the floor, shaking something pathetic.
Charlton helps him to his feet and says something with the word fuck but Eliot doesn't quiet catch the full sentence.
"It's hurting him," Eliot manages to say through ragged breaths, "The Monster, it's hurting him."
"Who?" Charlton asks unhelpfully. Eliot needs to scrub the blood that isn't there off of his skin.
"Who do you - Quentin, obviously." He tries for sardonic and composed but it's hard to say Q's name.
Eliot stumbles to the minibar. He needs - he needs - what does he need?
Vermouth? No, he needs something sharp enough to kick him in the gut.
For a moment, he entertains the idea of summoning PCP or ketamine but, no, Charlton has seen enough of his fucked-up life, he doesn't need to watch Eliot snort a line of angel dust and stare at the the ceiling until he forgets what's real.
No, vodka is good.
He pours himself a glass and pretends that he can't see Charlton's scared look. His hands won't stop fucking shaking.
His perfect crystal glass falls to the ground. No, it doesn't fall. He screams and throws it against the wall, gasping as it shatters in a sparkling explosion. Cold and violent and anger courses through Eliot's veins.
Vodka from the bottle, then. He takes a deep breath. Composure.
"You know," he says, taking a swig and falling onto the sofa, "I had the most wonderful lemon vodka in Sweden a few years ago."
Charlton stares at the shattered glass, "What did you see?"
"Nothing."
Quentin is in so much pain he's just breaking like that fucking glass of water-clear vodka.
He closes his eyes and swallows. Thinks about how it felt to have his hands around Q's throat. It should have been gentle.
Well, Quentin could never love him now, not anymore. Not after the Monster broke his femur and slashed runes across his chest only to heal him and act like nothing fucking happened.
Q follows the Monster around like some abused animal, hollow but loyal on a prong collar
Eliot scratches at the palm of his hand and summons a bottle of Xanax.