my best friend’s brother is also on this snowy vacation queliot headcanon:
So I just got back from a snowy vacation and I was a little winedrunk on the plane and I thought (and consequently typed) a truly idiotic headcanon.
Quentin is invited (ok bullied into but with good intentions) last minute by his friend, Margo, to come on her big annual ski trip and even though he doesn’t ski because his parents never had the money he says yes because it feels nice to be invited and, well, he likes Margo. It can’t be that bad, right?
Except that it kind of can because he didn’t realize Margo’s older brother, Eliot, is also invited (why did this not occur to him because of course he is) until Eliot steps out of the car, all regal and long legs in a crazy expensive but ok pretty cute Canada Goose parka.
And he knows Eliot. It’s not like they’ve never met before. Which is kind of the problem because Quentin inexplicably just really likes him. I mean, yeah, he’s attractive, sure, but the last time he went to one of Margo’s parties they ended up talking and laughing for, well, a long time and it was all knocking knees and shared bottles of tequila. And Quentin–
But it’s all beside the point because Margo is a good friend and Eliot is off limits and absolutely unattainable for someone at Quentin’s level. Also potentially involved with that guy Mike - who has bad hair - regardless. Just. Not anyone he should be sweating.
And ok. Eliot seems delighted - which is not a word Quentin uses with any sort of frequency - to see him and gives him a hug. A big one. Like, the kind with great arm pressure? And a shoulder sniff? Fuck, Quentin is weird. God. Why can’t he be normal?
But of course Eliot is charming and immediately they’re all in the little rented chalet with hot toddys heavy on the toddy (assuming that’s the whiskey part), and he really needs to keep himself in check.
Quentin’s only frame of reference for ski lodges or ski culture or whatever is from movies, namely romcoms, and it seems exactly right that the rented chalet is tiny and there are only a few, cosy (the rich word for cramped) rooms and he ends up sharing a room with Eliot. It’s a bunk bed because sure. And Eliot immediately claims the bottom (“I am a top in all other realms” he smirks and is that flirting or just witticism?)
Josh and Margo and Penny and Julia all immediately go to the double and triple and quintuple diamond and rhombus hills (it is all utter nonsense terminology to him and maybe this is what people feel like when he talks Fillory) but Eliot stays with him while he rents skis and insists on joining him on the bunny hill (“It’s where all of the cute instructors are. All you have to do is ask about the french fry pizza technique and Marcel, who is here for the winter from Switzerland, is buying your après aperitifs.”)
Quentin falls. A lot. But Eliot laughs and picks him up and it’s sort of okay. But cold. People like this?
They call it early because “the chalet is calling, and so is an adequately made, intensely overpriced cocktail” (Eliot, not Quentin)
Somewhere around day three, with less falls and a lot of Eliot insisting he’s ready for at least one of the lesser diamonds, he starts calling him Q.
Quentin (Q) absolutely does not blush when Eliot cheers and hugs him in a clacking frenzy of skis when he makes it down his first real hill without so much as a stumble.
They’re all very drunk and playing the Forehead Game, pieces of masking tape stuck to their heads, names written in disorderly Sharpie letters (person, fictional or real rules: no you are not real, yes you can talk, yes you are animated, fine yes, you are the Brave Little Toaster, you cheater) when Josh and Margo start making eyes and not-so-subtly tell each other that Margo is Jon Snow and Josh is Kylie Jenner so that they can “sneak off” (stumble out of the room making out with disturbing vigor) to do whatever it is they plan on doing (subtle)
And Penny and Julia decide to go on a starlight walk or some uber-saccharine romantic beautiful thing
And then it’s just. Quentin and Eliot. And a lot of wine. In front of a cracking fire in a moonlit chalet and they slump even further in their chairs by the mantle and they’re talking about something so inconsequential and great (“Ugh. Margo usually has flawless taste in friends but Back to the Future III?? No one with any decency is allowed to like that movie, Q.”) and fuck Quentin is giggling and they’ve fallen to the floor (“How can you have not read any of the Harry Potter books?”) and if his head lolls just a fraction closer to Eliot’s wild curls, it’s because of some sort of scientific, magnetic pull or something.
He’s pretty sure that Eliot is leaning forward, or maybe somehow the wooden floors have slanted, or-or the world has moved and slid him closer to Eliot - his face in particular. And lips. His lips are like just molecules away, and–
Penny and Julia. Back. Snow dusted. Glowing. In love or some shit.
He accidentally calls him El. It just happens when they’re both at the breakfast table drinking coffee one morning. (“Of course you like it black, Coldwater. All tortured 50s existentialist.” “Just shut up and pass me the butter, El.”) And Eliot doesn’t correct him, just smirks and sips daintily at his coffee (no sugar, lots of milk) and nudges the butter at him.
Quentin really likes the way Eliot says Coldwater. He just. Does.
It’s Vermont during ski season so there’s a giant snow storm.
Obviously.
All that snow has knocked the power out. It’s getting increasingly cold inside the cabin the longer they’re without heating, and Penny and Julia Do the Brave Thing and venture out to see if they can scrounge up a generator or something to make this less miserable. Margo and Josh beeline for their room without a word and that’s that, apparently.
His bunk is fucking freezing.
He can hear Eliot on the bunk under him turning and turning. He wonders if he’s any warmer.
“Q. For the love of all things unholy, could you please get down here and help me generate some body heat before I go full Ötzi the Iceman. Not that a millennia of future generations wouldn’t benefit from seeing my beauty preserved in icy mummification- but I’m not that altruistic. Oh. And please bring all of the blankets you have.”
Eliot’s bed is. Really small. Well, it’s the same size as the top bunk, but with two people on it, it’s notably less spacious. Eliot is big spooning (as a verb), and Quentin is small spooning (silently freaking out), but it is really helping to keep the chill off. The four blankets Princess and the Pea style stacked on top of them probably aren’t hurting either.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, the heat must have kicked back in - or Penny and Julia had succeeded in their quest - because Quentin wakes, sweating, pushing off cover after cover after cover and Eliot has somehow lost his shirt (and Quentin quickly loses his shit), but mostly he just lays back down and doesn’t go back to his own bunk.
He wakes up again because there are lips on his shoulder.
Not like, random, disembodied dream lips. But specific lips.
Eliot lips.
It’s still dark outside.
Quentin had kind of forgotten that feeling? That one low, low in your stomach when you wake up in bed with someone, someone who is against you and kissing your skin and you feel warm and dazed and blissed the hell out.
But he definitely remembers it now.
And he turns and they are for sure, absolutely, 100% full-on making out now and it’s really small in this bed.
Somehow Quentin loses his shirt, too (Eliot is good at somehow misplacing clothing)
“Just making sure you’re warm, Q.”
“Yeah. Taking off my shirt is definitely helping.”
They wake up in the morning and it’s hot and sticky and the opposite of Ötzi and Quentin says so.
Eliot agrees and doubles down.
They decide to stay in the chalet for the day while Margo and Josh and Penny and Julia spend their last day on the slopes. They drink hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps and Quentin hates it (the schnapps), but doesn’t tell Eliot, and Eliot loves it (burrowing into the couch with no clothes, but wool socks on, next to Quentin) but doesn’t tell Quentin.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Magicians (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Characters: Quentin Coldwater, Eliot Waugh, Margo Hanson, Alice Quinn, Quentin Coldwater & Alice Quinn - Character
Additional Tags: Discussion of Qualice, Discussion of Qualiot, Post-Season/Series 04, season 4 finale fix-it, ish, AU from midway through the S4 finale, Quentin never dies, Quentin and Eliot recover, have lots of sex, And eventually do some talking, that's the fic, I started this before the finale believe it or not, It got sappier and smuttier afterwards cause we deserve it, Angst and Fluff and Smut, slight angst, Panic Attacks, Frottage, Shower Sex, Anal Sex, Anal Fingering, Blow Jobs, Arguments leading to sex, Look just feelings and smut and more feelings and more smut and also talking about feelings, and talking about sex, sex and feelings and talking
Summary:
Eliot is back. Everyone is safe. Quentin might be freaking out a little.
“Okay, look,” he began. “I’ll just...lay it out. Cause I don’t know what else to do.” He took a breath, realizing he sounded almost angry. But not at her. “When we got back from Fillory, when we remembered that alternate timeline...I said, ‘hey, why don’t we, you know, try it for real.’ You know, us,” he added to her. “And he said ‘no.’ So, okay, fine, that was fucking that, right?”
He glanced at her long enough to see the frown lines between her brows. “And then...you know...everything else happened. And he was...gone.” He hated the way his voice broke on the last word. “And now he’s back. And he said… He said…that…he wants to try. Wants to be together.”
Quentin woke up in the Brakebills’ infirmary and almost the first thing he said was, “How’s Eliot?” The last he’d known before racing off to the mirror world to get rid of the monsters had been that Eliot was going into surgery. There’d been a moment when he thought he was going to die without knowing if he’d managed to save him or not. But Kady and Zelda had come through, they’d burst the pipes the library used to throttle magic, and a flood of possibility had entered the world. Alice had saved his life with it. And after stabilizing Eliot with traditional medicine, Professor Lipson been able to heal him the rest of the way with magic. He was still weak and suffering the aftereffects of having his body mistreated by the monster for months, but he would recover completely. It was over. Somehow.
They’d brought Eliot back to the loft to give him a quiet place to rest (and because “it was a shame he hadn’t been able to appreciate this bitchin’ pad” according to Margo.) Margo stayed with him for a while, while Quentin took a shower. He was exhausted, his brain feeling almost numb and blank with it. He knew, distantly, that Alice was in the apartment. He should probably be thinking about her more. But he couldn’t stop the feeling that he needed to stay right beside Eliot. Needed to make sure, each time his eyes opened, that it was really him behind those eyes.
"Sometimes the physical kids cottage gets a little wild," Eliot says, but it's so loud in here that he has to sway into Quentin's space. One hand curls around his shoulder for balance as Eliot plants the words directly into Quentin's ear. Quentin swallows; his throat closing, his adam's apple sliding. This close, he has to tilt his head back to look Eliot in the eye. This close, Quentin can smell whatever cologne it is Eliot's wearing, something that smells like the woods just after a rain mixing with the gin cocktail on Eliot's breath. And underneath all that, under the collared shirt with the complicated tie knot and the vest that polishes Eliot's look to a level beyond Quentin's worn sneakers and jeans, Quentin Coldwater can smell Eliot Waugh's skin.
it’s all fun and games ‘til somebody loses their mind
Pairing: Quentin/Eliot
Rating: T
Summary: Margo, of course, told him he was being an idiot. He knew, somewhere inside of himself, that she was right. However, he didn’t want to believe that at this time. What he did know was a simple and absolute fact, Q deserved better. A better ending and a longer life, a happier life. Even if it wasn’t what he could give to him. He closed his eyes for a moment, just a moment, trying to breathe through the pain; both physical and emotional. It had only been a couple weeks, and he could still feel the pain from the axes when he moved.
A little 3.13 episode tag. Be kind, I haven’t written fic in over a decade so this is quite possibly terrible. This is what Queliot does to me.
When you live an entire lifetime with someone, you develop a sort of shorthand language that doesn’t require words. The tilt of a head, the pressure in the squeeze of a hand, the squint of an eye can convey entire sentences without so much as an utterance.
A weary huff laced with frustration became, “I cannot spend one more goddamn minute on this mosaic.”
A reassuring, lingering squeeze of the hand became, “You rest, I’ll take over for awhile.”
An arm firmly around his shoulder became, “I’m so sorry she is gone, but I’m still here.”
