(the umbrella academy au that no one asked for but won’t leave me alone. unfinished.... maybe i’ll keep going idk.)
he’s seen the dead his whole life, practically. for as long as he can remember, though as the years go on, the recollection of those years gets foggier and harder to hold on to. that’s mostly his fault, he’s willing to accept his hand in that. but what else is a young man to do when he’s forced to listen to the screams and dying wishes of ghost and ghouls for hours on end?
drugs and alcohol were an early retreat, one discovered very young, while his voice was still cracking between childhood and manhood, while his brothers were only focused on flirting with girls at school. he could find quiet, solace, a fucking break in those little pills or in another line or in five shots. eliot learned quickly (and through a lot of error, because what is life without suffering?) that this was the only way to make his life feel somewhat normal.
the years poured by, lost in a sluggish haze of self medicating and losing himself to the quiet darkness, the fuzziness that came with taking too much, the comfort that came with realizing that at least he was alone in his head. there was nothing spectacular about his life, about his power (if you could call it that, eliot would certainly call it a curse). there was no one to teach him how to control it, how to subdue it in healthy manners... there was nothing but making his high last to the next day, to tipping himself over into unconsciousness as he lost himself again and again and again.
(there was no reason to find himself, he’d decided. he knew who he was, what he was, and it was best he stayed lost.)
good fucking god, where had quentin coldwater come from? he had found him while eliot had laid sprawled in a park, half buried in a sandbox, surrounded by empty bottles and cigarettes smoked down to the filter. (he should care, shouldn’t he? how he looked, where he ended up, how he smelled. but what the fuck did any of that matter when you were outrunning the dead?)
‘um,’ the man says, edging towards where eliot is blinking confusedly up at him. ‘are you - are you okay?’ the sun is disgustingly bright and it’s hard to make out any of the stranger’s features until he’s almost eye level, squatting to peer at eliot more closely. his hair’s pulled into a bun and the amount of concern pouring out of him for a stranger is almost tangible.
for a moment, eliot’s convinced he’s a ghost. (but no, that comes later. much later, but too soon.) the man shifts, expression sharpening, and eliot does his best to sit up, brushing sand-covered hands over crusty eyes with a mix between a laugh and a moan. ‘is anyone truly okay?’
the stranger gives him the saddest smile then, brushing pieces of his hair back from where it has fallen in his face. (eliot is no stranger to attraction, no stranger to finding lust, or sex, or five minutes of sick companionship where he can find it but there’s a tenderness blooming in him at the sight that he can’t reconcile.) ‘fair point.. but uh - is a sandbox in central park really where you want to be right now?’ there’s no judgment in the words, just curiosity and concern.
eliot wants to kiss him, badly. even with his gritty lips and morning breath and hair that is more mop than style. eliot wants to kiss him, badly, for showing him even the smallest amount of attention. eliot wants to kiss him, badly.