asgardchrysalis | INTRO LOG + SKADI CURSE.

INTRO LOG + SKADI CURSE.

FEBRUARY INTRO LOG( FEB 16TH & 17TH )

february 16 ↴
INTRO: NEW WANDERERS' ARRIVAL!

Our batch of new Wanderers wake this morning, as all new Wanderers have before, on a plush bed with a mild but lingering sense of recent disorientation. Frigg greets them as per normal, though rather than outright escorting Wanderers to the front doors this time, she and Sigyn allow the Wanderers time and space to leave their bed, meet the pantheon, and even depart the palace at their own pace - but not without a warning. All Wanderers must choose a deity to tether to before dawn the next day, or else one of the gods will choose them. This is of grave importance, as that's precisely how long the magic giving them form is able to last untethered before the Mother's own magic overwhelms it.

(Though the gods are more than willing to allow Wanderers to leave, it's worth noting that many a castle servant - natives, born in this land - might see fit to intercede and insist on the choosing of a god before Wanderers step off the Gladsheim Palace grounds.)

Stepping outside, you're greeted by an almost bright and sunny day... Undermined thoroughly by a sharp, biting wind that permeates any small gap in your clothing. I bet the gods might give you a sweater, if you ask. It probably won't even look that absurd, depending on which one you ask. A trail of what seems like stringless balloons float at eye level from just outside the palace door, guiding Wanderers down the path to a notice board just outside the palace grounds. On this notice board, Wanderers find a brief handwritten guide to accessing the city map on their cuffs, specifically denoting the little colored house icons ( ⌂ ) to help Wanderers make their way to each god's housing.

Also on this board appear to be a variety of job listings, for those who want to get more involved in Asgard as a whole. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, shall we? There's more than enough time for that once you've chosen a god to tether to in the first place.

february 17 ↴
GOD CURSE: CHARACTER-BUILDING WITH SKADI.

The storm brewing within Skadi is hardly a secret. She was impatient during the gods' supposedly unanimous address, and in the days to follow, Sigyn (with all her desperately good intentions) tried to balm the irritation but only abraded the goddess further still. She attended the Wanderers' arrival purely by the letter of her duty and swept back out the doors as soon as that duty released her, and since then she's been holed up in her temple, her pointy-faced statues positioned just outside as sentinels meant to intimidate mortals away.

They dared to tell her that she does nothing. Nothing for the Wanderers, that is. Nothing to help them grow and self-actualize, as if these 'Wanderers' are so much more important than Asgard itself, which weakens by the day as her fellow gods fling their magic about to overprotect the Wanderers, or even to satisfy their whims. The consensus to draw back some of that wasteful protection would have pleased her, if she weren't so thoroughly fixated on the slight that preceded it.

They want her to help the Wanderers self-actualize? So be it. There's no better way, truly, than to confront and overcome the ways in which you're flawed.

So the morning after arrival day, many Wanderers wake up with a stinging, itching spot somewhere on their body. Maybe their arm, maybe their back, maybe their throat. In that spot, as it turns out, is a set of words in a deep ruddy brown (almost like old blood) under their skin as if tattooed in place. But these aren't just any words - they prey directly into the Wanderer's fears, their regrets, their insecurities, and their mistakes. They're facing down some of the worst things they've ever thought or feared about themselves.

The other gods, of course, are eager and willing to try to relieve the poor Wanderers of these cursed marks... but they find that it's not quite so easy. Wanderers who seek a god's removal of the words find that not only do the words remain, but a new set appears: Flees the truth.

But that's fine = For most Wanderers, these words disappear on their own in a day or two. A handful of unlucky souls find that their marks linger indefinitely, or seem to disappear but return at truly inopportune occasions down the line.

MOD NOTES

This is the February intro log and Skadi's curse, our mini-event for this month!

Skadi's curse is is entirely opt-in - not all Wanderers are affected - and is detailed more fully in the 'This Month's Events' section of the February Bulletin, and you're welcome to direct any follow-up questions to the Bulletin's mod questions top-level.