The crinkle of an eye filled with love and surrounded by the lines of time became, “I couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone but you.”
So when Dean Fogg goes turn coat with a Library memory wipe reach around there is precious little time for goodbyes and too big an audience for intimate declarations.
He finds himself last in line for what might be the only cocktail he wouldn’t be willing to drink with Quentin conveniently on his right. Margo was near the beginning, already knocked out on fascist juice with a glamour that cannot nearly measure up to her. There are two people in this whole fucked world he would save a dramatic farewell for, and since one is currently indisposed, he will be damned if he isn’t able to give one to Quentin.
The very thought of never seeing him again causes a ball of emotion so thick to swell in his throat he would be beyond words even if he wanted to, but he and Quentin are well beyond needing them anyway.
When he stoops lower to give Quentin’s shoulder an indelicate nudge is becomes, “We don’t have much time and I need you to know something.”
When he tilts his head softly but purses his lips in slight defiance it becomes, “I’m so sorry I changed the plan, but I’m also not sorry at all.”
When he strains against the ropes that cut into his wrists and Quentin does the same to offer a desperate squeeze with desperate fingers it becomes, “I didn’t want to live without you, I don’t want to live without you.”
And when he looks with tender eyes that bely terror in his heart into Quentin’s, whose have become frantic as Fogg has reached Kady, who is just to his right it becomes, “It will be alright, I will find and I will seduce you and so lift your spirits so that life retains its sparkle for decades.”
He has always been shit at missing an opportunity to joke in tragic circumstances, so when Quentin’s eyes go warm and crinkle in the corners and he nods his head before he turns to take down Fogg’s vial with renewed courage, Eliot is glad that Quentin understands he actually said “I love you.”
And just before he feels sinister tendrils invade his senses as Quentin hits the floor, Eliot is heartened by the fact that Quentin said, “I love you right back.”
Tags:Fix-It (canon compliant up to S04E09), angst with a happy ending, references to depression, friendship, love confessions, kissing, you know the drill, they get Eliot back and it’s a whole lot of horrible things and then in the end, it’s all worth it
Link to AO3
Sometimes, when Quentin doesn’t pay attention, when he’s so tired that the shapes in the room around him start to blur, he looks at him. At it.
It has to be something like muscle memory of the worst kind, because Quentin is so used to looking at Eliot, and even if that thing is nothing like Eliot at all – beautiful, insecure, haughty, loving, self-sacrificing Eliot – it still looks like him.
The sharp line of Eliot’s jaw is the same, as is the curve of his lips, the shine of his dark curls, the way his lashes fan out over high cheekbones, creating the softest of shadows; everything is the same, down to the golden specks in his eyes, everything but the man looking out from behind them, and it’s that which breaks Quentin’s heart.
Sometimes, he finds himself wishing the Monster would just move on, no matter who it would take instead, just so he wouldn’t have to go on like this anymore, looking at Eliot’s face day in, day out.
Because the thing is, as soon as Quentin is in the same room as even Eliot’s body, there is no way he can do anything but look.
It’s so late that it’s already early, and Quentin’s eyes feel like he’s wiping sandpaper over them every time he blinks. Next to him, there’s a half-empty cup of coffee and at least a dozen of candy bar wrappers, Julia and Penny are talking in hushed noises on the sofa across the room, momentarily wrapped in their own little bubble. Quentin doesn’t think he has ever felt this lonely before.
The book in his lap is about early Green mythology, not because he thinks that it’s what will crack this puzzle, but because he needs to have something in his hands in case that the Monster decides to show up again. So instead of just sitting there, trying not to feel the hole in his chest, he’s trying the best he can to piece the words in front of him together to form the legend of Apollo and Hyacinth.
In the book, Apollo is teaching Hyacinth to shoot the bow, and for a moment, Quentin can feel the bow in his hands, back in the woods during their first year, when shooting a fish was the worst of his problems. When Eliot, his Apollo, was sitting at a table, hair immaculate and eyes glinting with mirth, with mischief, and the only thing Quentin had to do to be close to him was to come home to the cottage in the evening, knock on his door.
For a moment, it’s – it’s not good, it’s not even okay, but it’s quiet.
“I… found something”, a voice that is close to Eliot’s, but not quite the same, says right next to his ear. It speaks volumes about how tired Quentin is that he doesn’t even flinch.
“Yes?”
“It makes my tongue feel… weird. Tingly.”
Quentin expects something horrible, because that’s usually what the Monster shows him, but what it produces from its back pocket is a pack of Pixy Stix. Maui Punch flavoured, as far as Quentin can tell.
And there is something about the scene – Eliot’s body dressed in an old t-shirt, his hair a mess, holding out a pack of children’s sweets like it’s the Rosetta’s Stone – that makes Quentin laugh, not the way he used to laugh, but at least a small chuckle, joyless and hollow.
He can feel Penny’s and Julia’s eyes on him.
“You’re… happy”, the Monster slowly states, like it is piecing together something important. “This makes you happy.”
This, also, is not what Quentin expected, so there is no answer he can think of to give, not when he is this tired, this devastated. He just shakes his head.
“But you’re smiling”, the Monster says, obviously confused, still holding the Pixy Stix. “Smiling means you’re happy.”
Quentin can feel the smile still lingering on his lips turn bitter, his fingers tightening around the book in his lap.
“No.” It’s the only, the last thing Quentin has to say, not only for now, maybe forever. “It doesn’t.”
“What do you think this will lead to?”, Julia asks him, catching him just as Quentin steps out of his room in the morning, not feeling the slightest bit rested. “You know, in case we really manage to finish it.”
He knows that they do not have much time, that even talking for a few minutes is a risk, and yet Quentin can’t answer immediately. Because he doesn’t know the answer, and yet doesn’t want to admit it. Not because he doesn’t trust Julia, he does, just because he knows that sometimes, he is the only thing standing between Eliot’s body and destruction.
“Probably something bad”, he acknowledges, since it would be pointless to pretend otherwise. “It always leads to something bad. Best scenario? We fix the body, and while it’s still weak from the transfer, we manage to stick it right back where we found it. Worst scenario? We give it a – a better body, make it harder to kill it, and have to start all over again.”
He doesn’t mention Eliot on purpose; why, he doesn’t know, but Julia notices, just like she always does.
“Best case, we get him back. Worst case, we lose you too”, she says softly, and Quentin doesn’t even try to deny that, like so often, she’s right.
Penny puts his life on the line for them once again, and Quentin watches, and waits for the familiar feeling of panic when Penny’s nose starts to bleed.
It never comes.
There’s concern, the fear he now feels constantly grows in intensity, becomes sharper, but he has grown numb to anything that isn’t Eliot. Never has he noticed it to this extent, how much he is willing to sacrifice to save this impossible, beautiful man, who might not even love him back, and yet the revelation doesn’t shake him to the core, like it should.
Back when magic was gone, he was ready to sacrifice himself, his friends, everything for the greater good, and yet he is willing to watch the world tumble into chaos for a single man. It should scare him, and for a moment it does, when Penny starts to convulse, Julia rushing over to him immediately, but then the Monster opens Eliot’s eyes, and they’re the same shade of hazel he knows so well.
And it’s there with a clarity no one should be able to possess, that Quentin realises he would rip the universe apart with his bare, bloody fingers, if it meant he could see Eliot behind them again.
Quentin is hanging from Penny’s lips from the moment he says Eliot’s name. Every information about the Monster is something that could save their lives, but it feels like a single word from Eliot could heal his heart, his soul.
Penny looks, sounds shaken, talks about a sister, who must be worse than what they are dealing with now, and Quentin’s head is reeling, unable to take all of it in. Part of him is screaming that there is no way anything could be worse than this, but the rest knows how subjective that is; this is his personal hell, but whatever this sister is capable of might prove to turn the world into a living nightmare for all of humanity.
Quentin knows that he should never be willing to risk it, and yet, nothing has changed.
Both Julia and Penny are looking at him, waiting for him to speak, but Quentin is lost for words, because there are none left which he hasn’t yet used to sway them. It worked up until now, but there is no telling if it will again, when every additional piece of information only manages to make matters worse.
Because if what they are building is not the body the Monster really wants, there is no reason for it to leave Eliot at all.
“We’ll have to work around it, then”, he says slowly, because every word he speaks feels impossible to move from his lips. These aren’t words to take flight, soar up into the air, instead they weigh so heavily on Quentin’s heart he can feel them force the breath out of his lungs. “Make sure he won’t find out about it, and make sure he won’t find Enyalius to get the last of the organs… find a way to either destroy the stones, or the sister. There’s simply no other way.”
“I mean, we could –“, Penny starts, but Quentin can’t allow him to finish.
“No”, he interrupts, his voice cold and hard and almost unrecognisable to himself. “I won’t discuss this again. We won’t sacrifice him.”
He waits to break down until he’s alone.
It’s not a conscious decision, just something that happens. Julia looks at him like she is trying to understand what he is going through, Penny watches him with disbelief, but compassion written all over his face, and Quentin cannot take any of it, so he flees.
They never discussed the rooms in the flat, and yet they all ended up choosing one of them for their own. Penny’s next to Julia’s, Kady’s the master bedroom, Quentin’s the one farthest away from the stairs, as if it could somehow give him more than a moment of peace.
Maybe there is some meaning hidden behind it, but Quentin refuses to think about it for more than a moment’s time, refuses to do so at all now, when he shuts the door.
It doesn’t come crashing down on him, because that would imply that the feelings ever left, Quentin just suddenly hasn’t got any strength left to carry them. There is a black hole expanding in his chest, swallowing every emotion inside him, good or bad, because nothing else matters anymore.
Nothing matters but the fact that there is no body in which the Monster wants to change, no guarantee that it will let Eliot go, no matter what they do.
Quentin wishes he could scream, but even as he cradles his head in his hands, parting his lips to ease the pressure on his chest just a little, no sound comes out.
The black hole has swallowed his voice too.
Day has turned to night to day again, and the disguise might be a weak one, but Quentin has a book that might help with figuring out the truth about the Binder hidden behind one about Hindu deities.
It will help nothing if the Monster decides to appear behind him, but with his eyes, his fingers, his head aching, with the black hole in his chest still sucking the meaning out of every word he reads, every concerned gaze Julia sends his way, Quentin isn’t certain he still cares.
If this was about his fate, he knows he would have given up long ago; the only thing keeping him from closing the books and allowing himself to be swept away by the current of events, is the memory of Eliot’s lips curling into a small smile back in Fillory, just after Quentin had kissed him for what felt like the first time.
The memory of hazel eyes being filled with tenderness, not greed, of Eliot looking up at him with pride shining out of them so brightly when Quentin crowned him High King, even of Eliot slowly, carefully, as if each word could cut his mouth, letting him down after having spent a lifetime together.
He sighs, softly enough that Julia won’t hear, is about to tip his head back against the sofa, when a long-fingered hand slides into his hair.
“What…are you reading?”, the Monster asks, and Quentin tries to conceal the shock of being touched without warning, while still shutting the books.
“Do you really want to know?”, he asks and wonders when even lying has become too much of a chore to do. “It’s something for the quest, don’t worry.”
Although it’s the last thing he wants to do, Quentin looks up.
The Monster is watching him with curious eyes, brows raised like Quentin is a puzzle it wants to figure out, and the look on its face is so close to familiar it seems to slice right into Quentin’s heart.
“I suppose not”, it finally replies and Quentin suppresses a sigh of relief. “Research is very boring. Books are boring.”
A moment passes in which Quentin doesn’t know what, or if, to respond, can only feel the Monster scratch its fingernails against his scalp, a sensation that his body reacts to, even if Quentin doesn’t want it to. Then the Monster gives him a small nod.
