i was checking my instagram profile para maorganize ko yung mga posts and stories ko when i realized something: grabe na rin pala yung naidulot ng independence to me, but in a good way.
seeing the things i bought, the food that i now know how to make on my own, the places that I now get to see. napa-proud ako sa sarili ko even though i have literally no idea how i went from this to that woman.
i have a lot of things in my mind that i want to do, bigger goals, and i hope i get to meet my goals. nakakainspire rin kasi yung mga taong nakikita ko dito, to be honest. they inspire me to keep going at my own pace.
Quentin lugged his suitcases across the grass towards the Cottage, trying not to trip over them or his own feet, and hoping he had some latent telekinetic ability that would suddenly kick in and enable him to just float the bags towards the door. Even if he could float only one of the bags, ideally the one filled with books, it would make his progression much quicker. And Quentin was eager to actually get inside the Cottage, now that he was supposed to live there, now that he had an actual place he was supposed to be, even if it was just by default.
“Quentin!” Alice came hurrying up behind him, carrying two perfect, possibly monogrammed suitcases, one in each hand, like something straight out of The Sound of Music.
“Is that all your stuff?”
Alice frowned and looked at her bags like she was just noticing them. Quentin was starting to feel like he’d overpacked somehow, even though his stuff had been magically delivered when he’d appeared at Brakebills, so he hadn’t even had a choice about how extra he was going to appear.
“No, this is my second trip,” Alice replied. “Do you need help?”
Quentin breathed out, suddenly less self-conscious. “Oh good.” His palms were starting to get sweaty, which was only going to make holding onto the stupid plastic handle more difficult. “I’ve—uh—got it.”
Alice shrugged and he followed her to the Cottage door, only stumbling a few more times and wondering why he hadn’t thought to take his own bags in two trips. He knew, though, really. He hadn’t wanted the option to slip away—Oh, Quentin, we’re so sorry, but there’s actually no more room in the Cottage, guess you’ll just have to stay in the dorms, alone, since you haven’t actually got a recognizable skill anyway, oh well!—he couldn’t keep the echo of that fear out of his head until he was in his room, until he was past sorry, Quentin, but .
Margo met them at the door. “Alice, you know where you’re going, right across from me.” She winked in a way that made Alice either very uncomfortable or very flustered. “And you, Q, first of all, welcome.”
Quentin heaved his book-filled suitcase over the threshold, wishing he was panting slightly less from the exertion of carrying the bags. “Thank you.”
“So there’s a small space issue, but don’t worry, it’s being worked on.”
Quentin felt his face fall. Sorry, Quentin, but . “What kind of issue?”
Margo winced. “We’re all out of rooms.”
Quentin could feel his panic starting to build. Somehow Alice had gotten here earlier, while there were still rooms ( why hadn’t he gotten here earlier; what was wrong with him that he couldn’t just carry his stupid bags faster; and what the fuck—hadn’t he been put here specifically because they had extra space? ) “I thought you had extra space here.”
“Space, yes, rooms, no.” Margo seemed to sense his mounting panic and put a reassuring hand against his cheek. Her hand was cold and soft and firm and the slight pressure did admittedly make him feel a little bit better. “Don’t worry, Q, we’re not going to throw you out. Eliot has the biggest room in the house-” Of fucking course he does. “-so you’re just going to room with him for a while.”
She said it like she was telling him that he’d have to change laundry detergent for a while due to a shortage, not that he’d have to be literally living in the same room as the hottest person Quentin had ever actually seen, much less spoken to. Quentin felt like the room was getting dimmer and wobbling a little bit, which was really not good because fainting was probably not an appropriate response to this. He heard one of his bags clatter to the floor and realized he’d let go of the handle. The sound shocked him enough that his vision cleared, but even so. He had not prepared for this situation.
“S-sorry?” Maybe he had misheard her.
Margo rolled her eyes. “Get it together, Coldwater, it’s temporary. We’ll figure out the mix-up and you’ll be on your own, just...put a sock on the door until then.”
Which brought up an extremely problematic eventuality of what he was going to do if he didn’t have the privacy of his own damn room to jerk off in every time Eliot did something especially Eliot-y, because his room was also Eliot’s room. Quentin wished Margo would smirk just a little bit less at his discomfort.
“I’ll show you to the room,” Margo said, grabbing Quentin’s fallen bag and dragging it like it wasn’t stupidly heavy and unwieldy. Great, so the only one who couldn’t handle his shit was Quentin. He was secretly glad Penny had been sent to live somewhere else, or he would never stop teasing Quentin about this.