You've also likely noticed that god jobs are now live! The listings themselves can be found here (same link as within the 'arrival' prompt), with a brief FAQ featured over here.

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Quentin lets Eliot take his hand as easy as breathing. Allowing himself to be tugged forward and falling into step alongside the other man as he dares to curl his own fingers around Eliot's in return. The whole interaction sending a thrill through his person, how easy it is, how natural. How much he's missed this.

How much he has missed Eliot.

"When you say fun...?" Quentin questions, glancing aside to Eliot and raising a questioning eyebrow.

"You did go to a regular undergrad, didn't you?" he asks. Suddenly unable to recall the answer, if they'd discussed the topic before or not. Though honestly, leave it to someone like Eliot to cheat the system.

There's a rush of giddiness at having Quentin's hand in his, feeling so solid and warm. It helps keep him from trying to poke holes in everything, desperately looking for where the seams were of this world were frayed. For as much as Eliot wants to trust in that Quentin is really is, he's also struggling to do so.

Eliot laughs at the questions, swinging their joined hands briefly as they walk together. "I mean, the sloppiest make-out sessions of your life in rooms barely fit to be called closets," he explains. He has plenty of terrible memories of taking dudes back to his room that had all the grace and skill of a fucking dying fish. It was truly bottom of the barrel.

But Quentin was interested in more than that, wasn't he? Asking about what school he went to before Brakebills. Had he told him before? He thinks he must have, probably while also generously refilling a glass of tequila for Quentin.

"Yea? What it's to you where I went, Coldwater?"

Quentin tilts his head to the side for a moment, trying to recall whether his room even has a closet, uncertain whether Eliot is saying it just to get a rise out of him or whether he actually means it. It's been a while since they've been alone together. And Eliot hadn't been all that forward with him in that time between.

He flashes a smile at Eliot, raising his eyebrows at him at the question before replying, "Because I was about to say, what kind of a dorm do you think this is, anyway?"

Brakebills itself had been anything but a traditional University life situation, what with the Physical kids dorm essentially being a house, not to mention Breakbills South. If it had been Eliot's only experience of higher education, with its large open rooms and full-sized beds, then he'd obviously didn't understand the 'joys' of dorm life at all.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Eliot had gone to a regular, non-magical college before taking the entrance exam for Brakebills. He had even graduated. Not that that actually meant all that much, but Eliot was chalking it up to be an achievement anyway. Sometimes ,it's important to celebrate the mundane things.

There are accomplishments other than risking his or a friend's neck to save the world.

"Don't worry, I went to a real school. I'm more than a pretty face," he helpfully informs Quentin. He makes a loose pointing gesture with his free hand, underlining the statement casually. It's already getting a little easier for him to start to relax, slowly trying to let go of the idea that Quentin was going to disappear into thin air at any moment.

He offers Quentin a smile.

"Where's your excitement? I'm promising you a lot over here."

Of course it's an achievement! But it isn't too surprising that Eliot would have graduated, if he did go. Quentin knows that Eliot is smart, and it's not just because everyone who attends Brakebills is too. He had been a king after all! And a pretty good one, if you ask Quentin himself about it.

Quentin snorts softly in response to Eliot's gesturing at his face, glancing aside at him again and raising an eyebrow at him in turn.

"I know you, Eliot," he teases. "Why don't you hold off on those promises until you know what exactly it is you're getting yourself into." Odinhaus dorms really are the shoebox that Quentin is making them out to be.

If Quentin's proof of intelligence was going to be whether or not someone had been a king, they probably needed to have some impromptu history discussions in which Eliot illustrates how misguided such a thought truly is. Especially in regards to Eliot, who had quite frankly been a piss-poor high king. There was even a bit of a play about it.

It was insulting, but not entirely wrong.

"Oh, I know exactly what I'm getting myself into," he tells him with a quick point of a finger. He gives Quentin's hand a short, little tug. Thankfully, his tinyhouse was already starting to come into view. He's going to put better meaning behind those words very shortly.

