The Perk, Sunday Morning

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Rafe was still here, and so was Abigail. Margo had given them a room to sleep in after they’d shown up all bedraggled last night, and she was already regretting it. Not because Rafe or Abigail were real pains in the ass — fuck, she didn’t want to think about sharing a house with Tick Pickwick — but just on the principle of the matter.

They didn’t have any idea how they’d gotten here, was the thing. There was a way out of Fillory, sure, but was there a way in? Would Rafe and the damn sloth be here with them forever? She had no idea. And that was before Eliot had shown up talking about a Great Cock giving him a quest like something out of a dimestore porn mag.

It made her head hurt. It had been hurting a lot lately, so she needed sugar.

Which was how Margo wound up sitting at the perk with a hot chocolate in her hands, facing Rafe’s apologetic smile and caramel frappe, and a sloth, hanging off a birch branch on top of a chair, sipping a fruit smoothie through a straw.

“I’m so pissed off I didn’t get to kill Ember myself,” she muttered.

[ open ]

Comments

[volunteer_tomato]

‘Dude, you’re a vibe killer’, Bacchus had said. ‘And historically, I do smite vibe killers.’

There’d been some begging? Somewhere? A few questions? Quentin didn’t remember much about it, there’d been too much. . . booze, and pills, and. . . you know, it had been a really awful party?

And then there’d been the pond, out of nowhere. Just. . . water, everywhere. Guess Bacchus hadn’t been joking about smiting vibe killers, but he had no idea where he was now. It looked French, like, like that island city where the land bridge kept flooding with the tide, and. . .

“Margo?”

. . .and that had Margo on it.

Quentin stared at her, willing the nerve connections in his head to work their way together so he could do anything but keep standing there and stare at his friend who’d been missing, and. . .

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Once you’d experienced Quentin Coldwater staring at you once, you kinda knew what it felt like. Still. Rafe had been one thing, but Q walking in through the door dripping water everywhere, like, out of nowhere?

“Quentin?!”

It was enough to make a High Queen get up right out of her fucking chair.

[volunteer_tomato]

It really was Margo. With. . . one eye. But Margo. Quentin had thought. . . had started to think he’d never see her or Eliot ever again, and there she was, being Margo.

Should he hug her? Would she kill him if he tried? Should he ask her about Eliot? Should he do both of those things at the same time, or. . .

“Y-yeah,” he said. “Uh. Hi. You, uh, you lost an eye.”

Oh. He was dead.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Jesus, Coldwater, she hadn’t seen you in months, why the hell would she kill you? “Yeah, I know,” Margo said, shoving away from the table to go to him.

Not to hug him, she wasn’t that far gone.

“You’re okay,” she said.

[volunteer_tomato]

“. . . yeah,” Quentin said. “Yeah, I was, uh, I was just at a party? And I guess I upset Bacchus with my, uh, vibe, and suddenly poof, I’m in a duck pond.”

[fillorynotfiligree]

Rafe looked at the newcomer over the edge of his chair and nodded gravely. “Her Slowness and I were also. . . poofed,” he said. “We believe some magical force might have felt our presence was necessary.”

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

“Or it’s Ember’s long-lost cousin fucking with us for funsies,” Margo said, rolling her eye. “Fuck. Welcome to Fandom, Q, the island that’s collecting us like we’re Pocket Monsters, or 20-year-old musty comic books.”

She grabbed Quentin’s wrist and yanked him towards the table. They’d done enough standing around awkwardly. “I’m going to text Eliot.”

Maybe Quentin had useful intel. At the very least, seeing Q might put Eliot in a slightly less shitty mindset.

[existencemisspent]

Eliot had rushed so much when he got the text that he almost forgot to put on a waist coat.

Almost. He was still Eliot, after all.

A very slightly disheveled Eliot, shoving through the door of the Perk, ready for this to somehow be a lie, or a dream, or --

"Q! You're actually here!"

[volunteer_tomato]

Oh wow. Quentin’s face flickered past confusion to surprise and finally lit up like a Christmas tree. “Eliot!”

He veered back up out of the chair Margo had shoved him into. “You’re really okay!”

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Ugh, those boys.

“He was harassing Bacchus about magic coming back and the guy dumped him in the Fandom duck pond,” Margo said, watching them with a barely-contained eyeroll.

[existencemisspent]

"I'm fine," Eliot said. Please ignore the size of the dark circles under his eyes. "You're here."

There was some rare emotion creeping into his voice. But this was Quentin Coldwater, right here in front of him, beaming.

"That dick," he said, in idle response to Margo's explanation. "This is perfect, though. I just got a quest. From the Great Cock?"