Quentin followed Margo up the stairs and they stopped in front of a big, dark wooden door near the end of the hallway. Quentin could have wrung water out of his palms; if his heart beat any quicker it would probably flutter out of his chest entirely. He tried to think calming, not what-does-Eliot-sleep-in-and-god-there-better-not-be-shared-bathrooms thoughts.
Margo knocked on the door and Quentin was getting hopeful that she’d just been fucking with him because Margo was mean and you could probably see his crush from space, when Eliot opened it and Quentin had to grip the wall for support.
Eliot was wearing nothing except a purple towel around his waist, his hair damp and hanging in strings around his face, small droplets of water cascading off his hair onto his bare chest. Quentin tried not to stare at the chest, or the hair, or the towel, which was frankly not thick enough to be decent, and ended up just kind of focusing on the floor near Eliot’s feet.
“What’s up?” Eliot asked, sounding slightly uncertain and glaring wet daggers at Margo.
“I filled Quentin in on the situation,” Margo replied, ignoring Eliot’s tone completely, “so he knows he’ll be staying here with you for a bit.”
Eliot brushed a loose clump of hair out of his eyes and gave Margo a look that Quentin couldn’t quite read—he was starting to feel like he was a little kid again, when his parents would have silent arguments and he just had to stand there waiting for someone to acknowledge him again. After a moment, Eliot moved out of the doorway and Margo beamed and led Quentin into the room.
It was, as advertised, huge. Against the wall directly facing the door was a queen-sized bed covered in shiny sheets that looked almost wet, and with intricate metal head and foot boards; a desk perpendicular to the bed against a wall to their right that was entirely made of bright windows, covered with gauzy curtains that didn’t so much stop the light as give it a pleasant, hazy quality. There was clearly a bathroom attached to the bedroom, considering Eliot’s appearance and also the clean-smelling steam spilling languidly out of the slightly opened door on the left-side wall.
On the same wall as the door to the hall, opposite Eliot’s bed, was a twin bed, similar to what he’d had in the dorm, all particle board and old springs and a standard issue light blue mattress. It paled in comparison to the rest of the furniture.
Margo dropped his bag next to the terrible bed and wiped her perfectly manicured hands together as if say, great, job well done. Quentin could not think of any sentiment he possibly disagreed with more.
“Okay, have fun!” she quipped, prancing out of the room. Oh, okay, so he definitely disagreed with that sentiment more.
Quentin rubbed the plastic suitcase handle between his fingers, trying to stare anywhere besides Eliot’s chest, or towel, or face (or towel ohmygod) and failing miserably at all of the above. Eliot looked conflicted for a moment, like he was considering what he wanted to say, and then he smiled at Quentin in that Eliot way that made Quentin’s knees go slightly weak.
“I’ll just get changed,” he said, grabbing some clothing out of a closet Quentin hadn’t noticed before and retreating quickly into the bathroom.
Quentin let out the breath he’d been holding. This was not going to be easy. And how the hell had they run out of rooms? He leaned the bag he was holding against the wall and sat down on the edge of the little bed that was now his, scrubbing his palm across his face. This was not how any of this was supposed to go.
The bathroom door swung open and Eliot was back in the room, fully dressed now in what passed for casual in Eliot-world, and it was just as alluring as half-naked Eliot, although the lack of towel made it easier for Quentin to keep his thoughts running in complete sentences.
“So,” Eliot said, standing at least a foot farther away than Quentin was used to, which was almost certainly a bad sign of some kind. “You’re staying here, now.”
Quentin brushed at the hair that swung in front of his face. “Yeah—um—I guess? Margo said there wasn’t enough space, which is, you know, which is weird because why did they put me here, then?”
Eliot shrugged. “My room is the biggest, I guess.”
Quentin shook his head, which just dislodged the hair behind his ear again; this was becoming more and more awkward. “I meant in general. But...we don’t have that bigger on the inside magic thing?”
Eliot smiled slightly. “Like the Harry Potter tents?”
“Um—yeah, sure.” Quentin wasn’t entirely sure that was the same thing he was talking about, but he liked it when Eliot edged into nerd territory, even if the two of them weren’t aligned with the same magical children’s books all the time.
“Harder than it sounds.” Eliot paused, glancing around the room like he wasn’t sure where to sit, even though it was his room. He settled for perching on the edge of his bed, which just made Quentin focus on the fact that he was looking at Eliot sitting on a bed, which wasn’t even slightly suggestive, and wow was this the wrong time to be thinking about that because Eliot was looking straight at him, still. “Anyway, this is it.” He gestured around. “The bathroom’s there, and I guess I can try to make you some closet space.”
