logsinthenight | I once believed love would be burning red

characters: Quentin Coldwater and [SO VERY OPEN]
location: Around Beacon
date/time: Most of January
content: Quentin has a sad, and a lot of wine
warnings: Drunken shenanigans, sadness, more to be added

Jan. 01st - Jan. 06th. The cabin.

[Eliot is still dead.

He checked.

The bed hasn't been slept in, and there's still too many fancy shirts in the closet. Except for the one Quentin is clutching in his fist, the fabric all but ruined from being crushed and fiddled with for days. From being slept on.

He raises the bottle and takes a deep swallow of cheap wine, head tilted back and some of it runs from the corner of his mouth and down to the already-spreading stain his hoodie.

Fuck it. It's not like it matters anymore. The only one who's seen him so far is Riku, or Quentin thinks it's Riku. There are hazy memories of a lot of wine and something silver at the edge of his vision, offering food. It could have been a dream, though.

Fuck that too. Because Eliot is dead and they're not going to see each other again, because who the fuck knows what happens to people who stop being here. Maybe they wink out of existence. Maybe they go home. Maybe this is all a fucking big joke, to see how they'll all react to the dark and to the horror.

Classic dick move from a God.

Quentin settles down on the floor, back resting against the couch and he keeps drinking until there's a knock on the door]

What!?

Jan. 07th- ?? (when the booze runs out?). The Invincible.

[He didn't want to do this, didn't want to leave the familiar cabin and treck across Beacon in the freezing cold, but there was no wine left and even Eliot's stash of the better kind of alcohol was gone. In a week.

Maybe he should be worried. Maybe he should scream at the disapproving looks he just knows Julia would level his way, if she knew. You're better than this, Q and he didn't hate his name so much when it was her saying it.

Perched on the edge of a stool at the bar at the Invincible, Quentin slams back another shot of-- something? It could be wine, doled out in small glasses to make it go further. It could be fucking antifreeze and it would still be a lot better than the wine he had in Fillory after Alice died.

Like Eliot died.

Everyone just keeps dying around him and-- really, Quentin gets it. Hell, he even did it himself just to get away. Too bad he's stuck with himself now. Stuck in the bar, too, since the outside is a white-out of snow and freezing winds howling around every corner.

His elbow slips off the counter and he smacks his face in to the bar with a dull thump, leaving a red mark at the center of his forehead and Quentin just shrugs and toasts whoever is closest.]

Cheers! Bottoms up, right?

January ?? After the blizzard. The Invincible- the kitchen

[Right. So. There were still things to do. Still people to help and he'd even made a half-assed promise to someone. It could have been less than a promise, but more than a suggestion.

Whatever it was, it was enough to make Quentin slam down the empty glass on the counter and make his unsteady way to the back of the Invincible. There was a kitchen back there somewhere.

Kitchen means food, and it means not dying when the noises start or worse, throwing up. But. He's up for it. He's so up for it, and really? How hard could it be? All he has to do is chop things and wash things. Quentin is so down for washing things.

There's a loud crash as he stumbles to the sink, already pulling his sleeves up past his elbows, with red wine on every exhale and a little too much slur to his voice.]

Okay, so. Yeah, 'M here. Where-- uh, oh. So, where do you want me to start?

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Talk about what?

[Even as he turns away to rest both elbows on the counter, the glass of wine held in a white-knuckled grip and Quentin hangs his head, the still too-short hair hanging down like curtain, because it's still too short to stay behind his ears no matter how hard he pulls on it.]

There's nothing else. I think I drank it? There's just wine now and it's fine.

About why you're drinking other people's share of the alcohol. I hate wine. [She grimaces even as she tries to keep her tone light.

Jo pauses, thinking for a second before she settles onto the barstool next to him.]

I'm no shrink, but this doesn't look like happy drinking.

Maybe I'm just drinking your share. You just said you didn't want it. So, I'm liberating those grapes. They will not have died for nothing.

[And he drinks again, just to be an asshole and because well-- grapes.]

It's not. This is a hellhole and we're all dead. Why would I be happy?

You're past my share. [Oh, well. Jo sighs quietly at his question, giving him another long look.]

Not even just surviving, huh? We're not home, but we're somewhere. It's something.

[Barely something.]

We're not surviving.

[Drunk and stubborn, so bring it!]

We're dead. I'm dead, you're dead and that's all we're ever going to be and I'm okay with that? Because I didn't expect to survive. But it's all the rest of this bullshit.

Bad word choice. [She sighs quietly. He's right. They are dead.

Sometimes she forgets, mostly when she first wakes up and her lantern isn't in view.]

It's still more. Another chance to help people. Literally save the universe? [It's not what she thought she'd end up doing after her death, but she didn't actually give the after part of afterlife much thought.]

Yeah? You still believe we can actually do that?

[There had been no leads in the library. Nothing. All they were doing was threading water until they drowned and they were all too stubborn to see it. Quentin's mouth twists and he's about to say just that, when he snaps it shut with a wet smack and takes a drink instead.]

Everyone who came before us failed.

[Jo huffs out a quick sound of disbelief and squares her shoulders defiantly. Not because he's wrong, but because if they give up, they'll definitely fail.]

They weren't us.

They might have been, though.

[Not quite slurred, but he's getting there. Gesturing with the wine bottle as he keeps talking.]

Because Robin said some of us look familiar, so. We could have been here before. And failed. Just to get reset and made to try again. Over and over and over.

What?

[Her expression changes from its mix of pity and patience. She hadn't heard that before and it unnerves her more than she might admit.

Jo clears her throat.]

Everyone looks familiar at some point. That doesn't mean it's been us.

Yeah, sure. She could have just meant faces in general?

[Ha, fat chance. Quentin had been reset in his own world 39 times. Why couldn't that happen here too? Hell was repetition and all that.

He makes a dismissive wave and keeps drinking, sucking the wine down hard and he sways on the stool.]

But maybe she didn't and this is where we're going to be forever. Just, dying. Over and over. Some of us. Not all of us.

[Jo shakes her head. It doesn't make sense. At least, she hopes it doesn't.]

What would determine who comes and goes? How do you explain why it's us?

[Sure, she broke some laws, but nothing to deserve eternal torment.]

Maybe we need to earn it. Maybe this is some kind of hell and we need to earn it to get out... one way or the other.

[There's no hell as far as Quentin knows, just different worlds and timelines and dimensions. But hey, why not. Why couldn't one of them be a hell-scape or at the very least, the inspiration for one. Maybe all the books and stories about hell, is really about places like this? Like Beacon. About trying over and over and never learning from your mistakes.]

I didn't earn Hell. [Of course, she has known people to end up in Hell without earning it.

But this didn't seem like Hell. Not in a true sense of the word.]

It could just be another phase of life. Isn't life suffering?

[Quentin's head snaps up and he flashes a rare smile in Jo's general direction, because-- wow, not many people actually got that?]

Is it. I guess that's why I always thought dying would mean less of it. That once I died, I'd get to be done, you know?

[There's always suffering, but one has to focus on everything else. The suffering isn't all.

Jo leans against the counter, watching Quentin for a long moment.]

Does anything really stop after death? Bodies decompose, dead leaves feed other plants.

Okay okay, Mufasa, I get it. It's the circle of life, or death in our case. I just really thought-- I guess I thought that I'd stop feeling like this, you know? But, you know...
[Quentin empties his glass, and fills it again. Letting a wine swirl in the glass as he frowns at it, lost in thought.]

-that didn't happen.

I once believed love would be burning red

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