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maximusthewolfe · 5 years

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Peaches and Plums | 2/?

Back in Fillory, present day, Eliot struggles with the rush of memories from a life he apparently lived, even though he didn’t. But there’s a quest to be finished, a kingdom to be run, and a world with no magic to make it all infinitely more difficult. So what’s a High King to do when flashbacks won’t stop and Quentin just wants to move forward?

I wanted to play with all the empty spaces from THE scene in A Life in the Day, and explore the fallout from it in the present world that never really got shown. I hope you enjoy!

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“So, we need to use the ship, then, to find the fourth key,” Quentin explained, splaying the book on the windowsill before them.

He looked at Margo, not Eliot, and Eliot did his best not to take offense to that as he steadied himself. The intrusion of the memory (echo? Hallucination? What the hell was he supposed to call it anyway?) had set him off-balance, but he masterfully covered it by leaning casually against the cool stone of the hallway.

Margo stared at an expectant-looking Quentin for a few seconds before waving her hands in a wildly dramatic, dismissive gesture. “Wait, was that supposed to be a question? Seriously? Yes, yes, of course you can use the ship to go get the key we absolutely need if we want a chance at getting fucking magic back. Fuck, Quentin, did you seriously call a meeting for that?!”

Quentin’s gaze immediately fell to the floor, which only served to spur on Margo’s mood. “Q! El and I have a kingdom to run here. A kingdom that’s been High King-less for too long, I might add,” she said, aggravation heating the words. She turned her accusatory stare toward Eliot. Eliot put his hands up defensively. It wasn’t like the mosaic had been a fun vacation idea he’d thought up.

“Um, well, see, that’s the thing,” Quentin said, clearly more cautious with this stipulation than the previous one.

“What’s the thing?” Margo pressed when Quentin took longer than a beat to continue.

The mood in the hall was tense, nerves and irritation and urgency all mixing together into a vaguely suffocating thickness that coated the air around the three of them.

“I, uh, I kind of need El for this one,” Quentin said finally, and Eliot, who had been doing his best to look anywhere else suddenly snapped his attention to Quentin. Quentin, in turn, averted his eyes instantly to, well, anywhere else.

“I’m sorry,” Margo started, venom dripping from her words. It was only Eliot who caught the slight hint of insecurity lingering at the back of it. “You two just got back from abandoning your thrones while I was forced to marry a fucking child bride and you want to leave me alone to sort it out so you two can go play houseboat? Uh-uh, I don’t think so.”

Her tone was ice-cold and damn determined and Eliot had to admit, losing an eye to a fairy deal had been mostly a pretty terrible thing, but the ornate, outfit-coordinating eye patches really served to up her already astronomically high bad bitch factor.

“It’s not a want-to thing, it’s a need-to thing. From what I can decipher, this key isn’t a one-person kind of thing, and well, we still don’t trust Alice,” Quentin started on an explanation he must have anticipated having to give, because it flowed unusually well for a man who normally stumbled over everything when faced with the wrath of Margo. “And like you said, you’ve got an, uh, a bit of a marriage situation on your hands --”

He continued with his line of reasoning, and Eliot might have found it a little bit sweet, how hard Q was going to bat for him here but the younger man was still, pointedly, ignoring him. Eliot chanced a glance at Margo and was instantly glad he did because the “Are you fucking kidding me with this shit right now?” look she tossed his way was equal parts withering and entertaining, a patented Bambi combination he had come to deeply admire over the years. He felt a pang, a longing, an echo of how much he’d missed her in the mosaic world. He smirked in response, pressing his lips firmly together to repress what itched to turn into a full-blown smile and lifted his shoulders slightly in an “I know, but what are you gonna do? The kid has a point,” response.

The message was received, Eliot was sure of it by the way she huffed, turning her wither on full blast as Quentin wrapped up his soliloquy on why this key quest required Eliot’s presence.

“I’m still calling bullshit, and if I get out of this marriage without starting a war while you’re gone, I’ll be damned if you fuckers are gonna waltz back in here and take any credit for my exceptional leadership, but FINE. Take the Muntjac. Take Eliot. But please, for the love of whatever God isn’t actively trying to fuck with us at the moment, be reachable by bunny this time,” she conceded, begrudgingly, but with impressive grace.

Queendom suited her so well.

“Cool, um, great, thanks,” Quentin said, and Eliot nearly lost it at how obviously his former life partner had not expected to win.

“On what planet would I stand in the way of our best shot at getting magic back? Because I can count two for sure where the answer is obvious,” Margo retorted.

“Right, no, I know, I just – Thanks. Eliot,” Quentin said, finally, fucking finally, turning toward him, “Can you have Benedict pull us some maps?”

“Oh, so it speaks to me after all,” Eliot said spitefully, unfolding his arms from where they’d settled across his chest and rolling his upper back against the wall to push himself off of it. All it took was a single arched eyebrow from Margo before he dropped it. “Yeah, yeah. Maps, making it happen. Chop, chop, onward to Glory.”