"But do you?"

Eliot sells himself short. He always has. But they're not arguing this right now, and so Quentin glances up, following the line of his pointing towards the little house in the distance.

Otherwise ignoring Eliot's ribbing entirely. It's easier not to overthink whether he means it or not if he just doesn't let himself think about it at all.

"Is that it?" he asks, looking surprised. Despite the fact that he had known what to expect, he's still somewhat taken aback by the idea that Eliot had received a whole house to himself, tinyhouse or not. "It looks -- cute. From what I can see from here, anyway."

Admittedly, Eliot was hoping to get a little more out of Quentin than a quiet dismissal. Some more playful banter, maybe, or some of that time-honoured Quentin-Brand flirting. That would have been fun, but it doesn't deter him any. No, not when things are still at a weird place and Eliot is still desperately trying to pretend like things aren't incredibly fucking dire.

Dire in his need to confirm a hundred or more things with Quentin, dire in his need to put his hands all over him, and dire in his need just to know that he wasn't going to vanish like a wraith in the night. Eliot swears, honestly swears, that he might burn this place to the ground if that were to happen.

"That's the one," he confirms easily. He picks up the pace just a bit, eager to go ahead and introduce it to Quentin. If it seems like Quentin is getting a little dragged then that's just an unfortunate side effect. "It's better inside. Little less 'ticky-tacky'."

Little boxes on the hillside, little boxes made of ticky-tacky, and all the same. That sort of shit.

"Somewhat, anyway."

It's been a long couple of months for Quentin, without Eliot. Long, terrible months of blood and fear, uncertainty that Eliot had even been alive through a grand portion of it, and then desperation when he had realized he had been and the Monster had held him hostage throughout it all. For better or worse, that time had changed him. And whether Eliot realizes it yet or not, it's only been a day for Quentin himself.

One very long, very confusing day.

Quentin finds himself tripping along attempting to keep pace with Eliot's longer, lankier pace, tightening his grip on Eliot's hand to be certain he keeps up.

"God forbid that you have to fit the mold," he teases. Or tries to, anyway.

There's a quiet little laugh at that, slightly amused but entirely fond. It's nice. Nice that Quentin is trying along with him, trying to make this seem a little normal and not heart breaking. Distantly, he wonders just how long either of them will be able to succeed in keeping it up.

It'll probably be him, Eliot thinks.

"Oh, I know," he tells him with something of a loose smile playing on his face. Then he points a finger reassuringly towards Quentin. "Thankfully that'll never happen. I plan to make some much needed updates." He's not entirely sure how he's going to go about it, but it should be easy enough. Who ever had that hard of a time redecorating?

There's only a few more steps before they arrive at the door, where Eliot wastes no time in getting it open and ushering Quentin inside to the relative safety behind its walls. As safe as he felt this place was going to get anyway (read: not much).

Quentin takes a moment to step forward into the little house as Eliot ushers him forward, glancing around curiously as he does so. It's -- cute, really. With its lofted bedroom and studio kitchen/living room. He isn't certain it's exactly the kind of place that Eliot would have chosen for himself, but it's private, and compared to his little dorm room? It might as well be a palace.

He turns back to Eliot, flashing him a smile in return.

"So. Are you gonna give me a tour?" he asks, well aware that he can probably see most of the place from where he stands in the doorway.

A tour wasn't exactly on his agenda. If Quentin really wanted to get the experience of being led around his tinyhouse, Eliot would offer it to him. Just not right now. He had a very different goal in mind for the immediate.

"I would," he begins as he starts to carefully unwind his fingers from around Quentin's. It's a slow, deliberate thing to show that he isn't pulling away from Quentin himself, not this time. Not again. His hands drift to the outside of Quentin's arms, tracing over the lines of his sleeves to feel the shape of him.

"If there were more to show."

It also isn't exactly as interesting as the person in front of him. Eliot's hands travel up, up, up to relearn the dip of his shoulders and the soft skin of his neck.

