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“We need to go to the seam now,” Alice said, carefully lifting the first demon bottle from the absolute zero drawer.
It made sense. After months of figuring out how to coax, force or evict the Monster out of Eliot’s body, Q wanted nothing more than to throw the god-level bastards into the deepest, darkest depths of nowhere and leave them to rot.
And yet.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“I need to do something first.”
He lowered the second bottle -- the Monster’s bottle -- into the drawer. Despite the enchantments that kept the freezing temperatures firmly locked into the drawer, rendering it safe unless you put your hand right inside, Q still felt a chill run along his spine.
Alice frowned in her Alice-way. Even after everything that had happened, Quentin loved that look. It was the same expression she had back when they first met, when she was an uncertain magical prodigy and he was… Well, he was what he was now: Quentin Coldwater. No more, no less.
“Q, we don’t know how long the spell will hold. Let’s get them thrown into the seam and then we’re both free to do whatever.”
And that’s when he realised that she knew exactly where he planned to go. Alice Quinn was many epithets (and he’d thought her a fair few), but she wasn’t a fool. She was worried that once he saw Eliot, he would no longer choose her.
It’s funny how some things are only obvious from a certain angle. Right in that moment, Q knew he wouldn’t be choosing anyone. Or no, that’s not quite right: maybe he would be choosing everyone.
Professor Lipson’s fingers drifted over Eliot’s abdomen one more time. Nothing happened.
“There’s still not enough ambient for a quick fix. Luckily for you, surgery went well and Margo has worryingly accurate aim, so you’ll heal nonetheless. You’re actually progressing far more quickly than expected, perhaps some residual magic left behind by the--”
Eliot’s wrist quirked in an aborted attempt to raise his hand. “Don’t.”
Lipson tamped down a smile. “Too soon, I understand. Now, get some rest before Margo comes back to smother you.” She patted his hand and left.
The ward was quiet. Through the window, Eliot could see Brakebill students milling around in the yard in the late afternoon light. He watched as one young man with fantastic fashion sense and an obvious flair for the dramatic eyed up another young man -- who turned out to be Todd. Fucking hilarious. He’d missed this place.
Footsteps sounded down the hall, then stopped in the doorway.
Eliot didn’t have to look to know who it was. He had a sixth sense for Q; understandable after fifty years together.
“You’re a terrible lurker, Quentin.”
Q laughed but it was teary. When he hesitated before taking Eliot’s hand, it was only because he was scared of hurting him.
Eliot remembered once, in that other life, when he’d broken his ankle whilst out hunting. Quentin was so worried about hurting him that, a couple weeks later, Eliot had to basically jump Q’s bones to get Q to really touch him.
That all felt like forever ago now. Forever and not at all.
Q’s fingers pressed over the pulse point in Eliot’s wrist. “You’re really back?”
“I’m back.” He breathed through an ache in his gut, though whether it was breakthrough pain or his feelings, he couldn’t tell. After months of being nothing but feelings, everything felt red raw right now.
“Good...” A deep, shaky breath. “I was so fucking terrified, Eliot. The moment I remembered who I was -- the moment -- I realised what was happening to you and I didn’t know how to get to you--”
“Quentin.” Eliot slid his hand up to clasp Q’s wrist. “I’m here now. I was always here, in a way.”
“That was the problem. I could take losing you; I’ve done it before. It was giving up on you, I couldn’t do that.”
“And you didn’t, so stop beating yourself up about it. You’re such a fucking martyr, Quentin. It’s physically painful to talk right now but you’re making me, because you insist on tearing yourself apart.”
Quentin blanched. “Shit, El, I’m sorry--”
“I’m kidding, it’s fine. I’ve missed this.”
His fingers wrapped around Quentin's wrist, Eliot tugged. It wasn’t a particularly strong tug given that his muscles still felt like jelly and the exertion made his head swim and his belly ache, but Quentin fell towards him nonetheless, a bracing hand against Eliot’s pillow. A cage he didn’t mind being in.
He leaned up, abdomen screaming at him. He ignored the pain and instead focused on the feel of Q’s lips on his. Except… Q shifted his kiss to the corner of Eliot’s mouth. It was still tender and meaningful, but there was a distance there, and that hurt more than the potentially busted stitches.
“Quentin?”
“Alice.”
“Ah.”
There was this thing Eliot did, had always done when he was upset, he shut down. Face set, sarcasm switched to high, a curl never too far from his lip. It was the way he had always protected himself and he tried to turn it on now, but it just wouldn’t work.
“Eliot, I didn’t know if we would get you back." Q was babbling, he knew, but he had to make Eliot understand. "And there was this thing I had to do, time travel I guess, and I saw Alice as she was and I… I wanted to see if she could be like that again, you know? Because I missed how things were back then, with all of us.”
“Okay,” Eliot said evenly, looking back out of the window.
“Okay?”
“Okay.”
The silence was deafening.
“Why do you get to be upset about this?” Q asked, his voice a whisper.