“Great. Now that that’s settled, if you useless monarchs will excuse me, I have an infant husband to not fuck.” Margo turned and left the hall, her heeled boots clicking magnificently every step of the way. The woman could exit with just as much impact as she entered a room, maybe more, and that was saying something. Eliot made a mental note to declare a day in her honor or something if they survived all of this.

“Great, so, maps,” Quentin echoed, turning to follow Margo’s initial path. Eliot sighed, throwing his hands up in exasperation, following Q and calling for Benedict in one elegant, incredibly frustrated motion.

Not long after they sat in the same hall, surrounded by maps, the paper unfurled on the floor before them. Eliot sat, long legs folded beneath him as Quentin pointed to a dark area in the outer sea. Every time their hands almost touched, Eliot was painfully aware that it was the closest they’d been since they returned from, or were stopped from ever going to, their past-alternate life. Fuck, he was going to give himself a migraine if he kept trying to figure out the mechanics of what he remembered but apparently hadn’t lived.

“So, from what I can tell, the fourth key is somewhere in The Abyss. It’s this uncharted area outside of Fillory where it’s kind of…. permanently night,” Q explained.

“Do you really need me for this?” Eliot asked, unable to keep his focus when he had a million unanswered questions and Quentin’s shoulder kept brushing against his in a very distracting manner.

“I need another quester, yeah,” Quentin replied simply. Oh sure, now he was brief with his language.

“There are more of those than me, you know,” Eliot bit back.

“Uh, I – yeah. Do you not want to do this?” Quentin asked, and the way his brows knitted together to match the confusion in his voice made Eliot consider that maybe he wasn’t the only one struggling with the aftermath of the mosaic after all.

“No, no, I do. I’m just - a little surprised you do,” he admitted, keeping his eyes firmly on the maps in front of him.

“I just thought – I dunno, going on a boating quest together sounded good.”

Eliot couldn’t stop the small, self-satisfied smile that tugged the corners of his lips upward in that moment. It was far from an admission that mirrored anything near the violent tug of war in his head, but it was a start.

“Say no more El Capi-tan. Let’s go sail to some God-forsaken place where the sun literally never rises and get another key that does who-knows-what,” he said, a surprising amount of exuberance in his voice for the actual words he was saying. He jostled his shoulder against Quentin’s playfully, basking in the start he’d been given, “But, hey, we can do that thing on the bow of the ship you’ve always wanted to do,” Eliot said.

“What thing?” Quentin asked, confusion still lacing his words, this time in a way that made Eliot laugh. He shook his head, draping his arm around the shorter man’s shoulders casually, pulling him in and pressing an effortless kiss to the top of Q’s head. “You know, the thing,” he murmured knowingly, amused when Quentin’s expression remained firmly bewildered.

It took a moment before Eliot realized how much of his mosaic self had been in that familiar movement, but as soon as it hit him, he pulled his arm back to his side, clearing his throat and pointing to The Abyss again.

“Looks like about a 3-day trip on the Muntjac. We should get going. I just need to check on Margo before we leave.”

****

Three days. Three whole fucking days with just them and the boat’s crew, and they had somehow managed to talk about everything that wasn’t the only thing they needed to discuss. Now, as their boat headed into the edge of the overwhelming darkness of The Abyss, Eliot felt like the time for talking was over.

In his experience, these key quests hit a tipping point and maybe it was just a shot from the well-dressed hip here but floating into total darkness sure seemed like the point at which pedantic self-reflection was no longer a helpful use of time.

“Any idea where, exactly, in The Abyss we might find this key?” Eliot asked, glancing at Quentin as they helped the crew light lanterns. The illumination was quickly becoming necessary as the eternal night swallowed the boat whole.

Quentin rubbed the back of his neck nervously, which was never a good sign. “Is there really a way to know where you are in The Abyss? It’s just kind of…dark in all directions, right? I was kind of hoping for some sort of beacon or weird ringing that gets louder as we get closer or something,” he said sheepishly.

“Well tie me down and fuck me stupid,” Eliot muttered, only slightly pleased when his specific choice of words made Quentin jump just a little. “That’s putting an awful lot up to chance in a very important mission there, Q.”

“Yeah, maybe, I guess,” he trailed off, “But it’s not exactly like the book spells it out super clearly. Cryptic is kind of its thing if you hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Eliot said sarcastically, “I thought it was crystal clear last time. That was something I totally walked into willingly with all the cards on the table.”

Quentin, whose jaw had fallen open just slightly at the first almost-actual mention of the topic they’d both been avoiding, looked like he was trying really hard to come up with a suitable response. Eliot was surprised at the way his blood rushed through his ears while he waited.

“Do you hear that?” Quentin finally said, turning to look out at the water.

God, he really would do anything to avoid this, wouldn’t he? Quentin was the one who signed them up for being suck on a boat together, mostly alone, for days. Did he really expect Eliot to never bring it up?