“We are going somewhere”, it tells him, and Quentin desperately wishes he was still surprised as he blinks and finds himself in a completely new scenery.
The living room has vanished, instead they’re on a quiet street, surrounded by looming, grey houses, a toy shop next to them. Instead of the sky being grey, heavy with clouds that refuse to rain, the sun is shining brightly, birds chirping their song in her praise.
Quentin crashes onto the ground unceremoniously after having been robbed of the sofa he was sitting on, the Monster remains standing, looking down at him like Quentin used to look down on the ants he’d burn with his magnifying glass.
“Has this anything to do with finding Enyalius?”, he asks, even while picking himself up from the ground; the Monster shakes its head.
“No. I want cake. A woman said this was the best cake in the world, before I ripped her heart out. And since you are my friend, I wanted to take you so you could have cake, too.” Without looking, the Monster takes his hand, and Quentin winces as he is dragged along, trying not to feel those fingers wrapped around his, the warmth of the Monster’s palm.
Its skin always seems to be just slightly hotter than Eliot’s used to be, and Quentin isn’t sure if it’s just him imagining that every touch scorches him.
The café is larger than Quentin thought it would be from the outside, decked out in red velvet and dark wood, and it’s only when he takes in the chatter all around them that Quentin realises they have left America altogether.
“Grüß Gott, was darf’s denn sein?”, the woman behind the counter asks, a polite, if tired smile on her lips. At least a dozen different cakes and pastries are displayed in front of her, and Quentin wishes he could concentrate on them, and not on how much he hopes that the Monster will not rip everyone in the café to pieces.
“Wir brauchen noch einen Moment“, he tells her, his German thickly coated in an American accent, unfamiliar on his lips and tongue.
Next to him, the Monster is staring intently at the counter, his concentration almost child-like. It’s still holding onto Quentin’s hand.
“Which one do you want?”, he asks, hating the way his voice gets softer when talking, just because it’s Eliot’s body he is addressing.
There is no answer for far too long, then the Monster, without looking at Quentin, says, “Everything.”
Since there is no sense in arguing, Quentin doesn’t try, only tells the woman to give them a slice of each; she doesn’t show a sign of surprise, and it might be professionalism or because she has seen far worse, but Quentin neither knows nor cares. He’s just glad, because it might mean that they’ll make it out of here before anyone has to die.
“Why is she putting them into boxes?”, the Monster asks suddenly, straightening to its full size, looking at Quentin accusingly. “I want to eat here.”
“What? Why?”, Quentin asks back instead of answering, desperate to get the Monster out of here, away from people.
“Because”, it says, slowly, like it is talking to a small child. “They have the best cakes in the world.”
For once, there is no bloodshed. Quentin doesn’t know how they manage to get out of the café with it still intact, the woman from before telling them goodbye, but he doesn’t spend much time fretting.
It feels too good to have something go his way for once to spoil it.
In the end, it’s neither of them who finds the clue that helps figure out Julia’s mystery, it’s Alice.
Alice, who Quentin can look at, but doesn’t want to; Alice, who he loved, who he would have killed himself for, and who didn’t want him to do either; Alice, who hurt him, and who he hurt in return.
Quentin wishes it could have been anyone else.
However, when she stands in front of him in the living room of Kady’s apartment, clutching a small book to her chest, she looks so frail, so insecure, that Quentin cannot even bring himself to feel angry anymore.
“It’s actually quite simple”, she explains, words spoken so quickly it’s difficult to make them out. “If you know what you’re looking for. I found this – well, it’s a long story, but I did find it, and I think I know how to help.”
Alice looks earnest, and Quentin dares to look over to Julia, because in the end, it’s her destiny, her call. Her arms are crossed, her expression closed off, but not hostile, even though it was Alice who cost Julia her godhood, and although it takes her a few seconds of silence to speak, Quentin knows her decision even before the words fall from her lips.
“What do you propose?”, Julia asks, and although her voice is cold, she sounds curious. Quentin isn’t the only one who notices, judging by how a part of the tension seems to leave Alice from one moment to the next.
Still, she takes a deep breath before answering; when she does, her voice is steadier than before, more like the Alice Quinn Quentin has gotten to know over the years.
“We need to summon the Hesperides.”
The spell is not the problem, the timing is. They need to rise at dawn, when the first hints of red and pink are touching the sky, need to chant the spell three times, once for each nymph, before them a cup of a black bull’s blood and a cup of milk, pieces of poplar, elm and willow wood.
And all that without letting the Monster know they are planning anything.
Alice and Kady take care of the supplies, but there is no option but taking a risk, a horrible, frightening risk, when it comes to the summoning. Night and day mean little to a creature able to travel from one continent to the next within the blink of an eye, so getting up at four in the morning is just as bad as performing the summoning at four in the afternoon, and yet, they all appear, every one of them.
Penny looks like he hasn’t slept a second, hovering around Julia, who faces the ritual with stoic silence. Still, Quentin catches her looking down at Penny’s restless hands, and wonders when she’ll finally give in and lace their fingers together.
Alice seems terrified, but Quentin isn’t certain if they are the problem, or if the Monster is. And while Kady stays close to her the entire time, neither of them seems comforted by the other’s presence.
Quentin, at the same time, although he would never admit it, finds something far scarier than being frightened; he finds that he doesn’t feel much at all. The summoning, the risk of being ripped apart limb by limb, it’s a necessity, and he was being truthful at least once when talking to the Monster. He is tired, too tired.
It’s a feeling that is far too familiar, but he pushes the thought aside, because there is no time for such things. For him.
Ancient Greek, when they finally begin, after minutes of anxious waiting for the first rays of sun to paint the sky, is just as unfamiliar to his lips and tongue as German was not too long ago, even if the incantation was the only thing on his mind for days now. But his voice mixes easily with the others, becomes one fraction of a whole, and from one moment to the next, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.
The air starts to swirl before them, becomes fragrant with the smell of apples and crushed grass, the scent of spring, and it looks like the sun is rising in their living room, carrying three women on its golden rays.
Whatever Quentin was expecting, it didn’t come close to this. He has met gods before, but none who made him feel like he should bow before them.
And yet he can hardly stop his knees from buckling when the light slowly dims to a soft glow, revealing who they have summoned. It’s not their looks, but their aura, the crackling of magic around them, the silvery-metallic taste of power in the air.
These are creatures that grant godhood instead of just possessing it.
“You took your damn time”, one of them says, even before Julia can talk, steps forward with a small jar in one of her hands. Another one, holding a golden apple, adds, “We’ve been waiting.”
Maybe it’s what Quentin should have expected, after having partied with Bacchus and watched Iris be gutted, but it isn’t. Instead, it leaves him without words, without a response, but then again, it’s not him who the Hesperides are talking to.
And Julia only needs a moment to recover, meets them halfway with blazing eyes and her voice steady, unshaken.
“There were complications”, she tells them, and Quentin doesn’t think he has ever been this proud of her before, hasn’t loved her this much in months, to the point where he thinks the feelings might be too intense for his small, feeble body to hold. “But they don’t matter now. What matters is that you give me answers. What has happened to me? What am I?”
All three of them smile, their lips curling in the exact same fashion, half amused, half affectionate, as if they were talking to a toddler who just asked a question a little smarter than expected.
“A goddess, honey”, the one holding the apple says, like it is the simplest of things, when it is anything but that. “Powers or not, that doesn’t change. You’re a goddess, and we’re here to give you everything to once again be a good one.”
Julia doesn’t answer right away, and Quentin thinks he knows why; it’s the same reason why she was so reluctant the last time, why she gave up her powers so willingly. She’s not ready to leave them, not yet.
And the Hesperides seem to know it just as well, because the third nymph, the one who hasn’t talked yet, crosses the distance so she can put a hand on Julia’s shoulder, like Quentin imagines a mother would.
“We know you won’t leave”, she tells her; Quentin wishes he could see Julia’s face, see if it’s joy written across it or sorrow. “We won’t, or rather, we can’t force you to. You’ll grow tired of them anyway, and for now, they need you. We need you here, because otherwise, there won’t be a world for us to govern over, neither here nor anywhere else.”
Her voice is kind, and from behind, Quentin watches Julia nod.
“What do I need to do?”
“Not much.” The third nymph steps back so her sisters can hand Julia the jug, the apple. “Drink. Eat. Regain your powers. Help your friends, and when you’re ready, join us.”
It’s a simple enough request, and Julia nods once more, fingers clutching the gifts tightly.
In the light of the rising morning sun, the Hesperides’ bodies begin to grow translucent, as if the fading dawn was carrying them away.
“But how can I help?”, Julia asks, suddenly hurried, still not quite desperate.
“You’ll know”, all three of them reply in unison, then the one who carried the apple adds, the smile audible in her voice, “Eat the seeds. They’re magic.”
They disappear without a trace except for the objects Julia is holding, and the reverent sigh all of them let out once the air has cleared of magic, of the smell of spring.
Quentin doesn’t know what he expected and yet it must have been something different, because the hollowness is back in his chest, unchanged even by the awe that had taken a hold of him just moments before.
However, when Julia turns around to face them all, there’s a fire in her eyes, a glow emanating from her, that for a second, he thinks that maybe it’s him, who’s wrong.
Just before they leave, Alice takes his hand and pulls him into a corner, just out of earshot. Her teeth are nibbling away at her bottom lip, her eyes do not find his, and somehow the obvious nervousness she is emanating makes it easier for Quentin to hear her out.
“I heard you in the library”, she blurts out, oblivious that the statement means nothing to Quentin. “At Brakebills. And I know I can’t change your mind, no matter what I say – I suppose, I’m the person least likely to change anything about you – but I know you, and I’ve seen it, when you get like this. It’s… scorching. Like whatever you touch might go up in flames and you don’t even care about it. And – “
She stops mid-sentence to take a deep breath, then, for the first time since stepping into the apartment, looks him in the eye, her gaze unwavering.
“And I know how you feel about him. But please, Quentin, make sure you don’t burn out over this.”
It’s only after Kady and Alice have left, after they have erased all trace of the ritual, after Julia has gone to her room to regain her powers, that Quentin allows himself to think about Alice’s words. Not because he has to consider if she is right; he knows she is.
No matter what hundred things have gone wrong between them, there is still one undeniable truth: Alice knows him better than most people do, and she is right. She watched him go through this before, for her, and if she has any idea, any idea of his feelings for Eliot, she knows that he will stop at nothing to save him, no matter what it costs. No matter if he has to try and pull the Monster’s spirit from Eliot’s body with his bare hands, no matter if it hurts, if it leaves him broken.
He’ll bleed himself dry, if it means keeping Eliot save.
And as he turns the piece of poplar wood in his hand, feeling the smooth surface, the residual warmth the nymphs’ presence has left inside of it, he realises that he could stop himself.
He just does not want to.
Julia sleeps an entire day, an entire night.
“How do you feel?”, Quentin asks when she stumbles out of her room the next morning, hair a mess and imprint of her pillow across her right cheek. She looks just like she did when they were younger and would have a sleepover; for a moment, Quentin’s heart doesn’t ache with grief, but with nostalgia.
“Strange”, Julia replies after a moment, pulls a face. “But not because something changed, because nothing did. I feel the exact same, just… whole. Like I finally got a good night’s sleep. And – “
Her voice gets quiet, like she is telling a secret, and then, when she snaps her fingers, Quentin watches a daisy sprout from her fingertips.
“And I can do this.”