That seemed like a creature that Quentin, in all his Fillory-nerdiness, would know about.

[volunteer_tomato]

“The um, the Great Cock of the Darkling Woods?” Quentin said. He was moving as he spoke, walking towards Eliot a little quicker than he was even really aware of. “He’s one of the Questing Beasts, the Winter’s Doe is his sister. What’s the quest?”

[existencemisspent]

“There’s a book with no author,” Eliot said slowly, realizing as he did how ridiculously stupid this sounded. “At the, uh. The Chestershire Public Library in New Jersey.”

[volunteer_tomato]

It was Quentin he was talking to. The only thing he was going to get in response was a serious face, a little nodding, and Quentin fiddling with his own hair as he thought about it. “What’s the book for?” he asked.

He should have hugged Eliot when he’d had the chance.

[existencemisspent]

Yeah, Eliot was regretting the lack of hug, too. Even if Quentin was wet.

". . . I have no idea," he admitted. "I think . . . to get magic back? In our world. And Fillory. I mean, it's already back, here."

Had you noticed that yet, Quentin?

[volunteer_tomato]

Quentin had wandered around in a confused daze until he’d found Margo. The magic in the air was only just starting to sink in.

“Yeah, how is that possible?” he asked. “Do you have any idea?”

Maybe in another minute, he’d remember the spell to dry his clothes.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

“We don’t know. This place is weird,” Margo commented.

She remembered the drying spell and could have used it. Hypothetically.

[existencemisspent]

And Eliot's brain was far too sleep-deprived right now to connect thoughts of "Quentin is wet, ew" to "use a drying spell to dry Quentin off".

"As usual, Bambi hits the nail right on the head," he said, nodding seriously. "This is some sort of . . . world-hub. Like the Neitherlands only less aggressively well-ordered."

[volunteer_tomato]

Quentin frowned.

“Wait,” he said, his thoughts whirring. “Do you think that means the Library might still have magic too? We haven’t checked.”

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

“Fuck if we know,” Margo said. “We’ve been trying to get back home, to any world we already knew, for weeks. Nothing.”

[existencemisspent]

“We couldn’t even text you. And supposedly we’re in Maryland.” Eliot shook his head. “We might be farther . . . out than the Neitherlands though. Like . . . the Uber-Neitherlands. The Norlands.”

Don’t get stuck on a clever naming convention, Eliot.

[volunteer_tomato]

Quentin shoved some of his unruly hair behind his ear. It fell again just a second after. “I don’t know how to get any more bunnies,” he said. “If they even. Get here. At all. I just. . . if we’re supposed to be on this quest, there has to be some way for us to talk, right? Because how else are we going to do this together?”

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo shrugged.

“Maybe this book can help?” she suggested.

[existencemisspent]

“It does seem like the obvious next step,” Eliot agreed. “Guess we’re . . . Off to the Garden State.”

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

“Barely a step up from dying,” Margo said dryly.

She took pity on Quentin at last. She moved her fingers quickly, then made an upwards gesture that yanked all of the moisture out of his clothes.

[volunteer_tomato]

The rush of magic felt like a monsoon crashing down on him after all the nothing. Quentin staggered, disoriented, but caught himself after a moment.

“Uh. Thanks.”

[existencemisspent]

Eliot reached out a hand to steady Quentin, but he caught himself before it was necessary, so he let it drop again, trying to pass it off as an airy, affected gesture.

"I wonder if it's in this New Jersey or our New Jersey," he said instead. "The, uh, Great Cock did come here to tell me about it, after all."

[volunteer_tomato]

“We can, um. We can check both,” Quentin said, tugging awkwardly on his hoodie. Yep. Dry. “I mean, unless I’m stuck here now.”

[existencemisspent]

"That'd be terrible," Eliot said. And almost convinced himself he meant it. "We've got spare rooms if you are, though."

[volunteer_tomato]

“Thanks,” Quentin said. He dropped his hand away from his sleeve and looked down at the floor, then up at Eliot. “Can I, um, hug you right now?”

[existencemisspent]

"Well," Eliot said, careful not to look too happy at the prospect. "I suppose you'd better."

[volunteer_tomato]

Quentin’d been stuck at home with Julia and. . . no idea how his Fillory-bound friends were doing.

And Margo was terrifying. So.

Enjoy that hug, Eliot. Quentin was throwing his whole self into it, like always.

[existencemisspent]

Quentin threw his whole self into everything. It was one of the things Eliot admired about him most.

He hugged back with all the solemnity the moment deserved for a moment, then let his instincts kick back in.

"If you wanted to give my ass that squeeze, you're welcome to do that, too," he teased.