"Yeah, tell me about it," it's not quite a snark, but it is bitter and Quentin shakes his head, his too-short hair falling in greasy clumps around his face.
It's been days since he had a shower, and that had been like two minutes of luke-warm water before his nerves failed him and he raced out to get dressed. Not wanting to get caught naked. Not wanting to get caught defenseless even if that feeling is bullshit. They were all defenseless against the monster.
It's the same with food. Quentin knows, intellectually, that he's losing weight he can't really afford to, knows that living off a few bites of always cold snacks isn't healthy. That what he's been doing, what came before all of this -- wasn't good. All of it is too familiar.
The not-sleeping, not-eating, constantly on edge until his feelings numbed and everything, even now, is... distant. Like there's a thick blanket between himself and the world. Between him and Alice.
I don't have time for this, for us, he'd told her that. And meant it. Alice sold them out, forced them in to hiding and she came back at just the wrong time. When Quentin was gearing up to break yet another thing. Another person. To kill whatever was left of Eliot in this world, because the monster took him. Took him and killed him and Quentin was as guilty as the monster in the killings that came after he wasn't Brian anymore.
This is now.
"The seals on the bottles seem okay. They can't get out and-and yeah. I don't-- I haven't thought about after. In a while."
She's still so achingly beautiful, even sleep-deprived. And maybe Alice stabbing them all in the back was on Quentin, too. He'd been the one to push things - push her. Break her, and try to fumble her back together again with his clumsy hands and no matter how much his discipline was Minor Mending, mending people was just... not minor at all. Which probably explained why Quentin was so fucking bad at it.
"I don't even know what to want anymore. For after."
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It's been days since he had a shower, and that had been like two minutes of luke-warm water before his nerves failed him and he raced out to get dressed. Not wanting to get caught naked. Not wanting to get caught defenseless even if that feeling is bullshit. They were all defenseless against the monster.
It's the same with food. Quentin knows, intellectually, that he's losing weight he can't really afford to, knows that living off a few bites of always cold snacks isn't healthy. That what he's been doing, what came before all of this -- wasn't good. All of it is too familiar.
The not-sleeping, not-eating, constantly on edge until his feelings numbed and everything, even now, is... distant. Like there's a thick blanket between himself and the world. Between him and Alice.
I don't have time for this, for us, he'd told her that. And meant it. Alice sold them out, forced them in to hiding and she came back at just the wrong time. When Quentin was gearing up to break yet another thing. Another person. To kill whatever was left of Eliot in this world, because the monster took him. Took him and killed him and Quentin was as guilty as the monster in the killings that came after he wasn't Brian anymore.
This is now.
"The seals on the bottles seem okay. They can't get out and-and yeah. I don't-- I haven't thought about after. In a while."
She's still so achingly beautiful, even sleep-deprived. And maybe Alice stabbing them all in the back was on Quentin, too. He'd been the one to push things - push her. Break her, and try to fumble her back together again with his clumsy hands and no matter how much his discipline was Minor Mending, mending people was just... not minor at all. Which probably explained why Quentin was so fucking bad at it.
"I don't even know what to want anymore. For after."