“This… is useless”, the Monster exclaims, swipes its arm across the table and sending all their carefully compiled notes, the dozen books onto the floor. It doesn’t come as a surprise, not when they have been stalling for more than two weeks now, feeding the Monster titbits of information to keep it from asking too many questions, while they try and work out a plan to overpower it.
Up until now, they have found nothing.
What they do have, however, is a relatively good idea how to summon Enyalius.
“I do wonder if you truly are useless, or if you’ve forgotten what I intend to do to this… meat sack, if you do not help me recreate my body”, the Monster drawls, summoning a flame with one hand while holding the other above it, scorching the skin.
There is no sign of pain on its face, and yet Quentin cannot bear to watch the scene in front of him, breaks the silence first.
“Okay, we get it”, he grits out between clenched teeth, tension only dissipating once the Monster extinguishes the flame. The skin of its palm is raw already, blisters slowly forming around the burn mark. “We’ll work harder. It’s just – it’s not easy to get the information you need.”
“I know”, the Monster tells him, unfazed, its expression open, innocent, and yet, to Quentin, cruel. “That’s why I am giving you… three more days. Or I take this body to the bottom of the ocean and find out how long it takes until its chest collapses under the pressure.”
Julia finds him in his room, obviously ignoring that he does not want to see anyone.
Three days is not enough, not even close to enough, and yet this has never been a discussion.
Three days is what they have.
Three days, and Quentin might not even have a body to bury this time.
It’s only when Julia closes the door behind her that Quentin looks up from the floor, utterly aware that he must look as defeated as he feels. He will pick himself up again, for Eliot’s sake, but it will take an hour of precious, precious time for him to find the pieces so he can put his heart together once more.
“I won’t pretend and say that this is anything but a horrible, horrible mess”, Julia starts, sits down next to him on the bed. Quentin is as glad as he can be in this moment for her being her, for her not trying and tell him that it will be okay. “Because it is and we both know it. But we have come so far, you have come so far, that I think that, if anyone could have a shot at this, it’s us. We have proven again, and again, and again that we can do things that should be impossible. I believe in us. And I hope that you do too.”
There is a small smile playing on her lips when she looks at him; Quentin takes her hand and laces their fingers together without ever breaking her gaze.
“I – I do”, he says, and finds, while saying the words, that they’re true. He does believe in them more than he should, and yet it doesn’t seem like enough. “I’m just… scared. And tired. But I cannot even imagine a universe in which we fail, because it would – “
He doesn’t say that it would kill him, that it would rip his still-beating heart from his chest and burn it to ashes, but he doesn’t have to. There is a level of understanding in Julia’s eyes, which has surpassed what humans can feel, reminds Quentin that he’s the only mortal in the room.
Somehow, in the mess they are in, he hasn’t found time to get used to the fact that he will lose his best friend in the near future, and this time for good.
“You know”, Julia starts, slowly, like she doesn’t want to scare him away. “One thing about having my powers – or at least part of them, up until now – back, is that I can hear prayers again. Not all of them, just when they’re really strong, really desperate, and you… Q, you have been praying with every breath you take. Every heartbeat. I know what he means to you, I really, truly do, and I know what you’re thinking. And I can’t promise you anything, but that I will do anything, absolutely anything to get him back. No matter what it takes.”
Julia still looks almost scared of his reaction, so Quentin gathers the little rest of strength he still has left, the overwhelming amount of love he’ll always hold for her, and smiles.
“I guess that’s the perk of being best friends with a goddess, huh?”, he asks, and Julia laughs, a precious sound in the usual silence of the apartment.
“I guess it is.”
“I’ll send a bunny to Margo in the morning”, he tells Julia later, when they are both sprawled on the bed, buried in books, in sketches. “Maybe she’ll have a plan. And if not, she’d kill me if we tried to get Eliot back without her being there.”
“That sounds like a good idea”, Julia replies, and maybe it’s Quentin’s exhausted, broken brain, but to him it looks like she starts to glow, just a little.
In the end, he does not have to send for her.
It’s far too early in the morning, just a few minutes after five, when the door to Quentin’s bedroom is flung open; he doesn’t even manage to sit up before Margo’s arms are around him, pulling him close. She smells like dust and sweat, not like the girl he first met, or the High King he last saw, but Quentin hugs her back anyway, takes comfort in the way her hair tickles his cheeks, the rise and fall of her chest, the almost-concealed dry sobs.
They stay like that, wrapped up in each other, for longer than they should, and definitely longer than Margo will ever admit. When they finally pull away, Quentin knows his eyes are wet; he thinks Margo’s might be, too.
“Welcome back”, he tells her, softly, watches a shaky smile bloom on her lips. “Just in time, too. I was going to send you a bunny today.”
“Wouldn’t have reached me”, Margo replies, her voice as hard as steel all of a sudden. Quentin knows better than to pry. “Get dressed and then meet me downstairs. We’ve got a lot of - I wish I could call it catching up, but I guess what we have to do is scheming.”
They do scheme, but first, Quentin makes coffee, listens to Margo recount all that happened in Fillory in quick, concise words and so many expletives that it’s a wonder she manages to breathe in between. A thousand questions stay unanswered, but Quentin can feel the pain radiating from her, the newly exiled High King, and knows better than to ask.
In so many ways, he and Margo are alike, one of them is that they both know that the second they stop to contemplate, they’ll fall apart.
“So, how have you been dealing with Regan McNeil?”, she asks, and even if they only have two and a half days left, and Quentin feels like every heartbeat chips away at his sanity, he manages to smile at the reference.
“Barely. He’s given us – he’s given us two more days. To make him his body. Or he’ll kill Eliot.”
Quentin doesn’t need to look at her to know that the colour just drained out of Margo’s face.
However, Margo doesn’t only bring a breath of desperately needed fresh air with her, another set of shoulders to carry the weight that has been threatening to break Quentin’s back, she brings a weapon.
Or rather, weapons.
They’re two axes, crudely fashioned, but Margo tells him they are meant to dispel spirits, and within seconds, they go from looking like they stem from a LARPing party gone wrong to the most precious instruments Quentin has ever laid his eyes upon.
“How do they work?”, he asks Margo, who seems unwilling to let go from the shaft of the axe she is holding even for a moment. “Is it like a wand? Do you have to say an incantation? Or – “
“You hit the person”, Margo interrupts him bluntly. “Preferably in an area that won’t kill them. Although I think I might go for one that at least causes some pain, so that Eliot can have a hint of an idea what he put me through. Us. We just have to make sure that… thing is distracted enough I can reach it.”
It’s the Margo he has come to love, forever unbent, stronger than anyone could ever expect from looking at her, and for the second time that morning, while the sun is still rising, Quentin feels tears welling up in his eyes.
“I’ve talked to him, you know”, he tells her, before Margo can say a thing about it. Her eyes go wide, her lips part to let out an inaudible gasp; she looks beautiful the way fine china looks after it has been shattered and put back together again. “Just for a moment. I didn’t even let myself believe it was him at first, because I didn’t know if I could bear hoping, but then he – it was him, it was definitely him. He’s waiting just below the surface, and I can’t reach him. And I’m glad that he doesn’t have to experience all this, what the Monster does, but at the same time – “
Quentin’s voice breaks, but Margo just takes his clasped hands in hers, continues what he wanted to say.
“At the same time, it would mean everything if you could just see him for a moment. Hug him. Tell him to hold on. And that you love him.”
His head shoots up to look at her at the last part, but Margo just gives him a small, sad smile, squeezes his fingers.
“I know, Q. I’ve known for a long time. I just hope we all live long enough for you to tell him.”
The two days pass by in the blink of an eye.
They build a ritual to summon Enyalius around the things they know about him, weave spell work all through the incantations, the devices they’ll need, even the dog they will have to use as a sacrifice. It’s sloppy, a makeshift construction that would get each of them banned from Brakebills for life, but there is no template to go by, not when it’s a god in hiding, not when they have an ulterior motive, which they have to hide in between the words.
Julia even goes to run the draft by Alice, who tweaks a few lines, a couple of syllables, then offers her help and seems surprised when they accept it.
Their best shot, all of them agree, is to try and summon Enyalius somewhere he has been worshipped for centuries, a place he might once have called home, and there is one in the Black Sea. Giresun Island, the island on which his daughters, the amazons, had built a temple dedicated to him; it seems as close to a home as a God could have.
Once again, it’s Penny, who saves them by travelling there ahead of time, carving symbols the Monster should never set its eyes on into the stones around, into the trees, the very air that will surround them.
Julia goes with him, slipping her hand easily into his, and Quentin is happy for her, at least for a moment.
“But we have been to Greece”, the Monster tells him, enunciating every word with care, like Quentin is too stupid to understand them otherwise. “It did not work.”
“I know”, he admits, steels himself and puts a hand on the Monster’s arm. It’s for Eliot, he tells himself, and suppresses the urge to recoil from the cruel, hazel eyes looking first down onto his hand, then up at his face once more. “But it will be different this time. I promise.”
He knows he will do anything to make the Monster come with him, beg and lie and swear, but there is no need for it.
A moment passes, then the Monster furrows his brows, and says, “Alright. You know what will happen if you fail.”
As if he could ever forget.
Warm air encompasses Quentin as soon as the scenery around him changes, the clean living room of the apartment giving way to dusty ground and withered grass, olive trees and a sky so clear and blue it hurts to look at it. The sound of traffic fades and is replaced by the chirping of cicada, the smell of coffee by the salty tang of the sea and the metallic crackle of magic in the air.
Penny and Julia are already waiting for them, fingers not intertwined anymore, and Quentin is a little glad for it, if only so they do not give the Monster more leverage than it already has.
“Alright, let’s get this party started”, Margo proclaims after a second that feels breathless, timeless, steps forward, the cage holding the dog firmly in one hand. It does not have a name, to make it easier to slit his throat when the time has come, and yet, Quentin feels a prick of remorse when it whines softly at the sudden movement.
However, there is no other way, not when Eliot’s life is at stake, and Quentin knows he will kill the dog just like he sliced open the pig’s stomach what feels like an eternity ago.
“Which… of the women will be the sacrifice?”, the Monster asks him, as if it could read his thoughts, and Quentin shakes his head before he has any time to think about a scenario so utterly dreadful, so appalling. It’s the one thing life hasn’t asked of him yet, choosing one of the people he cares about over the other.
“None of them. We have a plan, but it doesn’t include… that.”
“And you still think you will get Enyalius to show up?”, the Monster asks, obviously unconvinced; still, when Quentin nods, it only shrugs. “It’s your friend’s body, not mine.”
This time, the incantation flows off Quentin’s lips as easy as breathing, his voice mingling with the others’ mid-air, intensifying the taste, the scent of magic, until it feels like he is drowning in it.
They are standing in a circle, a pattern of magical symbols painted in blood on the ground between them, tokens made of steel and bone spread evenly among them; it’s nothing more than an educated guess, but it’s all they have.
Trapping a god is nothing like calling out to him.
Julia is mouthing along with the words, not ever speaking one so she won’t give away her newly awakened powers, but Quentin catches her eyes as they finish the incantation for the first time. She seems to glow even without casting magic, her hair dampened by the heat, her lips ever moving and yet pulling up into a tiny smile when she catches him looking.
For the first time, it’s a reassuring thought that Julia can hear him even without him saying a word.
They go through the incantation a second time, a third; it’s only when they start for the fourth time, that the air between them seems to change. It’s almost imperceptible at first, like a fata morgana in the far distance, the light being broken in all the wrong angles, making the empty space between them look tangible.
Every word intensifies it, until the shimmer woven into the sea breeze starts to take an almost human form, colour seeping into the lines of his body, like they have to force each molecule of Enyalius to bend to their will.
