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As Kady hits the high note in ‘Take on Me,’ something in Eliot sort of, kind of, just…snaps.
He shoves himself to his feet, shuddering at the pain that shoots through his body with the sudden movement — being axed will do that to a person — and the magically produced music comes screeching to a halt with the sound of a record needle ripping away.
Eliot stares into the fire where the peach he has just thrown smolders gently without actually catching flame; it is too ripe and juicy to do anything but sit there, perfectly illuminated, mocking him.
peaches and plums
Eliot remembers being trapped in his own head while the monster had control.
He remembers visiting the throne room, and witnessing again how Quentin offered himself, body and soul.
He remembers the panic, surging behind his eyes and teeth; needing an excuse, an escape, because Eliot Waugh would never be worthy of love, and everything he did love ended up used and broken in the end. Because while Eliot was a miserable bastard who had done a lot of terrible shit in his life, he could never live with himself if he hurt Quentin, especially not like that.
And so Eliot remembers lying, and misdirecting, and losing his first true shot at happiness.
peaches and plums
But Eliot also remembers his promise.
Being stuck in your own head for what feels like years does a lot for your self-awareness, and after getting front row tickets to The Greatest Mistake of His Life, Eliot had made a promise — to both himself and Quentin.
To be brave. For them.
And so Eliot looks past the fire, into the dark, where he swears he can feel eyes on him. “Fuck this,” he half laughs half cries, under his breath. Are they really just sitting here having a memorial service for their friend — for Quentin — when they are fucking magicians? “Quentin Coldwater!” Eliot shouts into the night, and the others shift uneasily, unsure what is going on. “This. Is not your end,” he continues raggedly, desperately, lurching forward to snatch the peach from the flames. “So don’t you even fucking think for one second of moving on. Because I’m coming for you. And I’m bringing you back. And we —” he cuts himself off with a thick swallow.
“Eliot,” Margo murmurs, as Alice begins sobbing in the background, “You can't —“ But Eliot shakes off her hand and slowly begins his walk back to the physical kids’ cottage.
“I can,” he mutters to himself, breath catching with each painful step, “and I will.” He lifts the peach and takes a vicious bite, its blackened skin a bitter ash on his tongue, in stark contrast with the warm sweetness of its pulp.
x
Julia is the first to find him. Not that she had to look too hard — he made it as far as the wet bar and is now clutching a bourbon while considering his first steps.
“I’m in,” she says softly, simply, and Eliot smiles at her over his glass.
x
They are discussing the sewer dragon when Margo comes stumbling through the door, clearly drunk, probably belligerent, and Quentin loves her so much. “Let’s get that bastard,” she growls, stealing Eliot’s glass and chugging the rest of its contents in one go. “I slept with him once and destroyed his relationship; I feel like I owe it to him,” she smirks at the recycled excuse.
But Eliot can see the quiver in her lips, and the wetness in her eyes, so he pulls her into a hug with a sigh of, “Oh, Bambi.”
x
The rest soon follow, including Alice, who seems confused by the turn of events, if eager.
Eliot will worry about her later. Much later.
x
They don’t have any more buttons that are secretly portals, or any other powerful artifacts to trade, but they do have a shit ton of information gleaned by niffin-Alice. So a few sibilant curses about today’s youth, and one Secret to the Universe™ later, and the gang’s bodies are dropping to the floor while their souls ride the elevator to the afterlife.
Most of the gang, at least.
Margo threatened to dismember anyone who even suggested bringing Hoberman after just losing his gills, and Kady had two points of contention: one, running into Penny, and two, who would guard their helpless forms? Penny 23 argued much the same. So it is Eliot, Julia, Margo, and Alice who emerge into a nondescript office-space.
“This is hell?” Margo sneers.
“It’s more of a purgatory,” Julia takes in the familiar space with a small wrinkle to her nose.
“With this decorating?” Margo waves her hand, “Seems pretty hellish to me. And not even a vending machine. Cheap assholes.”
Eliot knows what she’s doing, of course. It’s what Margo always does when he feels the nerves and doubts setting in, his shoulders rising to his ears, hands fisting at his sides, and voice sticking in his throat.
A small huff of a laugh breaks through the fog in his lungs and he catches Margo’s hand for a quick squeeze. “A disaster of interior design,” he murmurs in agreement, catching the faintest uptick at the corner of her lips. He turns to Julia, then, who seems nervous but determined. “Lead the way.”
x
As they sneak their way through the underworld, creating distractions, running when they don’t work, Eliot considers their plan. He feels uncertainty clawing its way down his spine, wrapping around every breath and thought. Resolute, he shoves the negative feelings away. It’s true that their plan is shaky at best — not even a plan, really, more just a desperate handful of potentials — but they’ve operated under worse odds in the past. And for some reason, underneath the apprehension and fear threatening to rise to the surface of his forced composure, Eliot just knows.
