Quentin just wanted to spend the holidays quietly with his family in a cabin up in the mountains, but like everything else in his life, it could hardly go according to plan-- but sometimes best laid plans going to waste can lead to Christmas miracles.
or, Eliot crashes into a stranger's couch and somehow finds himself a family.
alternatively, the Christmas Getaway AU
With the most amazingly breathtaking art from @goddamnelsa at: building a (gingerbread) home by kazzashepard.
“Quentin Coldwater?” Eliot asks, just to be sure, just to catch his attention and hold it forever, possibly, just to fill out the air buzzing around them.
Quentin nods, mumbling an incoherent string of sounds.
“I’m Eliot,” he says, and puts out his cigarette, drops down from the school sign. “You’re late.”
Under his assessing gaze, Quentin is obliviously still looking around, and Eliot finds his lost lamb-ness strangely endearing.
This year just might turn out to be interesting, after all.
or, the one where Fillory isn't real and a world of problems is avoided, Quentin still finds his way to Brakebills, Eliot still falls in love. Destiny is bullshit, but some things are constants.
*
It’s in the early days of Fall, where the leaves are still green and safely tucked in their trees and pumpkin hasn’t quite taken over the season yet, that Dean Fogg hands Eliot a white card with a name and tells him to show the first year around, and in the interest of keeping up the Physical Kids parties reputation, Eliot squints critically at the name written in black ink and magnanimously agrees.
How thoughtful of him, really. Eliot remembers being guided by an utterly bored, utterly boring student on his first day. Now, to have Eliot as a guide– this Quentin Coldwater has lucked out twice already. In a way, at least.
So he drapes himself over the Brakebills sign, lights a cigarette and contemplates the sky, the season, the still-green leaves, and a whole lot of nothings, and waits. Somewhere across campus, Margo is already showing her first year to the building because her first year isn’t late, he saw them walking past him a few minutes ago, and Eliot watched with disinterested jealousy as her own boring task slips away faster than his.
Eliot waits and smokes, and when Quentin Coldwater stumbles out of the woods, clutching his bag’s strap like a lifeline, eyes darting around in such sincere wonder– Eliot thinks oh.
“Quentin Coldwater?” Eliot asks, just to be sure, just to catch his attention and hold it forever, possibly, just to fill out the air buzzing around them.
Quentin nods, mumbling an incoherent string of sounds.
“I’m Eliot,” he says, and puts out his cigarette, drops down from the school sign. “You’re late.”
Under his assessing gaze, Quentin is obliviously still looking around, and Eliot finds his lost lamb-ness strangely endearing.
This year just might turn out to be interesting, after all.
*
It’s mid-season and Quentin did get in, placed in the Physical Kids Cottage along with the pretty blonde he seems to be always trailing after. At this point, Eliot is surprised they’re not fucking yet, but in the business of not dwelling too long in the matter of Quentin’s painful straightness, he opts to be selfishly glad.
What’s it with you and the flavor of the month, Margo had asked nearly a month ago, and Eliot had given her a superficial non-answer at the time, unwilling to admit there’s something bright and tempting in Quentin that just calls for Eliot’s attention. But that was then and this is now, and Margo has since given up on questioning Eliot’s reasons and simply adopted their dorky first year in their fold.
Part of him wonders if Margo’s readiness to accept Quentin has something to do with the other half of his package deal– well, the other-other half, since Julia also seems to be a vaguely permanent presence at his side, but it’s Alice that catches Margo’s eyes.
“Ten bucks says they’ll fuck in Brakebills South,” Margo says one day over the brim of her glass, and Eliot follows her gaze to find Quentin and Alice bent over a book in the living room couch. There’s nothing particularly bitter about the way she said it, but Eliot knows better, even if it’s the first time he’s seeing her stay fixed in someone like this. It might be easy for him to see, perhaps, because of the mirrored way it must show on his own face, to her at least. There’s no precedent on this for him either. “Earlier, even.”
Eliot thinks of the Trials, fast approaching. “If they get paired in the spell, maybe,” he allows, carefully keeping anything from his voice too, but still watching the way Quentin laughs and Alice shyly tucks her hair behind her ears. They do make an attractive couple, he supposes, in the sensible way most stories go. “I’m not sure I’ll take you up on this bet, Bambi.”
“I’m sorry,” she falls against his chest with a sigh and Eliot wraps his arms around her, presses a kiss into her hair. It’s just like them, really, to manage to catch these pesky feelings at the same time, over the same set of people. Misery does love company, it turns out.
“Why would you be?” Eliot replies, floating up a wine bottle for them to share. Nothing like good alcohol and the promising prospect of a party later on to distract them from this little hiccup in their good judgment. “Here, nothing to be sorry for after drinking this.”
She drinks it straight from the bottle and Eliot nods in approval– this feels like an appropriate evening for foregoing glasses, and out of the corner of his eyes, he catches Quentin looking. Eliot raises the bottle in a salute, and Alice frowns disapprovingly at their day drinking.