“Very funny, Q. You know if you didn’t want to --” but Q had already rushed to the side of the boat.

Brow furrowing, Eliot turned his ear toward the water and he heard it, kind of. It was very faint, but it was enough to make him turn to Benedict. “Get me one of those…weird extendo-scope things that the pirates use in the movies,” he snapped his fingers and somehow, perhaps by sheer force of time spent deciphering Eliot’s Earth-isms, Benedict understood.

Eliot stepped forward to join Quentin at the side of the ship, and as soon as he was beside his fellow King, he heard it again. It was still faint, but the voice distinctly human, and distinctly calling for help.

“What the fuck?” he said, placing a hand on Quentin’s shoulder to pull him back from where he leaned over the edge, straining to see in the darkness. “Whoa there, cowboy. One unexpected wave and you’re Quentin, the Overboard instead of Quentin, the Fillorian King.”

As if on cue, Benedict arrived with the spyglass. Eliot grabbed it, extending it as he raised it to his eye. “There’s a chick out there,” he said. Quentin grabbed the spyglass from him and looked for himself. “Oh, shit. There is somebody out there.”

Eliot turned to Benedict, who was standing by looking confused and uncertain. “What are you doing?! You heard the man! There’s someone out there! We need a life preserver and a really long rope – now!”

Honestly, sometimes he wondered why he had royal helpers at all. To the pudgy man’s credit, as soon as he was ordered, he skittered into action, and with only a moderate amount of effort, and three ridiculous misses, they managed to pull the woman – average height and build, red hair, objectively nice breasts – onto the boat.

Quentin rushed to her side to make sure she was ok, but Eliot hung back, towel at the ready, observing the situation with the skeptical eyes of a High King who had seen too much bullshit to trust readily.

When the woman pushed away Quentin’s mother-henning, Eliot stepped forward, offering the towel. The woman accepted it, squeezing it over her hair first, examining her sopping clothes and seeming to decide they might be a lost cause. Eliot was sure they had something dry in the boat somewhere, as long as they decided she was worth keeping around, first.

“Thanks, guys, I was starting to wonder if anyone would ever find me out there,” the woman said as she toweled off as much of her as she could.

“And who is ‘me’ exactly?” Eliot asked, eyeing her warily.

“Oh, right, how rude of me,” she responded sarcastically. “I was just busy trying not to drown, my bad.” Okay, maybe Eliot liked her. Just a little. She extended her non-towel-holding hand to them both. “Poppy Klein. Brakebills, class of 2016, at your service.”

The look Eliot and Quentin shared then said one thing very loudly and very clearly: Holy shit. But before either of them could try and convey anything more complex without actually speaking, Benedict shuffled over, a rabbit in his arms.

“So sorry to bother you, my King, but High Queen Margo is requesting your assistance,” he said, nodding nervously toward the woodland animal that was sniffing the air around it rapidly.

“Eliot, help. Married a twat,” the rabbit bellowed. Eliot’s eyes widened a little, and he followed Benedict below deck, raking a hand over his face as he did. It was never just one thing at a time anymore. Oh, no clusterfucks seemed to come in threes these days.

After helping Margo devise a plan to keep the horny teenage mutant husband and the raging lunatic fairy queen at bay for just a while longer, all via 5-word bunny messages, Eliot headed out of his royal nautical chambers to see what the deal was with Missing Third Year Redhead Barbie and Refuses To Deal With His Non-Past Puppy-Eyed Ken.

He found them below deck in the open common area, where the rich tones of the wood that made up the Muntjac were only made warmer by the glow of the lanterns and the red light emanating from the ship’s heartwood. It was an impressively elegant ship, ornate in every way, which had always suited Eliot’s tastes very well. All of his royal trappings were extravagant, even when the kingdom was staring down the barrel of very serious bankruptcy, and honestly, Eliot appreciated that dedication to appearances. If both of his worlds were going to fall to shit at once, he at least wanted to look like he was keeping it together on the surface.

He stepped closer and saw that Quentin was holding something. Eliot’s breath hitched in his throat when he realized what the small golden thing was – the key. The key?! It couldn’t possibly be that easy, could it? Q looked as bewildered as he felt, but Poppy saw him first. She snatched the key out of Quentin’s hands.

“Hey High King,” she said with a smirk, tossing it across the space between them in his direction. “Catch!”

At the same time as Poppy tossed the key, Quentin’s eyes grew wide and he shouted “Wait, no, Eliot, don’t --”

Before he could finish his warning, the key landed in the palm of Eliot’s hand, and Eliot wrapped his fingers around it tightly, unwilling to lose what they’d come all this way to find.

“Touch it,” Quentin finished, defeat and fear marring each word as it came out of his mouth.

Eliot didn’t see what the big deal was until he looked up and found he was staring at a very smug, very mean-looking Eliot Waugh, and there wasn’t a mirror in sight.

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