He stepped back to pace the room, hands on his head. Eliot knew what he was thinking. He felt guilt at hurting Eliot but also frustration because hadn’t it been Eliot who turned him down? Hadn’t it been Eliot who held the barely-there ashes of their lifetime together in his hands and decided to throw them to the wind?
It wasn’t advisable for Eliot to attempt moving, but that didn’t stop him from fumbling for the controls on the bed to raise himself up into a sitting position. Honestly, Lipson was going to kill him for the damage he was probably doing. But he needed to be on a level with Q and this was the best he could do.
“Alice is like Arielle,” he said.
Q stopped mid-pace. “What? Arielle was nothing like Alice.”
On an individual level, this was true. There wasn’t much in common between a former-niffin from earth with a history of betrayal and a fruit seller from Fillory whose worst act was once drinking too much and kissing a neighbouring farmer. But Eliot wasn’t talking about them as individuals.
“I liked you from the start. When you walked out of that treeline with no clue what you were or what you could do, I liked you. When you loved Alice, I liked you. When you hated her, I liked you. When you got drunk and had sex with Margo and pulled me into it, I liked you. Whether you were a king of Fillory or just some some dumb kid from New Jersey, I liked you, Quentin. And then we got trapped in Fillory on an impossible quest… And I loved you.”
Q just stood there, hopeful and devastated in equal measure.
“We got close and I thought ‘this is it, this is when he gives me a chance’, but then Arielle came along. You only allowed us to be us once she was in the picture. I have never been enough for you on my own, Quentin. Do you know how much that hurts?”
“Bullshit.” Q blew out a breath, head shaking. “That is such bullshit. When Arielle died, I still spent decades with you, Eliot.”
Tears were blurring Eliot’s vision. He blinked them back. “And how long would you have stayed with me if we didn’t have Ted to look after or the quest to complete? My point is, I have never really been what you want and I get that. You go be with Alice. I’ll live.”
Quentin actually walked towards the door then. The agony of it made Eliot’s throat close up - he couldn’t have called him back even if he wanted to.
But when he reached the door, Quentin turned and paced right back to Eliot’s bedside. He leaned in close.
“Everyone gave up on you. Do you know that? At some point in all of this Monster business, everyone else gave up. They thought you were lost. But I could feel you in there.” He hesitated. “Sometimes I wished I could give up. I wanted to be able to go back to Dean Fogg and ask him to gave me that fake life back, so I could be average, oblivious Brian and be happy..”
Eliot licked suddenly dry lips. “You could still do that.”
“No, you're-” Q scrubbed at his face, frustrated, and sat heavily on the side of Eliot’s bed. “You’re missing the point. I couldn’t leave because I needed you back and safe. I can’t be okay unless you’re okay because you are everything, Eliot. Maybe I wasn’t ready for you alone before Fillory and Arielle, but I was ready for you after because by then, I knew.”
He didn’t hesitate with the last kiss.
His fingers in Eliot’s hair, his breath into Eliot’s mouth, Quentin kissed him. He kissed him like he should have done so many times before in this life and had so many times in the other. He kissed him as Quentin the lost boy, as Quentin the king, as Quentin of Fillory who would dust coloured chalks off his fingers and sit back to watch Eliot teach their son beginner’s magic.
Eliot knew in that moment that this would be the very last kiss.
Q pulled back reluctantly. Glassy eyed, he smiled down at Eliot with the most honest purity he’d ever seen.
“I need to go make sure that Monster never bothers you again. Will you be okay?”
Eliot smiled. His heart was broken and his body hurt and he didn’t care because Q truly loved him. “I will be.”
“Good… Good.” Q stepped back. His eyes suddenly brightened. “Oh, I got you something. I was going to bring grapes, but…”
From his pocket, he pulled a peach.
Eliot didn’t let himself cry when Q walked away, even though he could feel what was coming. But he cried when he he was told.
He would be okay eventually, he thought, but not yet.
“Did I do something brave to save my friends or did I finally find a way to kill myself?”
If anyone asked Quentin directly -- and where he was going, no one would -- he may have been obliged to tell the truth. He could have run. He may not have made it, he would never know, but Quentin could have run for the door as the searing magic spread throughout the room.
Instead, he stopped and turned to look back. There was a story he remembered from the bible about Lot’s wife. She had been warned not to look back at the burning city on pain of death, but she did it anyway. In some of his darkest moments, Quentin had remembered this and wondered whether she did it on purpose. Did she want to die?
With the distance to think about it clearly, Quentin thought he probably did want to die. He could be at peace and all the loose ends of his life back on earth could be neatly tied up. He had done his part, hadn’t he? What more was there left to do?
And yet…
The MetroCard disappeared the moment he crossed the threshold. The doorway vanished a moment after. Or perhaps it was a moment before. It was so hard to see the distinctions in time once you were out of it. He had been in this place for seconds and centuries and millennia all at once.
The person waiting on the other side smiled at him. “Where would you like to go, Quentin?” they asked.
Quentin thought for a moment (or a day, month, century) and said:
“Home.”