"You feel real," he says underneath his breath, a touch of awe and longing wrapped around his words.

Edited 2020-03-31 19:18 (UTC)

Quentin smiles at Eliot as he steps forward to him, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he watches Eliot's face. Following the track of his gaze as Eliot seems to study him in return. Touching him, running his hands over his arms, settling on his neck, and Quentin moves to place his hands on Eliot's hips to brace himself close in return, trying not to shiver in response to the gentle touch.

He flashes a soft and slightly uncertain smile at Eliot at that comment though, tightening his hold on him as he asks in reply, "Was there a question of that?"

They'd been doing pretty good, pretending that things were normal between them after all. There had been cracks, of course. But this really is his first private glimpse underneath Eliot's facade.

It's delicate. The way that Eliot touches Quentin now is terribly delicate, gentle in a way that's unusual for him—it's almost like he's touching glass, afraid that the slightest amount of pressure or shift in temperature might cause Quentin to crack and shatter. He's not really slept since they got here, too worried about losing the illusion or the dream or whatever this was exactly.

He wants it to be real, wants it to be everything it's being presented as, but he's choking on his own fear that it isn't. It would make more sense, wouldn't it? For this to be some dream brought on by an excess of drinking and grief? If it wasn't, wouldn't Alice or Julia have already clawed their way to the depths of hell or further to bring Quentin back to them? Wouldn't he?

He swallows, throat tight.

"Yes," Eliot admits. He doesn't want to elaborate, but it's been a constant question on his mind. He thinks about that as he edges Quentin backward, pushing his back towards the door, forcing him to be still and remain in place. He does feel real, real and strangely alive underneath Eliot's touch, and despite everything hope still tingles underneath his skin as his fingers dance over Quentin's neck. They trace along the strong line of his jaw, lingering for a breath or two, before moving to tenderly cup his face against the palms of his hands.

"I've really wanted. . . To see you again," he continues. If his voice catches a little as he says that, it's better not to think about it. He's fine, he's still composed.

"I meant what I said before."

About peaches and plums.

Eliot may not want to acknowledge that catch in his voice, but Quentin certainly hears it. He hears it and he catches the way that Eliot is looking at him. The way that he's touching him, cupping his face between his hands and holding him there.

"What you've said?" he asks. Quentin steps closer and slides his arms around Eliot's waist. Not sure how to respond at first. Not sure what to make of that expression on Eliot's face nor the words he is saying.

They have said a lot of things to each other. It's hard to place just what exactly Eliot's referencing. Especially when he hasn't seen him in so long, hasn't spoken to him. What is before and when does it mean to Eliot, he wonders.

He supposes he should answer at least that much and start with the most basic of truths.

"I've missed you, El," he says, softly.

Eliot has had a lot of regrets in his life, there were so many things that he hadn't handled correctly or had lost the opportunity for. It felt a little insurmountable sometimes, but nothing gnawed at him like his failure to accept Quentin's offer. An offer of a relationship, a life together, and for a happiness that they knew they could find in one another. Eliot hadn't said "yes" then, had shied away from it like a bitch-ass coward, and let it slip through his fingers. He had told himself so many things to justify it, given so many excuses for it, but—

It was still a mistake.

"Fifty years, Q," he tells him. Fifty years they spent together happy and whole, content with their sickeningly sweet domestic bliss, and eager to be absolutely nowhere else. Who gets proof of concept like that? Who gets told so outright that their love could work and work so upsettingly well? Quentin had been right about it, right about every part of it, but it was Eliot who was still afraid. Real life and life in another timeline were very different things, after all.

One of his hands shifts forward, sliding through Quentin's hair to rest at the back of his head, cradling him. "Me too," he says, whispered out as he leans down to press a kiss against the top of Quentin's head.

"I've missed you so much," he admits.

Oh.