Quentin nodded, as if he wasn’t struggling to keep his breathing steady. He was going to be sleeping in Eliot’s room and sharing the same bathroom and closet space and...and...he needed to get a fucking hold of himself.
“Okay,” Quentin replied, looking around and noticing the time on a clock on Eliot’s bedside table. Oh, he really had to go to class, which was both a pity and a mercy. “I’ve gotta get to class, actually. Do you guys have some—um—bedsheets I can use later?”
“Oh. You didn’t bring your own sheets?” Quentin shook his head. “Yeah, I’ll find something. See you later.”
Quentin stood up and waved ( oh god had he actually waved? ) before leaving Eliot’s room, which was now his room, and wow, this was going to be difficult.
— —
It turned out the something that Eliot found was one of his own sets of sheets, a purple satiny affair that wasn’t even twin-sized, but just hung off the edges of his bed like shiny curtains. Quentin ran his fingers over the smooth fabric; he’d honestly been expecting the scratchy, white, over-bleached linens that were standard stock in large institutions, but this was way, way better. It felt like he was doing something illicit, smoothing sheets that belonged to Eliot between his fingers, alone in their shared room, while Eliot sat downstairs with everyone else drinking the newest contender for signature cocktail (which Quentin thought looked discouragingly green, but everyone else was cooing over).
Quentin wandered around the room, now that he had it to himself for a moment; stopping to appreciate the dim sunlight filtering through the windows, the messy stacks of papers sitting on Eliot’s desk (the desk seemed to be the only part of the room that wasn’t kept immaculate), the slight rumple in the sheets on Eliot’s bed that indicated that he’d been sitting or lying there earlier (Quentin almost resisted touching the spot gently, and even then only allowed himself to place his fingertips there for a moment); the bathroom, which was a very standard shower-toilet-sink setup, in which Quentin was unsurprised to see that Eliot’s bathroom products greatly outnumbered his own, although a small amount of space had been made on a shower shelf and the sink counter, clearly for him; and the closet, where someone (Quentin was guessing Margo) had already hung up Quentin’s nicer articles of clothing, which still paled in comparison to Eliot’s clothing, especially when they were hung side by side.
Quentin unpacked a few more things, moving the appropriate ones into the empty spaces in the bathroom, and creating a little stack of books next to the bed since he didn’t have a side table of his own, placing one of the Fillory books in the bed next to his pillow, just in case his nerves overcame him later, so he would have a readily available comfort.
He went downstairs and was immediately pulled into the group, so quickly that Quentin had to blink water out of his eyes as he took a sip of what was actually a really delicious drink, color notwithstanding. Quentin was used to hanging on the outside, talking but not sitting centrally, participating but not in any especially meaningful way, so being pulled into the very middle of a group, Eliot’s hand moving from his wrist to his shoulder like the physical contact was nothing as they sat side by side on a couch, Margo with her feet on Eliot’s lap, close enough to occasionally kick Quentin lightly when she wanted his attention, made him feel something new and pleasant. Quentin was happy—weirdly happy—hey-I-might-belong-here happy. And then the party started dispersing, and Quentin was left alone with Margo and Eliot, until Margo left with some off-handed comment about beauty sleep and then it was just Quentin and Eliot, climbing a seemingly endless flight of stairs to get to their room, even if it was just temporary and meant nothing. Quentin’s pulse was flying, and he wondered if he was actually going to be able to get any sleep until this situation was resolved.
They stood, awkwardly, for a moment, once they were both in the room, unsure of what came next. Then Eliot raised an eyebrow and went into the bathroom for a few minutes while Quentin continued standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting his turn, apparently, and feeling much more nervous than he should be feeling about nothing.
Eliot came out of the bathroom in nothing but an honestly way too short to be decent robe that looked like it was similar material to the sheets, and Quentin felt his face getting hot, even though Eliot seemed completely comfortable. Quentin practically ran into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. He took a few moments to breathe, then brushed his teeth and steeled his nerves and walked back out into the room.
Quentin nearly turned right around and retreated back into the bathroom. Eliot had shed his robe and was lying in bed, his sheets pulled up over him just enough to cover him from the waist down, but not nearly enough to prevent the clear outline of his body from showing through, and to make matters worse, he was reading a book. This was entirely too close to Quentin’s general fantasy—hot, naked, in bed, literate.
“Something wrong?” Eliot asked, looking up from his book, and Quentin realized he was still kind of standing awkwardly, holding onto the bathroom door like it was a crutch. So, that was a good start.