Hours seem to pass, until Quentin’s lips are numb from wrapping around the same lines over and over, until his fingers ache with the constant motion, but then, when the sun is almost setting, the figure between them lets out a scream.
It’s almost feral, desperation, fear, defeat all woven into a single sound, and Quentin knows he should be moved, but he’s too exhausted to care.
There is clapping coming from the side of their circle; Quentin hasn’t forgotten about the Monster being close by and yet finds himself surprised at the excited shriek.
“What have you done?”, Enyalius gasps out, looking horrified, and Quentin doesn’t expect a Bond villain’s speech from the Monster, but at least some kind of acknowledgement, a few words. Maybe an answer.
He gets none of it, just the sight of the Monster appearing behind Enyalius, its hand sinking deep into the god’s chest, spilling even more blood onto the ground. Enyalius chokes, eyes wide open and lips forming nonsensical sounds as the Monster rummages through his organs, finally finding what it was looking for.
It looks just as the other organs did, a lump of dark grey stone, and for a moment, Quentin marvels at how many lives have been given for just this, even while Enyalius falls to the ground in front of him, bleeding from his mouth, his eyes, the wound on his back.
Neither of them moves to help.
The Monster seems to already have forgotten about the dying god, standing in the middle of their circle, hazel eyes transfixed on the object in its hand, a strangely forlorn expression painted across its face, like it is trying to remember a half-forgotten dream.
“It… is done”, it finally says softly, almost reverently, looks up at Quentin, and for the first time, and for only one moment of a million, he does not only feel disgust when looking into its eyes.
Since for the first time, there’s emotion in them, a quiet, almost child-like awe, so soft that it seems like a wrong word could snuff it out.
Bloody, elegant hands cradle the stone close to the Monster’s chest, and even its voice has changed when it looks at Quentin, and him alone, and says, “Put me together.”
This is what they planned for, what all of this preparation was truly for, and Quentin can feel his pulse pick up with every second that passes, both with hope and anxiety. A thousand things could go wrong, and yet he cannot help but pray that, just for once, everything works.
Even to himself, it seems like a futile wish, and yet Quentin cannot shake it as he arranges the organs on the ground, using his own blood to draw the necessary patterns between them, the fragile lines symbolising veins and nerves, the crude drawing of a human body emerging on the dust.
They do not know what it will do to him, having his blood interwoven with an eternal monstrosity, a creature feared even by the gods, but Quentin hadn’t hesitated for a second before volunteering. It has to be his blood, his body, because he is the one the Monster trusts, and because he is the one whose life is on the line just as well as Eliot’s.
The preparations take less time than Quentin would have expected, and yet the moon has risen by the time they have finished.
Margo is standing right beside him, both of the ice axes in her hands, having explained to the Monster that they are ancient artefacts absolutely necessary for the kind of magic they are about to do. It is the one small mercy, that the Monster is so willing to accept their explanation, no matter how flimsy and far-fetched they are.
“Ready?”, Quentin asks her, and Margo only nods, jaw clenched, and her eyes set steadily on the Monster, who steps into the circle they have formed once more.
Their plan is rudimentary, but Quentin knows he will give his life to make it work, knows that Margo is willing to do the same.
This time, they see the effects of their spell with the first word they chant. The organs start to glow on the floor, Quentin’s blood thickening in the dust, as they watch artificial blood vessels forming before their eyes. It’s like charming a snake almost, their incantation swelling and softening in its volume, its pace, the body they are forming with their magic reacting to every change almost immediately.
To call it beautiful would be a lie, and yet it is impossible to look away from the tissue forming out of nothing, layer upon layer attaching themselves to the organs, the veins. They are forming a creature in mid-air, and even if Quentin knows it could mean the end of all of them, he cannot help but marvel at the fact.
Above them, the stars twinkle, and the moon draws its course on the firmament, and they weave nerves into each other, create a pulse and melt the heart to maintain it from its stone prison, connect bones and cartilage, draw sinews between them. They fill the empty spaces with flesh, with a billion of cells, shape them into limbs, cover them with skin and the finest hair, carve pores into the tissue and smooth a rosy hue over the new lips.
It’s when the sun is reaching out from behind the horizon, tinting the sky red and gold, that the body in front of them starts to jerk on its own volition, fingers twitching and muscles contracting for the first time. There is no pattern to the motions, but they do not stop until their words grow louder without Quentin ever having consciously demanded his lungs to do so, and the creature’s eyes fly open.
They are deep red, so unlike a human’s that Quentin almost lets out a sob as they all stop chanting, because it would have been so much easier to look into eyes like this than into soft, familiar hazel.
“Brother”, the creature drawls, and even its voice is unnatural, sounds like stones grinding together in the depths of the Earth, like tectonic plates moving against each other.
“This isn’t mine”, the Monster says, like an afterthought, even as it steps forward, raising a hand to catch its sister’s untouched fingers. “This is –“
There is no end to the sentence, for the creature closes the distance between them, presses her lips against the Monster’s. A spark lights up the scenery, so bright Quentin has to suppress the urge to shield his eyes, but his lips move on their own account, cry out to Margo.
“Now!”
He does not see her move, but he doesn’t have to; the spark is extinguished within a second, as Eliot’s body crumbles onto the ground, some of the glow still clinging to the sister’s lips.
And as she watches, she screams.
It’s primal, a yell that encompasses what seems like every possible emotion at once, love and the joy of their reunion bleeding into fury, into a desperation and sorrow so deep, so overwhelming that it seems to resonate with Quentin’s own heart.
She screams for what seems like an eternity, even while Eliot’s body starts convulsing, Margo’s axes still embedded in his shoulders. His muscle are spasming, his head being flung around until his lips part and light spills from them, golden and sparkling, shooting up into the sky like a beacon.
It’s only when the last sparkle of what Quentin hopes to be the Monster’s essence disappears into the sky that her howling stops; Quentin feels it before his ears have registered the lack of sound.
Her eyes fly open, and although he has been watching Eliot’s body, wishing desperately he could step forward and cradle Eliot’s head in his lap, brush the sweaty curls from his forehead, his head snaps up to look at her.
Never before has he seen anger, hurt as intense as in her blood-red eyes; it scares him more than Quentin ever thought possible, and yet he cannot turn away.
Her lips, the lips he helped form, twist into a snarl, and Quentin can feel the blood in his veins call out to her as she whispers something in a language he does not understand.
Everything goes black.
When he wakes again, his body feels heavy, even his eyelids too weak to open, his thoughts too slow to make any sense at all.
But it’s warm, wherever he is, soft and comfortable, so Quentin cannot bring himself to care. There is a tendril of worry scratching away at his exhausted mind, but it’s easy to ignore for now, even easier to go to sleep again.
There is a hand holding his.
It’s the only thing Quentin feels for moments, minutes, a hand with long, cool fingers, wrapped around his own. A familiar hand, one that has touched him before, one that has brushed back his hair, patted him on the shoulder, cradled his head gently, gripped his arm with enough force to make it hurt, and yet Quentin cannot place just who the hand belongs to, or why it feels like the few square inches where his skin is touched by it are the most important ones in the entire universe.
“He’s awake”, a voice says finally, interrupting Quentin’s musing. Again, it’s a familiar voice, female, soft and full of love, it’s a voice he knows better than his own and yet there is no name to attach to it to.
And another voice, deeper, hoarse, which doesn’t say a thing, just lets out a sound that breaks Quentin’s heart, even as he drifts back to sleep.
When he finally, truly wakes up, it’s just after dusk. The streetlights paint strange shapes onto the walls of his room, shadows moving whenever a car goes by, and Quentin is glad for the darkness surrounding him like a cocoon.
His hand is still being held, and his heart picks up its pace at the realisation, catalogues the position of each finger, the warmth of the palm, the slight pressure of a fingernail pressed against his skin, before he allows himself to turn his head and look.
They have succeeded, maybe not with everything, and maybe here was a prize to pay, but none of that matters. Not right now, maybe not ever, not when he knows the hand he is holding, when the world suddenly seems to have regained its spark.
Eliot is sitting next to him, his chair as close to Quentin’s bed as possible, his right hand on the mattress, holding onto Quentin’s, and it feels like Quentin sees him for the first time in years.
His hair is still too long, soft curls falling into his face, his lips part as he notices Quentin has moved, but nothing catches Quentin’s attention as much as his eyes do, his eyes, which even in the darkness look brighter than they have in months, filling with tears even as Quentin watches.
He’s beautiful and Quentin doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to look away from him again.
A few moments of silence pass, breathless with more than words could say, then Eliot lets out what could almost be a sob, a wet, desperate, happy little sound that seems to make the air between them vibrate.
“This isn’t quite how I imagined this to go, to be honest”, Eliot chokes out. “I always figured I would be the one waking up to find you watch over me. But I suppose we aren’t all born to be the female main character in a Nicholas Sparks’ novel.”
It’s not what he wants to say, and Quentin knows it, but he’s glad for the diversion. They will have time for serious conversations later, when he can sit up and Eliot doesn’t look at him like he expects him to disappear any second.
“You’d be a horrible female main character”, he croaks out, and Eliot laughs, the sound still not too far away from sobbing.
“I know. I’d be a disaster. I am a disaster.”
“No.”
Quentin cannot say it with the force he would like to, but Eliot seems to understand anyway, his smile turning sad, almost bitter for a moment, until Quentin squeezes the hand still holding onto his. “I missed you. In there”, Eliot finally says. It sounds like it is supposed to be a confession and Quentin thinks of peaches and plums and the Monster’s smile turning into Eliot’s back in the park, and there is a spark of hope he didn’t think he would ever feel again.
“I missed you, too”, he replies. “Out here.”
“Good”, Eliot says after a moment in which everything seems possible, then raises Quentin’s hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the back of it.
Julia hugs him so hard it forces the breath out of his lungs when she comes to see him; they are both laughing by the time she pulls back, carefree for the first time. She looks ethereal almost, glowing from the inside, and Quentin doesn’t allow himself to be reminded that she will have to leave them sooner or later.
After all this, they deserve a break, a little bubble of happiness within the terror everyday life has become.
“What happened?”, Quentin asks, when she has settled down on the mattress next to him, playing with his fingers. The touch makes him miss Eliot, even if it can’t have been more than a few minutes since the other left the room. “After I, you know.”
“She left. I managed to wound her, I think, but she left. Just vanished. I cannot say it for certain, of course, but I think she’s searching for her brother. And we will have hell to pay.”
Quentin nods, feeling the words open a schism in his brain he is too familiar with, a completely new kind of guilt spilling from it. For now, though, he is too tired to deal with it.
“And Eliot?”
“He woke up just moments afterwards. Disorientated, confused, but physically unharmed. At first, he thought you had died and…” Julia’s voice drifts off, becomes so soft that Quentin can recreate the scene in his mind without having to do much. “It was like her scream all over. It was like… like you. If he had died.”
The little flame of hope cradled in Quentin’s chest burns a little brighter, even while his heart aches.
“I’ll talk to him. Later. When I’m not like – this.” Because if he puts his heart on the line another time, he wants to be able to stand tall and look Eliot in the eye, try and convince him to give them a shot, if necessary.
“That’s a good idea.” Julia looks at him with gentle eyes, an even gentler smile, then laces their fingers together. “I think you’d be good for each other.”
“I think – no, I know so, too.”
“By the way, what’s going on with Penny and you?”, Quentin asks half an hour later, when he’s sleepy once more, and Julia, Our Lady of the Trees, the goddess, who managed to wound an unspeakable evil, blushes.
Quentin takes it as a good sign.
