Quentin could not believe how painless death was. When it had happened it had gone so fast for him he had barely even realised it. The spell had been cast, the magic bounding from the walls like a magical rain of golden sparks. And he had seen everything slow down before his eyes. Alice’s face, Penny’s voice, it all seemed surreal to him as if it was just a dream.
Even when he’d suddenly found himself in that elevator, facing the original Penny it hadn’t quite sunk in yet. The talks afterward however had made everything so painfully real that he had felt as if he would suffocate. He had truly died, left his friends behind without knowing if they were alright or not. His first thoughts were to them, and then had come the questions about himself. Had he sacrificed himself, or had he finally taken the step he’d wanted to take for ages already?
He’d been given the answer to that in what Penny called the ‘deluxe package’, seeing his friends say goodbye to him at the bonfire, the song touching his heart and once again taking away all the air in his lungs. And then had come that one voice, the voice he was so attuned to, the voice who he’d grown used to in the lifetime they’d lost.
Quentin had never truly spoken out about it, except that one time, but he had fallen for the other magician long ago. He’d fallen for his sense of humour, his flair, his imperfect perfection. Eliot, the one he’d crushed on but had thought to replace by Alice but always managed to worm his way back into his heart. They hadn’t even seen each other after the monster had been drawn from him, and knowing he had left him without saying those vital words killed him.
Eliot’s voice was the last he heard when Penny took him back to the underworld, Eliot’s voice was what echoed through his mind like a mantra as he’d passed through the door and it was what he 'woke’ to and fell 'asleep’ to in his new excuse of a life. In a way it was even more miserable than his actual life had been, since at least then he had not been filled with that much regret.
Days, weeks, months seemed to have passed in this new life, and every now and then he had been drawn to that door he’d come through when he’d left Penny behind. It was again after a night of dreamless sleep that he stood before it, waiting as if he was going to miss an important appointment of he dared step away.
The door opened, brown eyes met, and for a moment Quentin wondered if he was perhaps still asleep but that he had begun dreaming of the one that got away. I have been looking everywhere for you. In his rational mind he knew this could not be real,… He was dead, there was no way for Eliot to just find him like that as if he were visiting a friend. And yet, what is ever rational when it comes to emotions? After remaining silent for a moment or two, he took a step closer and without even planning to do so he’d wrapped his arms around him, holding him close. It felt so familiar, so good that it took him a while before he finally managed to speak up.
“Eliot, I knew you’d come for me… It’s all been like a dream but I could feel it.” He stopped speaking, thinking that he’d say too much or ramble if he didn’t stop there. So he just held on to him and closed his eyes, inhaling his scent as if it would reassure him that this was real. “You smell like smoke.”
There was something very important Eliot had to tell Quentin. A truth so important it almost caused him physical pain that it was still living inside him instead of being out in the world. There was also a problem. Eliot couldn’t remember what it was he needed to tell Quentin.
He knew he had thought about it for weeks, months maybe. Time was a bit fussy for him, breaking out of the hold the monster had on him. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed in total or since he had managed to surface to tell Quentin he was alive. Nobody had told him and he hadn’t asked yet.
The moment Quentin hugged him, Eliot hugged back tightly and he knew it didn’t matter for now. Neither of those things really mattered now. Whatever it was it would come back. All that was important was that he had found Quentin and that he held on to him.
Why was he terrified of letting go?
“Come for you?” Eliot asked with the light air of confusion of someone who wanted to hide how confused they really were. Why would he have to come for him? Right, he was looking for him, he had just said it himself.
Eliot shook his head gently and the confusion vanished, melting away like fresh snow under the scrutiny of his intense dislike, bright as the winter sun. For the briefest of moments, he deemed himself safe in a happy that existed only in isolation. Then Quentin said something very odd.
You smell like smoke.
The words punched the memory back into his sleep-deprived, dreaming brain. He smelled like smoked because there had been a fire. A bonfire. Because Quentin was dead.
Eliot inhaled sharply and held his breath, the sting of tears in his eyes blurring his vision at the edges. He was asleep, he realized, the thought distant like it was a far-off island on the horizon of the sea. He had to be asleep because there had been a fire and Quentin was dead. That was what had been bothering him. Dreams only felt real in blissful ignorance.
“There was a...,” Eliot trailed off, throat closing on the word funeral. “fire.
God, I wish you were real.” Eliot expected Quentin to say something about how he wished he was real, as well. How he wished he was here with him, too. So, naturally, that was what was going to happen and had to happen, thinking back to the vague idea about this being a dream he still had — he had that sometimes and was confident in his own ability to control his dreams once he was aware of them on the level he was now. It had to happen because this was not Quentin, this was his overactive imagination giving him exactly what he was yearning for.
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