This is going to work.
It has to.
x
Julia leads them to a giant manor filled with kids.
“Yuck,” Margo frowns, but Eliot is pretty sure he hears what sounds like contemplation in her tone. Now there’s a scary thought: Margo junior. Maybe he should warn Josh.
“Is this where…”Alice trails off, the first thing she’s really said since giving her secret to the dragon. Julia nods. This is where they found her shade.
At that, a small boy approaches them. “You!” he smiles, pointing to Julia.
“Me,” she smiles back. “Hello, again.”
“Why are you back?” he asks, squinting sideways at Alice.
“Actually,” Julia crouches down to be at eye level with the shade, “maybe you can help us with that. Again.” The boy nods solemnly.
x
Now that he is paying better attention, Eliot notices that there is a lot of black in the manor. Mirrors are covered, curtains are drawn; Eliot recognizes the emotion suffusing every room and hall that the boy leads them through, the air nearly viscous with it.
This is a house in mourning.
x
Hades looks tired.
And for a second Eliot suddenly feels terribly and horribly selfish.
Because he knows the unfairness of having lost the one person you love more than anything, while other people still get to be happy.
And he wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone.
And yet —
If there is even the possibility of a chance that he can get Quentin back, short of human sacrifice (and he might even have some wiggle room there (maybe especially if it involves Todd)), he’ll do it.
x
Hades is tired.
And sad.
And, more than that, defeated.
“What do you want?” he asks from the leather recliner where he rests, hands steepled, eyes closed and chin tilted towards the ceiling.
“I want,” Eliot trips forward, breath heaving, glass pressing, prickling behind his eyes and down his throat, “what you have lost.”
x
Persephone is dead; Our Lady of the Underground. So is Quentin; Q. But while the goddess’ soul is lost to the ether, the magician’s shade is somewhere, here, in the underworld.
A life debt, Eliot argues.
A spouse for a spouse.
Quentin avenged Hades’ loss, by throwing the monster and his sister into the seam.
Eliot is here to reclaim that debt: the return of his husband.
“Husband?” Alice splutters.
“We lived a life together,” Eliot says softly, softly, feeling like he might break if he speaks any louder. “We had a son.”
“So you had your time, human,” Hades cracks open a single eye, not moving from his pose. “Consider yourself lucky.”
“And you have had hundreds of life-times but,” Eliot cries, catching his fingers in his curls and tugging, tugging, because Hades has to understand, he must, that — “was it enough?”
Silence.
And then, splintered, “No. It will have never” — never, never, never— “been enough.”
Hope crests like a wave, beautiful, dangerous, threatening to drown Eliot if he is not careful. Hades sighs once, wind whipping the sea into a frenzy, and —
Eliot opens his eyes.
He is back in the dragon’s lair.
The wave crashes, and Eliot stifles a sob behind his hands. It didn’t work, it didn’t work, and this is it, he really is drowning, can feel his heart breaking, rocks and shells grinding into sand, into dust, until —
“Eliot?”
He turns, desperate, and — the sob escapes as he scrambles to his knees, crawling, reaching, and this —
This is happiness.
This is salvation.
This is everything Eliot never deserved, but everything he has ever wanted, and as he crushes Quentin to his chest, burying his nose in his neck and in his hair, he thinks he might now be dying. As he pulls back just enough to hold Q’s face in his hands, to smile through another sob as Q’s hands mirror his own, thumbs gently petting away the tears, Eliot thinks that this type of booming relief should be impossible.
And yet as Quentin looks at him with wonder and adoration in his eyes; as he brings their foreheads together and then their lips, a terribly soft caress, not even a kiss, Eliot is filled with the stunning realization that he has never felt more alive; that this — Quentin, here, in his arms — is real. And this, this is magic.
“You fuckers better get ready for the biggest wedding since Princess Di herself’s,” Margo drawls somewhere to their left.
Quentin breathes against Eliot’s mouth, tongue darting out to swipe teasingly at his lower lip, and Eliot’s breath hitches as his heart spins sideways. Quentin laughs, soft, before dragging Eliot forward, immersing him completely in tongue, lips and breath. He tastes so sweet, Eliot cries a little more, chasing the faint flavor of peaches and plums.