Quentin shook his head and walked over to his bed. It struck him, abruptly and with force, that he was also going to have to change out of his clothing and into something more appropriate for sleeping. He wished he’d thought about that before he’d run into the bathroom, because now his choices were: find pajamas (or some kind of shorts t-shirt combo that would pass for pajamas) and go back into the bathroom to change, find pajamas and change right there in the room, or just keep all of his clothes on and get into bed and hope Eliot didn’t notice.
He opted for the last one, and just dove into his bed, jeans and button-up shirt and undershirt and all, not even taking off his socks, like this was a completely normal totally not strange behavior. The sheets were really nice, extremely pleasantly smooth and soft and cool, and Quentin sort of regretted his decision because he suspected these sheets would feel just amazing on bare skin (which reminded him that Eliot was naked in bed like six feet away from him which…just made him glad that he’d kept the armor of his jeans on).
“Um, Quentin?”
Quentin looked up, and Eliot was staring at him, bemused. “Yeah?”
“Are you really going to sleep with all of your clothes on?”
He thought he was probably imagining the slight disappointment underlying Eliot’s words. Probably it was just what Eliot sounded like when he was tired and relaxed in bed with a book (like six feet away).
“This—um—this is how I sleep.” Yeah, that sounded true.
“Come on, Q,” Eliot said, his voice softening. “You don’t have to sleep like that.”
Quentin sighed. He loved it when Eliot called him Q, because it had developed so quickly and naturally, and it felt symbolic that Eliot liked him enough to call him by a nickname; Quentin liked the way it sounded coming out of Eliot’s mouth, smooth and cute and sexy. And he really needed to stop focusing on that last part, at least as long as they were stuck being roommates. The last thing Quentin wanted to do was make Eliot uncomfortable.
“I’m fine,” he said, softly, even though his pants were digging into his waist uncomfortably, and it was a little bit too warm in the room to be sleeping in two shirts.
Eliot didn’t reply, then Quentin heard the sound of the book closing and Eliot said, “Goodnight, Q,” and turned the lights out, possibly with magic, since Quentin was pretty sure Eliot’s fancy floor lamps weren’t on any light switches near the bed. Quentin didn’t reply, because his throat had gone suddenly dry—he was suddenly conscious of how long an entire night was. He could hear the swish of Eliot moving around in his sheets, and the whole room smelled faintly of Eliot, now that he was focusing on it, or maybe the scent was clinging to his borrowed sheets, and he was suddenly very, very warm.
Quentin waited what seemed like a reasonable amount of time, then wriggled out of his pants and button-up (and wow, the sheets really did feel amazing on his bare skin, even better than he had imagined). He listened to Eliot’s breathing slow, and eventually, after running through a few scenarios where Eliot woke up and approached Quentin’s bed (absolutely none of which happened), Quentin finally drifted off to sleep.
— —
A week passed, uneventfully, although Quentin wasn’t sure a heart rate monitor would have backed up that assessment. He slept, sometimes, mostly, and sometimes he and Eliot would talk before going to sleep, and sometimes they wouldn’t, and sometimes Eliot would be gone when Quentin woke up, and sometimes Quentin would wake up first and fall a few minutes behind watching Eliot sleep (not in a creepy way, though, just in a wow his roommate is pretty when he’s asleep kind of way).
The next Saturday, Eliot didn’t come back to the room the entire night, and Quentin spent all of Sunday feeling hurt and worried even though he really had no right to those feelings. He had pouted about it, maybe more obviously than he intended; and then on Sunday evening Eliot had wrapped an arm around Quentin’s shoulders and sat and talked with him until early in the morning about nothing and ignored everyone else who approached them. Quentin had gone to sleep feeling incredibly confused.
Quentin came back to the Cottage, after just over a week of living there, with a huge assignment. The magic for the assignment was difficult enough that even Alice was a little bit stressed. When he’d pointed out that she was already doing everything pretty perfectly, she had bristled and told him ‘There’s always room for improvement’ and stomped off, which left Quentin to awkwardly follow her from a few feet back since they were going home to the same place.
He tried studying in the common space, for a while, bouncing between couches and chairs and alcoves, trying to immerse himself in a textbook instead of the epically distracting things happening around him. It was, to be frank, not working. Quentin was smart, and he wasn’t used to studying hard. Magic seemed to come to him a lot less quickly than say, number theory had, and he was considering retreating back to the library (where, bonus, he wouldn’t have to watch Alice perfectly running through her own practice, looking around suspiciously like someone was going to bust her for sipping from a martini glass in between tuts).