Quentin's eyes fall shut in response to the kiss. Snaking his arms around Eliot's waist and leaning forward against him, fitting himself against Eliot's chest. He's not quite certain whether he's holding Eliot or whether he's holding himself against him, but he isn't certain it matters just now. Not when Eliot sounds so--

Tightening his arms around Eliot's waist, Quentin realizes a few things at once. The first being that he doesn't know whether Eliot means that he's missed him during the time that he was stuck in his head -- the time that he was the Monster -- or... Quentin swallows thickly, uncertain quite how to broach the subject of his death with Eliot himself. As far as he's concerned, it had only happened yesterday, but. If he's learned anything about magic and world-traveling, it's never as simple as that.

"I'm sorry, El," he says softly.

The answer to the question is an emphatic "yes, all of the above". Eliot has been missing Quentin long before the Monster had even come into play. He had begun to miss him just hours after turning him down, feeling a burning ache in his chest, and the feeling had only grown as time passed. He hadn't exactly spoken to Quentin again after all that. The next and final time that he had gotten a chance to say anything to him was when he had wrestled control from the Monster briefly to make it clear that he was still alive in his own body.

Depressing.

God, just the reminder of it made him feel ill all over again.

"You should be," he mutters, but loud enough to hear with their current proximity. "You stupid asshole."

The hand not tangled in Quentin's hair drops, falling around his shoulders to hold him closer to him.

In all fairness, Eliot had been the one to turn him down. But Quentin had been the one to leave. He had had a perfectly legitimate reason, of course! The quest for the keys had been important. Magic itself was on the line, and Eliot himself had given him his blessing. He'd had a kingdom to run, after all, he couldn't very well come on an adventure with Quentin, even if he'd wanted to, which Quentin hadn't been entirely sure he did. Not at the time anyway. Not with Eliot's rejection still weighing so heavily in his heart. But they had spent fifty years together. A whole lifetime. If Eliot didn't want him anymore, then...

But no. If he hadn't wanted him, then why had he brought it up again later. In that one perfect moment of clarity, just when he and Alice were set to try and kill the Monster (and Eliot) for good. It had been their proof of concept, after all. Fifty years together. Fifty years. They had had a family, a son for fuck's sake. There shouldn't be any questioning it.

Quentin should never have let him go.

He has so many questions. There are so many things left unsaid between the pair of them, that need to be said. So many questions that need to be answered. Quentin tips his head forward against Eliot's shoulder, letting out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. Eliot's arms solid and warm around him. A familiar position they'd fit themselves into countless times before. One that he never thought he'd find again.

It takes Quentin a few moments to string some semblance of coherency together, and when he does he pulls back just enough to be able to look Eliot in the face, his eyes troubled and searching.

"Did it work?" he asks, frowning as he looks Eliot over, his hands shifting unconsciously on his back as he does. "Is he --?" But the question dies as he realizes that Eliot had been, when he had last seen him, bleeding out on the forest floor. And they had traveled him back to Brakebills but with everything that had been going on...

Quentin shifts a hand to press against Eliot's stomach, the touch tentative and uncertain, but he hadn't been acting injured this whole time. And it wouldn't have healed that quickly. He glances up at him again, a question in his eyes as he simply asks, "Eliot?"

Did it work?

Eliot knows exactly what it is that Quentin is asking him now, looking up at him with nervous and unsure eyes, and he has no idea how he is supposed to respond. How is he supposed to have this conversation? How is he supposed to tell him what happened? How was he supposed to tell the only person in this world that he knew he was meant to be together with that he had fucked it all up and died? Did Quentin even remember what he did? Eliot doesn't know. He can't piece together any sort of answer from the brief period that they have been together here and he's terrified to. He's terrified of the answer and for what sort of revelation that it might be.

Or that it might break the magic and Quentin will be gone.

"I'm fine," he says, the words terse and his throat unbearably tight. He is fine, as fine as he's going to be, but he doesn't want to admit to Quentin or possibly anyone else that the Monster might still be lurking within him. Still in him and eager to get out, haunting Eliot whether awake or asleep. That much, he won't say. He needs to say something else, anything else, and try to answer Quentin with some degree of composure.