They all come to see him, Margo and Penny and Josh and Kady, even Alice with a shy smile and a peace offering on her lips.
In between, Eliot slips into the room, sometimes with a cup of tea or a small snack, but it’s a gesture so transparent that Quentin most of the time doesn’t even pretend to drink, to eat. There are a thousand that have to be talked about, and once, Eliot says his name with a severity Quentin cannot yet bear, so he shushes him with a squeeze of his fingers around Eliot’s.
He seems to understand, and it’s only later, when Margo is sitting at his bed site, eating Fillorian grapes and occasionally feeding Quentin one of them, that Quentin realises that Eliot has taken his hand every time he entered the room, not letting it go until he had to leave.
Regaining his strength takes time, more than Quentin thinks he has, but there is no way to rush it.
She, the sister, is leeching off his strength, Professor Lipson tells him after an exhausting afternoon of tests, which slows the healing process down considerably; the schism opens up once more in Quentin’s mind, taking in another detail about how it’s him who’s guilty of whatever havoc the creature they built is wreaking.
There is nothing to be done about it but rest, sleep, and even if it feels like he has done enough of both for a lifetime, Quentin acquiesces, mostly because there are always at least a handful of people at the apartment, who would force him to go along with Professor Lipson’s suggestions anyway.
“How was it in there?”, Quentin asks when Eliot lays down next to him after having brought him yet another cup of tea Quentin will not drink. “I know what Penny told me about it, the Cottage, but…”
But it took such a long time for us to get you out, is what Quentin wants to say but knows he shouldn’t, so he swallows the words down before they can escape his lips. Instead, he turns his head, so he can look at Eliot, which has become the one thing he does most often these days.
Still, he cannot even blame himself for it, not when he is trying to desperately overwrite each memory of the Monster looking back at him with one of Eliot’s eyes, the curve of his smile, the affection in his gaze. And it’s not like Eliot seems to mind.
There is a small pause, in which the other’s eyes cloud over, and Quentin is about to apologise and take back the question, when Eliot finally answers, his voice quiet, but steady.
“Lonely, mostly. I could recreate people from memory to keep me company for some time, and at first there was another guy – the host before me, Charleton – but it wasn’t enough. The problem with people you imagine is that they aren’t a lot of fun to talk to.” Eliot smiles, but there is no joy hidden in the curve of his lip; for a moment, Quentin considers kissing him to see if he could make the smile reach his eyes. But it’s not the right time for that, not yet. “So I… stopped. No more Ibiza Margo, no more Fen, God, there were even moments in which I pictured versions of Todd, just to make it seem a little bit more real.”
“You stopped?”, Quentin asks, and gives in to a small urge to keep away the bigger ones; he shifts closer until he can feel the heat of Eliot’s body against his own, tucks his head under the other’s chin.
Eliot doesn’t say a word, only presses the smallest of kisses to the top of Quentin’s head.
The spark of hope in his chest finds its cinder and turns into a flame.
“Yes. Well, with almost everything. I never could quite stop dreaming up you.”
A month has passed until Quentin feels like himself again. He still tires easily, magic takes a little more concentration to master, but his mind is clear, his body has healed and the air between him and Eliot is so thick with unspoken words, with Quentin’s hope, that it seems difficult to breathe when they are in the same room, even harder when they are apart.
Eliot has taken the bedroom next to his, something that feels as right as it feels wrong, and yet, it seems to take Quentin’s feet an eternity to carry him to his door.
It’s in the middle of the night, maybe Eliot is already asleep, but it felt like the first clear thought Quentin had in a long, long time when he stood up from his bed, ready to finally face fear, and love, and hope, and everything in between.
He just hopes that Eliot won’t mind.
It takes a few moments until the can hear footsteps after he has knocked, and Quentin can feel his heart beating in time with them; he’s not nervous, not quite.
He’s determined, he’s certain, he’s so hopeful it almost makes him dizzy.
The door opens, and Quentin could just kiss the confusion right off Eliot’s face, as he takes him in.
“Q?”, Eliot asks, already sounding worried. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? You’re still recuperating, you need to –“
“We need to talk.”
The words seem to be what Eliot expected least; his eyes go wide, his lips part to let out a toneless gasp, but he doesn’t look scared, doesn’t look nervous, just looks hopeful, determined, and the flame in Quentin’s chest turns into a wildfire.
Silently, Eliot steps aside to let him enter, the room illuminated by only a desk lamp, a few books strewn around the desk, scribbled notes littering almost every surface. It’s only now that Quentin realises that up until this moment, it has always been Eliot who came to see him.
“I know that the last time – “, Quentin starts, but he doesn’t get any further, because Eliot reaches up, gently lays a finger against his lips to silence him. The touch feels like fire.
Eliot seems as surprised at his actions as Quentin is, and yet he allows his finger linger on Quentin’s lips for a few more moments before letting his hand drop to his side, like he can feel the sudden electricity between them, the gravitational pull.
Yes, screams every molecule in Quentin’s body, overwhelmed and yet starved for any affection Eliot has to give. Yes, yes, yes.
“Back when I was… inside”, Eliot starts, slowly, his eyebrows furrowing as he searches for words. “I made a promise that I would be brave, even if only for once in my life. There are few things in the world that are worth putting your life on the line for them, and I haven’t found many of them, but Q, you’re… you’re one of them.”
His eyes are shining with the same mix of emotion Quentin noticed when he first saw Eliot after waking up, if anything, they are brighter, and their intensity is enough to take Quentin’s breath away.
In his chest, hope turns his beating heart into a star, burning so hot it warms him from the soles of his feet to his fingertips, every inch of him tingling with love, with need.
“I was so scared back then, and there are no words to tell you just how sorry I am for hurting you, but I just hope… against all hope, and although I don’t deserve even the smallest part of you, that maybe… just maybe you still want me.”
Eliot is still looking at him, desperate and hopeful and not at all scared, and Quentin doesn’t think he has ever loved someone like this, with every atom of his body, every fibre of his soul.
“How could I not?”, he answers, maybe a moment too late, and it’s half a sob, half a laugh. “After fifty years. After all of this, I don’t think I could do anything but want you, now and always, in every universe and timeline, and – “
Quentin lets his voice drift off, because words do not matter anymore, not when there are tears in Eliot’s eyes, threatening to spill down his cheek, not when his body craves Eliot’s touch, not when he finally loves, and is loved in return.
When they kiss, Quentin can feel his heart turn from star into supernova.
Dying was one thing. Dying to save your best friends and defeat the oppressive Librarian Overlords was another, much more noble thing. But dying to save your best friends, defeat the oppressive Librarian Overlords, and winding up stuck on a seemingly never-ending elevator ride down, down, down to the Underworld with both of your exes and Margo Hanson wasn't exactly the hero's death Quentin had been expecting.
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Dying was one thing. Dying to save your best friends and defeat the oppressive Librarian Overlords was another, much more noble thing. But dying to save your best friends, defeat the oppressive Librarian Overlords, and winding up stuck on a seemingly never-ending elevator ride down, down, down to the Underworld with both of your exes and Margo Hanson wasn't exactly the hero's death Quentin had been expecting.
"So we're....really dead, huh?" Eliot was the first to speak, and judging by the way he assessed his clothing choices, the tattered jeans, the graphic t-shirt, the oversized cardigan-cape thing, he didn't remember much from the few moments between being possessed by the monster and throwing himself in the line of fire to stop the monster's sister from killing Margo.
"Looks like it," Margo retorted coolly, turning her hands over in front of her.
Alice was quiet, her eyes downcast, her arms crossed over her chest. She looked so much smaller in death than Quentin ever remembered her being in life. He wished it didn't bother him.
"And we're all, going down there....together?" Eliot asked again, the logistics of their fate still evading him. Truth be told, they evaded Quentin, too. He had no idea why they were all on this elevator together. Was it because they'd died in such close proximity together, within a relatively short timespan? He knew he hadn't died at exactly the same time. He would never be able to un-know that.
"It would appear so," Quentin said quietly, staring straight ahead, the weight of failure on his shoulders. He'd been fine with death. Hell, he'd been ready to welcome it with open arms for a while, but he'd only wanted it if he went down alone. Clearly, that didn’t go as planned. Because of course it didn't.
"Well, fuck," Margo said, sounding more surprised than upset.
"What the fuck am I wearing?" Eliot asked. Slowly, Quentin turned around to see them all again. All the people he'd been trying so hard to save. His closest friends. The people he loved most in the world - dead. Eliot pulled the cardigan out from his body, regarding it with disgust.
"Darth Eliot had shit fashion sense," Margo explained, "But fuck if I was gonna tell him that and risk getting my neck snapped. I mean, I guess I kicked it anyway, though, so, sorry I couldn't get you to the Underworld in your Sunday best, baby."
Eliot shrugged, like this was a perfectly normal conversation to be having after a perfectly normal circumstance had occurred. Maybe they were all more fucked than he'd realized.
"Death by fashion advice definitely gets edged out by blazing, world-saving glory, Bambi. I'll allow it."
"We're all dead, " Quentin said, flustered that no one really seemed to grasp the severity of that concept. "No longer living. Ceased to exist on the corporeal plane. Are headed to the Underworld as we speak. Why are you two talking like you're on your way to happy hour?"
The outburst was, perhaps, the single thing most aligned with the reality of their situation, but an awkward silence followed it, and lingered for what felt like an eternity. Eliot crossed his arms over his chest and looked away. Margo squared her hands on her hips and stared Quentin down until he finally broke, turning to Alice. Alice, who was the only person in this god forsaken elevator who actually looked appropriately stricken by the concept of facing her own mortality. Or, having faced it? He wasn't quite sure how this worked.
A pang of guilt struck him when she looked up and their eyes met, for a split second. The fear there was a reflection of the last thing he'd seen on her face before she died. He'd really let her go to her death believing she was the villain of her own story. Her last attempt at apologizing had been to save them all, and she'd died in vain all over again. He wanted to apologize, now, but the words stuck in his throat, died on his tongue before they ever fully formed.
Quentin turned around, staring at the door again. After several silent moments, he could hear Eliot and Margo whispering something vaguely contentious sounding, the way fierce whispers always sounded, back and forth, but couldn't make out enough of what they were saying to turn back around. Eventually, the whispers fell away, too, leaving all four of them in total silence. It was palpably uncomfortable, but it took a long time (too long, why weren't they there already?) for anyone to break the tense quiet.
"Are you three really not going to talk about this?"
In the time it took Margo to say those ten words, she managed to shift the atmosphere in the elevator from palpably uncomfortable to completely suffocating. Quentin could feel the pulling back of shoulders, could easily picture the glare Eliot was giving her, a warning, and the icy stare Alice was shooting, if she was looking at Margo at all.
"Mmmm," Eliot's voice hummed disapprovingly, "If we did that, we wouldn't really have those secrets we're supposed to be taking to the grave now, would we?"
Quentin's eyebrows shot up his forehead, his heart suddenly pounding in his chest - or, the sensation was the same, anyway. He didn't really think his heart could pound if he was dead. Scientifically, it didn't make sense. He turned to face Eliot, a hundred questions in his eyes. Eliot, in frustratingly Eliot fashion, answered only one, pointing to the buttons on the elevator. The single button lit had an "SG" engraved on it, with the words "Secrets Taken to the Grave" etched below it.
"If they really wanted you to keep 'em to yourself, don't you think the fuckwads in charge of this ridiculously bureaucratic place would have made this a short elevator ride?" Margo retorted, arching an eyebrow expertly at Eliot before turning that same stare toward Quentin, and finally, Alice. Alice, who still refused to make eye contact.