Just as Quentin was gathering his books together to leave, Eliot appeared out of nowhere and immediately grabbed onto his free hand and Quentin tried to ignore the little jolts of electricity this always seemed to produce.
“Come with me.”
“No—hey—Eliot, I have to—um—study.” Quentin let his protests die out as Eliot dragged him up the stairs towards their room ( and no, this wasn’t how one of his more common fantasies started, not at all) .
“Tada,” Eliot said, deadpan, as he motioned towards a new piece of furniture in the room, a smaller but still functional desk that sat directly next to his desk, with its own comfy looking desk chair.
Quentin blinked at it. This was a temporary situation, so why was Eliot losing even more space to a new piece of furniture that was just for Quentin? He was preparing to say ‘thanks but you didn’t have to do this,’ when it occurred to Quentin that he really did need a place to study that wasn’t among the masses, and this was pretty much perfect.
“You—you got me a desk?” he said, still a little awestruck.
Eliot looked almost embarrassed. “I didn’t make it myself, or anything. I thought you could use a place to study, since you don’t have your own room yet.”
Quentin felt himself grinning as he walked forward to put his books down on the desk. It was clearly not a new piece of furniture, he could see past students’ scribbles lightly stained across it, but it was perfect. “You got me a desk.”
“I did.” Quentin could hear the smile in Eliot’s voice.
Quentin put his hand on the desk; things were more real when you touched them. He realized he should probably say thanks. “Um—thanks.”
He turned back towards Eliot, with the intention of maybe shaking his hand in thanks or something, and was surprised when Eliot pulled him into a loose hug. It lasted about five seconds, then Eliot let go and swept out the door.
“Don’t study too hard,” he called back as he left. “We’re grilling steaks in an hour.”
Quentin looked at the desk, how it was just touching Eliot’s own desk, even though there was no reason for them to be that close in such a large room. And there he was, again, thinking about completely innocuous things and making them seem bigger in his head; as if reading into the desk positioning would get him anything other than wound up. Still, Eliot had gotten him a desk. He had another piece of furniture in this room, and it was starting to feel more and more like their room, instead of Eliot’s room where he was crashing, even though it was temporary and it was just Eliot’s room, and he was just crashing.
Quentin sat down at the desk, opened his textbooks, and tried not to think about it.
— —
Quentin lasted two entire weeks before the sight of Eliot every single night in various states of undress as he slipped under his clingy sheets started to invade not only his dreams but his waking thoughts, too. It didn’t help for Quentin to think about how he and Eliot were friends, or how Eliot was way out of his league, or how objectifying people was, you know, bad. He waited until Eliot was gone, and definitely in a class, before he climbed out of bed and retreated into the safety of the bathroom shower.
Quentin stripped out of his pajamas and turned the water on, as hot as he could handle before it turned his skin red, and climbed into the shower, letting the water drip over him and soak his hair and skin. The steam building up around him made Quentin more comfortable, possibly because of the warm air itself and possibly because it made him feel more obscured. Through the bubbly glass of the shower door, he could see one of Eliot’s robes hanging on a hook on the door, and it reminded Quentin of the night before when Eliot had spent at least an hour lounging on top of his sheets in just the robe, which barely came to his thighs, sipping a drink and reading. All the while, Quentin had been lying in his own bed, willing his body to not betray him when Eliot shifted and the robe fabric rode up a little bit, trying to focus on his favorite chapter of Fillory and Further Book Two, instead of concentrating on Eliot’s lips touching the glass, or his bare legs on the bed, so close and yet…
Now there was no one there but Quentin and the water, and the robe reminding him. Quentin couldn’t help starting to feel aroused as he thought of Eliot and let the water caress his skin. Within seconds, he was hard and fully aware that there was nothing stopping him from taking himself in hand and slowly stroking, stoking the coiled heat in his stomach. With his free hand, Quentin popped open a bottle of the body wash that Eliot used and poured a tiny bit over his cock, letting it function as sudsy lube, the scent of it strong enough that he could imagine Eliot there with him.
Quentin let his eyes fall shut and leaned heavily against one of the shower walls. In his mind, Eliot would open the door just at this moment, ‘oh hey sorry Q, forgot something.’ He would fix his eyes on Quentin, showering, wet and hard, and Eliot’s eyes would darken and his breath with quicken and he would walk slowly, savoring the moment, towards Quentin.