"It's—" he starts, then immediately stops. His face feels hot and he can't calm the thoughts in his head. Quentin's questions had felt like a sledgehammer to an already splintering dam and Eliot's face finally cracks. Misery washes over his face, raw and honest. "It's been a while. It's been so long and it hasn't gotten any easier," he tells him. He knows it is a mistake, but he cannot stop the words from falling out of his mouth or the way his arms tighten further around Quentin's shoulder to pull him flush against him.

If he holds him tight enough, maybe he won't disappear.

"You're still gone. I don't know if I'll ever be able to deal with that."

Edited 2020-04-06 18:11 (UTC)

Quentin can hear it in Eliot's voice, even before the moment he starts to crack. I'm fine, he says, and he knows that it's a lie. Maybe the wound has been healed, however long ago it has been, but Eliot doesn't sound fine. He doesn't feel fine. Not with the way his arms tighten around his shoulders, not with that sound in his voice.

"Eliot..." Quentin says, shifting his hands further up his back. Moving to rest a hand on the nape of his neck, and the angle is awkward with their height difference but he doesn't care. He doesn't care.

It's strange, maybe. To be comforting someone else. He's the one who had died, after all. It had only really been yesterday, in the grand scheme of things. But he doesn't really feel any different. And other than the stress and terror building up to the moment, he can't say that it had even really hurt. He had known what he was doing, and he had known what would happen, and he'd done it anyway, because... Well. What other choice did he have? How else could he have ended it, really, truly ended it, all the pain and the fear and the suffering for all of them, if not for that?

It's what he'd like to think went through his mind in the moment, anyway. He's had a small amount of time to process since then, and he'd like to think his intentions were so noble as that. It had all happened so fast...

But he'd never meant to hurt Eliot. It had been for him, he knows it had been for him. To keep him safe. To destroy the Monster and his sister, and to keep Everett from ever harming him again. It had been the only way. The only way.

Hadn't it?

"Hey," he says softly, squeezing his hand against the back of Eliot's neck. "It's okay. I mean... It's really not, but. I promise that I -- it is me." Fighting to find some way of proving it before settling on their code words, of sorts.

"Peaches and plums, El," he tries. "I'm right here."

None of this should be happening.

Not a single moment of it. Eliot shouldn't be here in a place called Asgard, ruled by an entirely different set of gods, he shouldn't be here with Quentin out of all possible people, and he shouldn't be tucked away in the entrance of his supposed new home, holding onto him as if he were the only real thing he's ever known. Deliriously, Eliot thinks that maybe he is. Maybe nothing has been real at all since he died.

He laughs despite himself, breathless and painfully bitter. "It's never going to be okay, Q." Not now, not in ten to twenty years, not ever. There will always be a hole left in his life that Quentin was supposed to fit into, that no one other than Quentin could fit into. There weren't any other answers or alternatives or some secret little method that no one was supposed to know, but could fix everything.

A part of Eliot would always be empty.

"Is it really you?" He asks in the next breath, his grip thoughtlessly tightening around Quentin's shoulders. Even if Quentin was fake, an impostor, or literally anything else, Eliot knows that he would still want to hold him just the same. The only thing that mattered to him was that it felt (mostly) like how he remembered. "It shouldn't be. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't—"

Be alive.

Although, he thinks in a real degree of seriousness, that he would willingly blow whatever god responsible for it if it were true. If he's really here. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. He'll give them anything they want for it, so long as he gets to take Quentin back with him. Hell, he'd even just live here if he had to. He could make it work.

He could.

"It doesn't matter," he says, decisive, as he leans downward uncomfortably to press his cheek against the top of Quentin's head. "You don't have to be real. I just—I just need you to be here for a little longer."

If forever isn't an option.

"Please."

Quentin can feel panic beginning to creep into his chest, even as Eliot continues to cling to him. The truth is that he's not really certain how to convince him that he's real, not when he doesn't know any better than Eliot why he's there, or how. By all accounts and purposes he should be dead. And if Eliot's lived that reality for... However long it's been, Quentin doesn't want to think about it, then. But it really was only yesterday for him.