"God you three really are unbelievable," Margo huffed. "Q said it himself. We're dead. What the fuck do you think you have to lose at this point?" The last bit was directed at Eliot, who stared straight through Margo like he was trying to cut her in half with laser beam eyes he, sadly, did not possess.
All three of them were silent, and Margo threw her hands up in exasperation.
" Jesus, you guys. You know what? Whatever. If you three are too stubborn to talk about this even AFTER you've died, it's not my problem anymore. El, sweetie, I adore you, but this is a clusterfuck and you know it."
"What's she talking about?" Quentin asked, eyeing Eliot carefully, not daring to get carried away. He could still remember the sharp pain of what had happened to him last time he had.
Eliot chewed on the inside of his cheek for a minute. The tightness in his jaw was an unmistakable tell Quentin hated he could still recognize. Then, with a roll of his eyes, he huffed out a breath, tossing his own hands up in a mirror of Margo a moment ago.
"Oh, Christ, Q, what did you think 'peaches and plums, motherfucker' meant, exactly?" he said, turning sideways so he could lean against one of the eerily empty and gray walls of their chariot to the underworld.
"Finally," he heard Margo mutter, but it sounded like she was miles, rather than feet, away.
"But you said -"
"I know, okay? I know what I said because, surprise, I'm a fucking coward! I saw a chance at happiness, and I told it to fuck off, because I couldn't trust myself not to break it."
"So, what are you saying?"
"That I lied. I looked for the one thing I knew would end the conversation, the one thing you wouldn't push back against. Which I knew, because of course I knew. How many times did we have that exact conversation back in Fillory? I know you better than anyone, Quentin. I knew what I needed to say to shut you up."
Eliot was barely looking at him, which was exactly how Quentin knew he was telling the truth. What the fuck?!
But before he could begin to process what Eliot was telling him, he heard a familiar throat clear. Everyone's heads turned in eerie unison (of course they waited until after death to finally get in sync) toward Alice. She unfolded her arms from her chest, staring intently at Eliot.
"No, you don't," she said simply.
"I'm sorry, Library rat, what?" Eliot said, tone sharp. Quentin winced.
Eliot didn't know. The last thing he had seen was Alice, melting the keys they'd spent so long finding, destroying their chance at getting magic back. Magic, which Quentin watched bring light back to Eliot's eyes when they stepped through that clock and into Fillory's past. Even without having witnessed Alice's apology tour and the way she'd sacrificed for all of them in the end, Quentin thought Eliot's words were harsh. His instinct, kicking in just a little too late, was to protect her. He kept his feet firmly where they were planted.
"You don't know Quentin better than anyone," Alice spat back, unafraid. Brave Alice had always been one of Quentin's favorite versions of her. "I do."
Oh, no.
Eliot scoffed. No, he laughed. He actually, full-on laughed.
"Oh, please," he said. For a man who had been so skittish about eye contact a moment ago, he had no problem meeting Alice glare for glare now.
"Why would you honestly think that you know him better?" Alice said, stepping forward. Margo shifted back, out of the way.
"I don't think, Blondie, it's fact."
Quentin wasn't sure if he felt cared for or mortified, but he held up his hands to stop this before it got out of hand regardless. "Guys, can we not do this?"
"So you know about his Star Trek collection?" Alice challenged, and Quentin groaned, running his hands over his face. If she were going to start somewhere, maybe somewhere a little less nerdy would have been better.
"Framed, signed photo of Leonard Nimoy and all," Eliot countered. "First time he was ever hospitalized?"
"Broken leg, 12 years old," Alice replied, smug. "Favorite childhood memory?"
"Drawing the map of Fillory with Julia under the dining room table," Eliot scoffed, "Seriously, that's not exactly a deep dive question. You know about the scar behind his ear?"
"The one he hates? He doesn’t tuck his hair back on that side because of it," Alice said.
Margo rolled her eyes, stepping in between them now. "For fuck's sake, I know about the scar behind his ear and we've only fucked once."
"Not. Helping," Quentin warned.
Margo shrugged, "What? I'm thorough. Besides, it doesn't matter . Trivial Pursuit, Coldwater Edition is not the fucking answer."
"You're right," Alice said, still glaring at Eliot.
Eliot averted his eyes. The uncomfortable silence fell again, more strained than before. Quentin tried to ignore it, pleaded with the elevator to bring this afterlife travel torture to an end already, but it refused.
Jesus, what, were they supposed to live another lifetime in this thing? Quentin had more than enough of those inside his head already. Quentin, Fillory Quentin, Brian. It was exhausting, carrying around three lifetimes' worth of pain, and knowing that even with access to that much of it, he still hadn't been able to save the people he loved. Magic comes from pain, what a load of bullshit. Guilt, confusion, hurt, failure, worry, love, all built on one another in his head, adding more and more pressure until he couldn't think above the buzzing in his brain.
He spun on his heel, fixing Eliot with an angry stare.
"What did you mean, exactly, El? Because when I told you no one gets proof of concept like that, you told me I was too straight, you told me you wouldn't choose me, when you had a choice. So you know what? I have no fucking idea what you meant, but by all means, enlighten me!"
Eliot's eyes were wide. Quentin had seen him backed into a corner like this before. In Fillory, after telling Quentin to live his life there, when Quentin hadn't backed down. It was one of only a few times, a small enough number that he could count them on one hand, that he had ever seen Eliot look genuinely afraid.
"I fucked up," Eliot admitted quietly, eyes shifting between Quentin and the spaces in between Margo and Alice, never landing on either of them directly.
"And I moved on," Quentin said, choking a little on the words as they came out. He didn't deserve to feel guilty about picking his life back up after Eliot told him no. Again, and again, in different ways. If fifty years together hadn't been enough to "prove" that he wasn't straight, that wasn't Quentin's battle to fight. He didn't owe Eliot an explanation of the boy he'd kissed in college, or the day he realized he wasn't sure whether he was, at the heart of it, more jealous of Julia or James when he saw them canoodling across from him in the booth at their favorite diner.
"I didn't mean that I wouldn't choose you," Eliot said, and Quentin tried not to dwell on how his words sounded weak, like they'd been rehearsed with more gumption, but fear diluted them on the way out.
"You looked me dead in the eyes and said those exact words, Eliot," Quentin said, jaw set, "You said, 'That's not me, and it's definitely not you. Not when we have a choice.' What part of that says 'run away with me' to you?"
"I know," Eliot said, looking down.
"I know, " he repeated, "But I didn't mean that I wouldn't choose you, Quentin. I meant that I didn't think you would choose me, when the peaches and plums of it all wore off, and I wasn't willing to watch myself fuck something beautiful up again."
"I was literally choosing you," Quentin gaped, unable to grasp the part of Eliot that was so broken it warped one of the purest things Quentin had ever done so horribly.
"And I was literally scared shitless," Eliot retorted, slowly (torturously slow, the apparent theme of the whole goddamned trip) raising his eyes to meet Quentin's, now.
They held each other's' gaze, but neither of them moved to cross the distance. Quentin was done crossing that distance. He'd made the first move in Fillory, he'd made the first move after.
"Quentin, what... are you talking about?" Alice's voice snapped him away from the layers of feeling reflected in Eliot's hazel eyes.
"You didn't… tell her?" Eliot asked.
Quentin shook his head, still looking at Alice. "There wasn't exactly time, what with your body and Julia's trying to end the fucking world. We kind of had other things going on."
"You didn't tell me what, Quentin?" Alice asked, her voice pressing, nervous. Quentin was intimately familiar with the way it wavered, and he hated that he'd done something, again, to make it sound like that.
"The key quest, the time key," Quentin explained in a rush, "Eliot and I went back, into Fillory's past, to solve the mosaic."
Alice's arms folded over her chest again. She didn't need the mosaic explained to her. Not like Eliot had.
"We...lived a life together, there. Raised a family. I....I had to bury him, Alice," Quentin's eyes were shining now.
"I thought that never happened," Margo chimed in, looking at Eliot, confused.
"You never told her? " Quentin asked, blinking back tears that he couldn't even place an exact origin to. Was he crying for what they'd had? Was he crying for what he lost? Was he crying because he didn't tell Alice, before asking her to try again just like he'd asked Eliot? He had no fucking clue.
"Like you said," Eliot shrugged, "other things going on."
"I don't - the logistics aren't exactly clear. But if it happened, or if it didn't, Eliot and I....we remember all of it," Quentin continued, his eyes pleading with Alice for understanding.
"You..." her eyes shifted to the floor, a resigned sigh falling from her lips. "You love him."
"Loved him," Quentin corrected, glancing guiltily back at Eliot, then to Alice again. "Maybe love him, I don't… really know. But I love you, too, Alice. I wasn't lying when I said I wanted to try again." He swallowed against how similar it sounded, hanging in the stale air of the elevator like that, to what he'd asked of Eliot.
When Alice pulled her eyes from the floor, they were on Eliot now.
"You love him?" she asked.
Eliot, who suddenly seemed significantly more uncomfortable without a vest and perfectly knotted tie to hide behind, shrugged. Quentin felt something in his chest squeeze.
"Well," Alice said stubbornly, "So do I."
"Good for you," Eliot said derisively.
"You think you love him more," Alice challenged.
Eliot sighed, rolling his eyes. It was a stubborn move, one Quentin had come to know meant he was buying himself time, when he didn't have an answer quippy or eloquent enough to keep him safe. Quentin's head was spinning in a sickly way, tossed violently back and forth between the idea that Eliot loved him, had loved him when he turned him down, and the idea that he had forgiven Alice, and when the hatred had faded away, the love was still there. That he'd only discovered one of those things before he died. What might have happened if he'd have discovered Eliot's secret sooner.
"I think it doesn't matter. We're dead."
"Maybe it matters," Alice said, glancing at the glowing button on the otherwise smooth, steel surface next to the sliding doors.
Secrets Taken to the Grave.
If they all had secrets, what were they? Was it the same secret? Were they all parts of the same secretive puzzle? Maybe that was why they were stuck here, together.
Quentin had so many secrets he could hardly keep them straight, half the time. He tried to be open and honest but there was too much darkness inside of him that he could barely stand to look at himself. But he'd shared a lot of that with Alice, with Eliot over the course of an entire lifetime. He couldn't immediately, pick out what piece of him neither of them knew. He could pick out things that Eliot didn't know, but Alice did, and vice versa, but something neither of them knew?
"Jesus, Alice, that button says Secrets Taken to the Grave. Not Express Your Feelings Hour. I don't have to do this."
"Maybe you do. Maybe that's the whole point. Maybe we never get down there unless we all just admit whatever it is that's taking us to that particular floor, or department, or whatever," Alice said, pointing at the button furiously.
"What? What do you want me to say? Yes, I think I loved him more, because I lived an entire life with him, came back around, and still wanted more?"
"Oh that's such crap, Eliot!" Alice snapped, "That's not all there is to love, you know. Time. You don't know anything about how I love him, about how much it hurt, having to get over him. How I couldn't, not really."
" You don't know anything about what we had, about how happy we were," Eliot shot back, his words heated.
Quentin shrank into a corner. For all the times in his life he'd thought being in this position, the shiny thing people were fighting over, would be cool and gratifying, the reality of it was mortifying.
"We were happy, too, you know," Alice spat, "before you and Margo ruined everything."
"Oh my God, we're not really going back to that are we?"
"Back to when he cheated on me with you?"
"Also known as magically-induced and ancient history," Eliot retorted, his tone sharpening again.