He imagined how Eliot would strip for him, slowly, deliberately, running his own hands over his skin as he revealed it, clothing dropping to the floor in a pile until Eliot was completely naked, just like Quentin (or naked except for his tie, which Fantasy Quentin could grab onto to pull him in close). Eliot would walk towards the shower, say, ‘mind if I join you,’ and then step in, pushing Quentin into a hungry kiss and then backing him against the wall. Quentin could almost feel the pressure of Eliot’s lips against his, the heat of his body against Quentin’s, their cocks pressing up against each other’s hips, hot and wet with the shower.
Quentin’s cock was throbbing, aching with his own slow touch. He imagined how Eliot would moan his name, how he would wrap his arms around Eliot’s perfect body and Eliot would grasp him and they would rut against each other, how he would slip his tongue around Eliot’s ear and then kiss down the side of his neck. He would wrap his hand around Eliot’s cock, slowly moving just enough to drive him crazy and then Fantasy Eliot would laugh, ‘fuck that’s good but let me do this for you,’ and he would drop to his knees and wrap his perfect mouth around Quentin’s cock, and Quentin could almost feel the heat of his mouth, the perfect suction followed by Eliot’s tongue dragging along the sensitive part on the underside, Eliot sucking him with slow deliberate motions until Quentin was desperate.
Quentin knew he was making sounds as he stroked himself, getting faster and holding himself more firmly as he imagined Eliot doing the same, imagined fisting his hand in Eliot’s wet curls. Quentin’s hips began to buck into the air, following his hand, chasing the mouth that wasn’t there but felt so real. Quentin could feel the warmth in his stomach reaching a boiling point and his legs started to shake slightly as he imagined Eliot taking him as deeply as possible, looking up at him so beautiful with eyes full of lust and Quentin heard himself cry out as he came, spilling all over his hand and the shower wall.
Quentin opened his eyes and leaned into the wall, using his free hand as support until his legs stopped shaking and his breathing slowed to normal. He let the water run over his hand and his softening cock, getting an extra jolt of pleasure from the way the water droplets felt on his overly sensitive skin. Without thinking about it, Quentin poured more of Eliot’s body wash onto his hand and used it instead of his own soap, letting Eliot’s soap smell completely cover him.
He stood in the shower for a little while longer, trying not to freak out about how completely unattainable his fantasies were. He wanted Eliot, and it was definitely not going to happen; he was stuck between the orgasm afterglow and the rude awakening of finding himself in the shower alone.
Ten minutes later, Quentin went downstairs, feeling refreshed, and calm, and really fucked with regard to his rooming situation. He followed the smell of bacon into the kitchen and found Margo and some girl he didn’t know, drinking coffee and watching bacon sizzle. Margo gave the unknown girl a look and the girl left the kitchen, giggling.
“Hey, Q,” Margo said, sipping her coffee nonchalantly.
“Hey, is there extra food, possibly?” Quentin hadn’t realized he was hungry until he smelled the bacon. He knew the Cottage kitchen generally functioned as eat only the shit you made yourself, unless they were having a group dinner, but Margo was making what looked like a huge number of bacon slices, so he didn’t feel bad about asking.
Margo considered him, then silently poured coffee into a clean mug and passed it to Quentin, who accepted gratefully.
“I guess there’s enough,” she said, “if you pay the toll.”
Quentin had to try really hard not to roll his eyes. “What’s the toll?”
Margo grinned. “You have to tell me how your rooming situation is going.” She turned away to flip some bacon. “And you have to let me teach you a sound dampening spell.”
Quentin frowned, took a sip of the coffee. It was good—he’d gone through a point in his life where he wasn’t allowed to drink a lot of caffeine, and it had taught him to really appreciate good coffee—he was glad his caffeine intake wasn’t limited now, considering he was getting much less sleep since rooming with Eliot.
“It’s fine,” he said, between sips. “Er—good. Um. Why do I have to learn a sound dampening spell?”
Margo turned back to him, depositing a plate full of bacon onto the island between them. “Because, Q, not that I care, but. If you’re going to be that loud by yourself, it’ll probably just be worse when you’re not alone, and it’s really just polite to learn how to dampen the sound.”
Quentin felt his ears going red, and he brushed his hair behind his ears repeatedly, just to have something to do with his hands. “Wait—um—you could—hear? Me?”
Margo full-on grinned. “Well, yeah, but like I said it doesn’t bother me. More power to you. But hey, some people are prudes and somehow still get sorted here, so.”
“So, dampening spell…got it.” Quentin wanted to run and hide somewhere, but he also really wanted the bacon, and besides, it wasn’t like Margo knew what he’d been thinking about when he was making noises. So really, he shouldn’t be that embarrassed (which, yeah, that wasn’t enough to convince himself to actually not be embarrassed, but he really wanted the bacon). He grabbed a piece and took a bite—worth it.