And it does matter! It certainly matters to Quentin himself.

"Eliot," Quentin begins, tightening his grip on him before moving to pull away enough to be able to look at him. Narrowing his eyes slightly, both in confusion and frustration, if he's being honest with himself.

"Look, I don't. I'm not going to even begin to pretend I understand what's going on here," he says. "No," he agrees. "I shouldn't be here. I should be dead. Is that what you want me to say?" Against his better judgment, Quentin finds himself growing a little angry about the whole thing. Though whether it's at Eliot's denial or at himself for what, effectively causing this whole mess that Eliot has become, he can't yet say for certain.

"I should be dead," he says again. "I knew what I was doing, and I knew that's what would happen, and yes. I did it anyway and fuck," he continues, his voice cracking ominously, "I'm. I'm so sorry, El, but I couldn't -- it was the only way...!"

He stops himself, his emotions becoming too raw to hold in for the moment, pressing his lips together tightly as he shakes his head again. Hoping Eliot understood, understands, will understand where he was coming from. Where he is coming from.

"I should be dead," he says again, once he can get enough control on his voice to keep going, "but one moment I'm -- " He swallows thickly, not quite sure he can get the words out to describe just what it felt like, for the magic to take him like that. "One moment to the next, I find myself here. And I'd be placing my bets on limbo except I have been to the Underworld, so I don't."

He swallows again, wetting his lips. "I don't fucking know where we are or why we're here, Eliot. Why I'm here. But we're both here. Both of us, El. Can't we just. Try not to question that too hard, for now?"

They've been through so much, and had it taken away from them. All he wants is this. Eliot. For as long as he gets to, this time around.

For Eliot, there is never going to be a good enough explanation to justify the decisions that Quentin had made. He is never going to accept that the only way to solve that situation was for him to sacrifice himself. There had, had to have been some other answer, some other solution, or at least another life that could have been given.

Anything other than this. Anything other than letting Quentin die and being forced to accept it.

Anything, anything, anything. Anything at all.

He doesn't want to discuss this, knows it so firmly that it hurts when Quentin starts to talk and he can feel a scream bubbling up within him. It feels like fire licking at his insides, searing and overwhelming. If they start to talk about this in earnest, he will start screaming and he doesn't know if he will be able to stop. He doesn't want to yell, he doesn't want to argue, and he definitely doesn't want to tell Quentin that he would have rather died than have to keep living as he is. As empty as he feels.

"Q," he says, trying to interrupt him before he thinks to say anything else about it. The only thing that Eliot agrees with is that they shouldn't question it too hard and appreciate the fact that the both of them are currently in the same place together. Temporarily, maybe, but it was something.

"Stop," he tells him in the next breath. Don't explain it, don't keep talking, don't do anything else.

Just—

His hands shift, pulling away from Quentin's shoulders to curl around the back of his neck and along the side of his face. The touch is still just as careful as he has been, trying not to impose too firmly on him in case this isn't what he wants. In case, Quentin wanted to decline after all the things that were said before. Eliot tilts his face upwards, just enough for him to lean down to press a soft kiss against his lips.

Quentin does stop, but not because Eliot tells him to. It's because Eliot's hands are on his face, his touch so gentle, so careful. Holding him like some delicate thing that might break if his fingers clutch too tight.

He meets Eliot's gaze for the briefest moment, those beautiful hazel eyes of his, as Eliot reaches to tilt his head up to press a kiss against his lips. And it's soft and gentle, and Quentin loves it, he loves Eliot. But he isn't made of glass, and he won't break.

So he reaches to wrap his arms more firmly around the other man and presses more firmly into the kiss. Arching into it in the effort to pull Eliot further down to meet him. If he won't believe the words he gives him, then at least believe his actions. Believe this.

Believe in him, Eliot. Don't make him beg.

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