Quentin remembered a whispered conversation in the cottage, years after Arielle had passed, where Eliot admitted to thinking about that magically-induced night more often than he wanted to. Where he had said that, even though it was fuzzy around the edges and soaked in alcohol, it meant something to him. How long it had taken him to really sort that out. How much longer it took him to be able to say it out loud. He didn't bring it up, now.
"I'm just saying if you're going to use time as a measuring stick, for God's sake, at least be man enough to admit that you're half the reason our time got cut short!" Alice shouted, and Quentin couldn't - he couldn't fucking take it anymore.
"Stop, just, stop it! Both of you!" He finally found the strength to step forward, getting between them, and was shocked when both Alice and Eliot reached out to push him away.
"Shut. Up, Quentin!" they both yelled in unison.
"I died for him, Eliot. I died for all of you, and Quentin was the only one who even gave a shit! You didn't bother to show up at my funeral!" Alice’s voice cracked at the end, and hearing it cracked something inside of Quentin, too.
"I was running a kingdom, Alice! That doesn't mean I didn't fucking care! Who do you think buried you? " Eliot said, gesturing to Margo. Margo's face went sheet-white in an instant.
"You guys...." Quentin said, looking between the two of them. He knew she'd been buried by the castle, in the gardens, but he'd always assumed they delegated the task. He never would have imagined that... a knot worked its way firmly into his throat. Quentin knew, intimately, what it was like to bury one of them. He couldn't believe Eliot and Margo never said anything about it.
"Can we not make a thing of it?" Margo said, sighing. Her hands were shaking.
"So what, you spelled a hole in the ground and put my body in it? That doesn't make you some big hero," Alice said stubbornly.
Eliot looked away again, clenching and unclenching his jaw in a repetitive way that tugged something raw inside of Quentin's chest. He stepped forward then, gingerly touching Eliot's arm. Eliot rolled his shoulder away from the touch, side-stepping closer to Margo.
Margo, with an ease Quentin had never seen achieved between any other two people, looped her arm through Eliot's and leaned into him, closing her eyes. "Is this fucking thing broken? Why the hell aren't we there yet?"
"You didn't spell a grave for her, did you?" Quentin asked quietly. Neither of them met his eyes.
"You were a Queen of Fillory," Margo said softly, squeezing Eliot's arm. "You deserved better than a quickie burial."
God, they were all such a fucking mess, such a tangled web of secrets and betrayals and love and hidden affection, Quentin couldn't even begin to pinpoint where the first knot really was, let alone start to pull apart the mess.
"Look," Margo continued firmly, "We've all done some fucked up shit, for Coldwater, for each other, in the name of Fillory, to save magic, to save El, what-the-fuck-ever."
"I hope there's a but coming, Bambi," Eliot interjected.
"We've thrown ourselves on the sword so many times, none of us can actually be surprised that this is where we ended up," Margo continued, ignoring Eliot's comment. "We could bitch about the finer points of which fuck up was the most nobly intentioned, or we could just vag the fuck up and admit whatever secret we think we're taking to the grave, and maybe this tin can will pop us out a couple of floors early, or something."
"Bambi. You can't actually be advocating for feelings hour here," Eliot said, tone just missing the flippant Quentin suspected he was aiming for.
"We're dead, babe. Pretenses mean pretty much fuck-all at this point," Margo said, resigned.
Alice shifted back and forth on her feet, rubbing the side of her left arm with her right hand repetitively. Quentin ran a hand through his hair. Eliot reached up to straighten the knot of a tie that wasn't there.
"I never really forgave you," Alice's voice was small, but she was staring straight at Quentin.
"For," Quentin's eyes flitted to Margo and Eliot. Alice shook her head.
"For locking Charlie in that box," she said.
"Alice, I had to," Quentin retorted, and Alice held up a hand, looking just beyond his shoulder.
"I know. I know you did, but it doesn't matter. He was my brother. Even if he wasn't my brother anymore. I know what happens when you become a niffin, Quentin. I know the difference. I wasn't me when I was a niffin, but it was Charlie. I can logic my way out of it a hundred different ways, but I just....haven't forgiven you for it. I've tried."
Quentin wanted to earn her forgiveness. His entire body screamed at him with the knowledge that he would never get that chance, that Alice would never get the chance to forgive him for it. This wasn't how he wanted to go down. Raking fingers through his hair, he nodded, his voice broken and soft when he said, "I'm sorry.
Alice, teary-eyed, nodded back, "I know. I’ve known that, Q, for a really long time. And I wish it was - enough, but it put this crack in our foundation. I thought I could fill it, or pave it over, or it would just go away, with time, because I loved you, I love you so much, but - when you told me I couldn’t trust your love, when you sent me away, I wanted to fight back. But I couldn’t. Because you were right. I’ve never been able to trust us, not the way I want to. I think there are a lot of reasons for that, probably, but Charlie’s where it started.”
Fuck this elevator. Fuck secrets taken to the grave. Fuck the fact that they were dead.
He looked at them each in turn, his heart aching for everything he knew they had lost. Alice, who spent most of the last year of her life trying to earn back the trust Quentin wasn't even sure she ever deserved to lose in the first place. Margo, who gave up her rule of Fillory to save Eliot, who finally learned the power of laying down the heavy armor she carried around, and then lost her life. Eliot, who tried to save Quentin. Even if it was a rash, terrible decision that tipped the first tile in the grotesque domino effect they faced, he'd only been trying to save Quentin from spending an eternity trapped with a monster. The final year of his life was spent trapped in his own head while his body committed terrible acts of violence and murder, all in the name of something it didn't even understand. Eliot, Jesus, Eliot, spent his last minutes of life finally reunited with his body, with his friends, only to watch them slaughtered before him.
"I tried to find Teddy," Quentin finally said, the lump in his throat clearing long enough for him to find his voice, for tears to spring to his eyes.
Eliot froze. "What?"
"Well, his grave, I guess. But I tried to find it, once. Fen let me into the census room." Now it was Quentin's turn not to make eye contact. "I didn't tell her why I wanted in, she didn't really question it."
"Did you -?"
Quentin shook his head, "No. Something happened with the fairies before I found anything."
"Are you okay?" Margo asked, and Quentin looked up. Eliot had slumped to the floor of the elevator, his head in his hands.
"El, I'm sorry, I just - I had to know, or try to know," Quentin said. He pulled on the sleeve of his tattered black hoodie, a nervous tick that did nothing to ease the wave of anxiety crashing over him. “I should have told you, or asked you to come with, or something, but I didn’t want you to think I was, um, using it, to remind you or to make you want to be with me again or whatever, I don’t know, I’m sorry….” he trailed off, looking away.
"I never thought about that, about how there might be -" Eliot shook his head in his hands, unable to finish the sentence.
Quentin understood that feeling. Every time he thought too much, or too long, about their descendants, about the grandkids, or their great-grandkids, or the idea that, if it happened, even though it didn't happen, they might have family out there, somewhere, he felt like he was being ripped in two, slowly, each bone and ligament cracking and snapping away with blinding pain.
"Q," Eliot said quietly, pulling his head from his hands. Quentin saw the shine in his eyes and his heart broke.
Margo squeezed her hand on Eliot's shoulder, moving it to sweep dark, stringy curls away from his face. "Let me go. I kind of think yours isn't gonna be as shitty as mine."
Well, that wasn't promising. Margo pushed the sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows and inhaled deeply.
"Okay, I know I talked a big talk about the whole desert quest, and handing those misogynistic fucks their asses, and yeah, that was completely badass and I stand by every part of it, but that shit was also like...really fucked. And I realized something out there, or like, clarified something, I guess."
Quentin had never seen Margo look contrite, not really. He'd seen her regret choices, watched things blow up in her face, but genuine remorse or apology was hard to come by. Even when she'd tried to mend the damage between them at the coronation, it had been delivered with a hefty dose of Margo Hanson sarcasm. It was fine, a trait Quentin had learned to navigate over the years, something he'd learned to hear and believe in the softness in between the harsh beats, but she looked truly uncomfortable now.
"Jesus fuck, I'm deeply regretting my choice to support feelings hour," she continued, looking down at Eliot, who gave her a miserable shrug in return. "I still don't agree with the choice you made, Coldwater. Deciding to stay in Blackspire was some Grade A dumbass bullshit and you're an idiot for putting us in that position. You couldn't actually believe any of us were going to let you do that, could you?"
He opened his mouth to answer but Margo bowled him right over. "This is my confession, shut it. So I don't agree with what you did, or decided, or whatever, because it was insane. But at the end of the day, losing Eliot wasn't worth it. It didn't even do the thing he wanted it to. You still got stuck with the monster, which was the whole thing we were trying to avoid. And it took him away from me." She paused, her chin quivering. Eliot reached up a hand and laced their fingers together. "If I could go back and do it again, I'd leave you there. I'd wrestle the gun away from El, and I'd leave you there."
"Margo," Eliot whispered, shaking his head.
Quentin knew he should have been hurt, probably, by her admission. On some level, he was. That made two people in this elevator alone who'd told him, to his face, that they wouldn't choose him. Even if Eliot was lying, it didn't feel great. But, on some level, he agreed with her. If he had stayed, at least his friends would be alive. At least his hands wouldn't be dripping with the blood of all the lives he'd let the monster take in the name of saving Eliot's body.
"No, it's - it's fine," Quentin said. He crossed his legs beneath him and sat on the floor of the elevator, too. Alice and Margo followed shortly after. The tension in the elevator hadn't dissipated, but it had shifted. Where it was stubborn and bull-headed and venomous before, it was vulnerable and heartbroken and raw, now. Three secrets floated in the atmosphere of the small metal box, carrying the weight that had previously been nestled in their chests.
"And then there was one," Eliot quipped sourly. "Though I'm not sure how much of a secret it is at this point."
"It's a secret til you say it, El," Margo said.
"Q," Eliot said, looking up at him. Everything inside of Quentin tensed as their eyes met. "Suffice to say these are not exactly the circumstances under which I had hoped to be telling you this."
He leaned forward, his eyes shifting back and forth, the way they always did when Eliot was about to say something that made him feel exposed. If Quentin had a heartbeat anymore, he was certain it would have picked up pace in his chest.
"When you asked me to give it a shot, to give us a shot, I got scared. No, I got terrified. Because I'd just been smacked with all these memories and feelings of an entire life together. Of raising a family with you, and Arielle, of looking for the beauty of life every day, even as it was unfolding right before our eyes. It was...stunning, Q. And I know myself, or, I thought I knew myself, well enough to know that I couldn't be trusted with something that precious in this world, with everything we were up against. So I ran away. I kept running, and then you said you were going to stay in Blackspire, forever, and I realized if you did that, I'd never have the option to stop running. You'd be gone."
Eliot's hands gripped his quads. Quentin could see the little indents in the jeans where his fingertips dug in.
"Q, I love you. I’m in love with you. I'm sorry this is how you're finding out."
Quentin's mouth was bone dry. He wanted to say it back. He couldn't conjure the words.
A metallic ding echoed in the space around them. The doors of the elevator slid open. All four of them scrambled to their feet, looking varying degrees of more broken than when they'd arrived. Quentin's heart jumped at the familiar face looking back at them.
"Hey," Penny said, appraising the group of them with something Quentin might have even pegged as fondness, if he didn't know any better, "Been awhile. Welcome to the Underworld."
mature | quentin coldwater/eliot waugh | 4324 words | in-progress
warnings: no major archive warnings. canon-typical violence
quentin coldwater isn't sure if he's going to wake up from this. he found the pages of a lost fillory novel. he's a graduate student at a university for magicians. he's a deer caught in eliot waugh's headlights.
but he can't find julia anywhere. she took the test. where did she go?