“Yeah, I’ll show you. But, you’re doing good rooming with El?” Margo pressed. Quentin didn’t really want to talk about it, since he felt like he was still in a headspace where he might accidentally tell Margo much more than he really wanted to reveal to her. She did that to him, made him want to just admit to her what he was feeling; she had a commanding presence, and Quentin wasn’t great at standing up to authority.
“Yeah, no, it’s good. Yeah, good.”
“Great,” Margo said, and the glint in her eye made it seem like she somehow had figured out what Quentin had been thinking about, even though his words were just about as vague as he could possibly make them. “I’m sure we’ll find you your own room soon, though.”
“Oh,” Quentin said, stuffing another piece of bacon into his mouth and forgetting that he didn’t want to tell Margo anything that might confirm or deny whatever she was silently accusing him of. “No rush.”
So maybe next time you reassess yourself, don’t forget the things you did to be able to be where you are now and the things you did to take care of yourself. It’s all on you, and sometimes,it’s a good thing that it’s all on you, because no matter how low people pull you down, they can’t.
It Took Me a Year - A Molologue by Hannah Elizabeth Fisher
It Took Me A Year
It took me a year to convince myself that I didn’t love you. When people asked me the question, people I am close to, I was able to answer without much thought. Answer honestly and tell them the truth. My mind knew that I didn’t love you, that you didn’t deserve to be loved by me, that I should have never loved you for as long as I did.
It was my heart that needed convincing. My words were detached from my fears. The fear of being alone, the fear that no one would ever care again. The fear that your care, even though it is so minimal, is the best that I am ever going to get, because I am broken, because you broke me.
The trauma I have suffered at your hands will be the worst I will put myself through, I have always known that I am worth more, and yet I let you ruin me, because you made me love you. You were perfect, charming, understanding. Then the mask comes off, the world spins, the sun sets, and you are a different person. You change, you’re angry, you scream, I cry. My tears make you feel like a bad person.
Good, you are.
I will never let go of you, I am as sure of that as I was the first time I told you that I love you, that night after you left her for me. But now the reasons are different.
Now I know that it is not because you were my first love.
It’s because you made me feel as though no one would care.
You made me feel like I was not worth spending time with.
You made me feel isolated with my own thoughts, that I could never say how I felt.
I was always the horrible one when I was low and didn’t want to tell you what I was thinking, because I knew… you would then scream. It’s not my fault, it’s in the past, it won’t happen again, I did it because I knew you would be upset, I lied, I lied, I lied.
You will always stay with me, the way an awkward memory does.
Something I think about on my low days when my mind just wants to give me another little kick. When I think about stepping into the road and my life flashes before my eyes:
You will be the villain in my story.
It took me a year to come to terms with the way I felt about you, knowing that it was not right any more. It took me a year to realise that I am not being treated the way I should be. That it was routine. Habit. Co-dependence.
Once I gained my strength. Once I found that I could do this alone.
There was nothing left for you, with me.
It took me a year.
Forgotten (Chapter 1 - Part 2) by Hannah Elizabeth Fisher
“Forgotten?” I raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean? Were you high or does your memory suck or something?” The idea of forgetting everything was concerning, but was Steve just saying it or did everyone else have the same experience…?
“Nico! Shut up.” Adam’s eyes were wide, I guess I shouldn’t have said that out loud. He then turned to face me properly for a second before he shrugged. I could tell he was consulting me, so I nodded in agreement, seeing no harm in what he was about to say and feeling like I owed Super Steve after my unintentional insult.
“Well, we will be there tomorrow as you know… we could always meet up afterwards and see what we can pull together?”
Steve’s eyes lit up, and that’s when Sid appeared next to him. They smiled softly. “Hi, I’m Sid, is my husband bothering you?”
“My partner is usually just along for the ride… they’re not as into the weird as I am.”
Sid patted Steve on the shoulder. “Do you want to give these people your number before we go? They want our table.”
“Ah, yes.”
We all exchanged numbers and created a group chat before they left.
We were back in our hotel room an hour later; I was curled up at the foot of the bed using my hands as pillows. Adam was sat on the floor in front of me with his legs crossed, one camera in his hand and the other on the floor by his feet.
“If I take the polaroid camera, we could make a cute photo album, you know. Ribbons, fancy silver pens, a keepsake…” he told me as he returned the camera back to the ugly brown carpet. “But if I take the DSLR… I could make us some money for the holiday fund.”
I pointed at the expensive camera he mentioned, only one eye open and fixed on him. “If you take that, you’re going to need to take the tripod with you, and you will complain the entire time that it’s heavy and ask me to carry it after thirty minutes… take the polaroid. Let’s not work this weekend.”
“Then why did I bring them both then?”
“I don’t know, because you’re a crazy workaholic. Can I go to sleep now?”
I was forced from my slumber at six am the next morning by a very excitable Adam who was pulling on my arm repetedly. He was already dressed in an oversized black T-shirt with a picture of David from The Lost Boys on, a dark red flannel shirt and blue jeans.
“I have barely slept,” he grinned at me, hands on both of his cheeks as he watched my eyes open. I could see the grey circles under his.
“You do realise we don’t have to be there till six pm… How did I know this would happen?”
“Because you know me, now get up, I need coffee and the biggest breakfast in the world.”
I groaned as Adam ripped the blankets from me and pulled on my arms. After he realised I wasn’t moving, he danced across the room and thew open the curtains to reveal the sun and it’s hellbent revenge on my retinas.
“Fuck. Fine, I’m moving.”
The later it got, the cooler it became. We both started out in denim jackets and scarves and ended up in our big poofy winter coats with the hoods drawn over our ears. My fingers were sore from the sudden warmth but damn, it was worth it. Adam’s coat had a grey fluffy trim around it, and I could see my hot breath in front of me. He had parked the car on the very edge of the field away from most of the others that had already arrived so it was easier to find later on, and we could be one of the first out. I was very glad that I had chosen to wear the boots Adam bought me for Christmas… my trainers would not have survived the muddy walk to the entrance of the carnival.
“I hope it’s warm on the other side,” Adam told me as I wrapped my arm around his shoulders while we walked.
“I imagine it will be… look at all these people.”
I hadn’t seen this many people since I went to the Superbowl… the open area was surrounded by trees in the distance, but there were people as far as my eyes could stretch. Some were dressed like clowns or had intricate face or body paint which was now ruined by the mud that was being kicked up around them, others just looked frozen to the bone. The crowd filtered slowly, and as we drew nearer ghostly music started to fill our ears.
“Creepy.”
“Yeah, I’m stoked.”
I placed a cold kiss on Adam’s temple, and we shuffled forwards, clinging to each other. The mess of people were now starting to form an orderly queue into the barriers of red and white ribbon. I used my height to my advantage; I could see over the heads of most of the people in front of us. There were four large floodlights pointing up into the sky above us, changing it from a dark navy to a haunting grey. The queue was filtering through the archway, half of which I had already seen in Super Steve’s photograph.
Sure enough, a ten-foot tall, wired metal archway stood in the centre with orange tube lighting winding around it. There was a large flashing white and green sign attached that read LOST LANDS. And underneath it, a black banner with the same garish writing from the leaflet read: Don’t lose your way.
My phone buzzed, but I ignored it. Two seconds later, Adam was wiggling his phone under my nose. I batted his hand away, I fucking hated when he did that.
“Sid just texted the group chat,” he said. “They’re inside.”
“Christ, they must have been here early.”
“Steve said they were camping in the next field so they could get the jump on everyone.”
I raised my eyebrows. “I think Steve and Sid are a bit weird, and not in the fun way.”
“You can’t judge them, Nico, we don’t even know them.”
I nodded, turning to face him, “Yeah, exactly, we don’t know them. I’ve just got a weird feeling, I don’t know.”
“Maybe it was that bagel at lunch,” Adam suggested, I rolled my eyes as we tiptoed closer.
The music was swelling, the unearthly theremin tunes were causing something in my chest to flutter. It was only a few minutes later that we were stood at the entrance, the man with the white painted face stood right in front of us, his expression was haunted, and the black paint around his eyes wasn’t helping the image. Adam retreated into my side yet had a grin like the Cheshire cat plastered across his lips.
“Tickets,” the man said abruptly, rubbing his hand under his nose and making the most grotesque noise as he coughed.
I shuddered and dug out the paper tickets from inside my coat. The man took them, counted them, and then screwed them up and threw them over his shoulder. There was an overflowing metal bin behind him, paper balls spilling out onto the dirt.
He lurched forward then and grabbed Adam’s arm and pulled it from his coat pocket.
“What the fuck do you-“
Someone behind me with a deep voice spoke up. “It’s fine man, it’s all apart of the act, look!”
I glanced over my shoulder before turning back to the man covered in paint. He let Adam go, and he showed me his arm. A black wristband was tightly wound around his wrist with the name of the carnival in green writing.