“We do love those,” Margo sighs.
Quentin still smiles, though.
*
It’s the start of winter and the cold weather is beginning to seep in even here, even in Brakebills, and Eliot revels in missing his morning classes, staying in bed until the sun has warmed the Cottage into something less reminiscing of Brakebills South.
The walk down to the Cottage’s kitchen feels oddly like a walk of shame, even though there’s barely anyone around at this hour, and Eliot shakes his head, amused at himself.
“Coffee?”
The voice startles him, Eliot hadn’t noticed he wasn’t alone, and he wonders when did Quentin learn to blend in so well into the background. “Yes, please,” he answers on semi-automatic, busy taking in the messy kitchen and the messy Quentin standing in the middle of it. There are books scattered around the table and a notebook with a giant coffee stain next to them, and when Quentin moves into the light, Eliot can see the shadows under his eyes and the ink smudges on his hands. Eliot wants to gather him in his arms and wrap him in blankets– this is seriously getting ridiculous, the wet dreams were definitely easier to deal with. Instead, he asks, “did you stay up all night studying?”
Quentin shrugs, seemingly unsure if he should be apologetic or not. “I– maybe. I have a quiz later, I’m not– I was revising,” he hands Eliot a mug, his forehead creasing a little in the way it does when Quentin frowns without realizing. “But hey, did you– do you know what happened to the toaster?”
As a matter of fact, Eliot does know what happened to the toaster. Eliot and Margo after a night in London two days ago happened to the toaster. They had been spectacularly, deliciously drunk and decided to try to make the toaster run with magic instead of electricity. You know, in favor of the general cause of saving the environment and fleeting, unshakable curiosity.
The toaster had not survived their attempts.
“No,” he lies, sitting down on the closest chair and making an effort not to add anymore spills into the notebook’s already impressive collection. “Perhaps Todd broke it?”
“Maybe,” says Quentin, dubiously, because he has not yet cottoned on the fun of shifting the blame into an unsuspecting Todd. “Also, we’re somehow out of bread? How– actually, who’s doing groceries? I’ve never seen anyone buy things but there’s always stuff in the fridge– should we, should I be contributing? That’s– whatever. Somehow there’s no bread anymore, maybe that’s why the toaster is gone.”
With a subtle flicker of his wrist, a pile of takeout containers someone left in the sink falls to the trash can, hiding the copious amounts of toasts Eliot and Margo had burned down to a crisp after trying to make toast with magic since the toaster was no longer working. “I have no idea what happened to all the bread,” Eliot tells him with an innocent face. The coffee burns his tongue, but he doesn’t flinch. “What I do know is that you are in desperate need of a break, Q.”
Like a bursting balloon, Quentin deflates with a noisy sigh, collapsing in the chair across Eliot. Somewhere inside his ribcage, something aches. He reaches to pat Quentin’s hand in silent comfort. “Maybe you’re right,” Quentin mumbles, rubbing at his eyes before something seems to occur to him. “Wait, don’t you have classes now?”
Eliot shrugs disinterestedly.
“How come I never see you or Margo in class, ever?” He continues, head tilting like an adorably confused puppy, squinting, “I’ve seen even Todd already– do you guys even attend lectures?”
They do, of course. Taking mandatory attendance loosely, of course. And studying in hidden nooks of the library and behind closed doors of his bedroom, of course. Eliot could tell Quentin that, of course. “Now, where would be the fun in that?” But it’s so much more fun to let him go on thinking of them as sort of cryptids. And Quentin does look pretty with that suspiciously bewildered look on his face.
“I,” Quentin shakes his head, huffing a laugh, and the line of his shoulders no longer looks about ready to snap. A small victory, if Eliot says so himself. “Nevermind. I think I’m gonna get some sleep– there’s more milk in the fridge, by the way.”
It suddenly dawns on Eliot that the coffee he’s drinking already has, in fact, milk. And sugar, just how he likes it.
“Thanks,” he says faintly, watching Quentin nod and haphazardly gather his things, pens and papers spilling out of his arms. “You know, you are one of us, Q. You could work on levitating spells.”
As the books and fallen pencils all float up at Eliot’s command, a shadow flickers behind Quentin’s eyes. “Not really, don’t have a Discipline, remember?”
“Nonsense,” Eliot shushes him, lets Quentin take over the spell, “you are here, aren’t you? You’re in the Physical Kids Cottage, therefore, you are a Physical Kid.”
“That’s not how–”
He lifts a finger, Quentin falls quiet. “Nap first,” he tells him theatrically stern, “existential crisis, later– much later. After your mid-thirties, preferably.”
It brings a laugh out of Quentin, and Eliot smiles, chest growing tight and warm like summer is blooming early around his heart.
*
It’s the middle of winter, nearing the turning point of the season where temperatures will begin dropping less and less and snow won’t be a permanent feature, but for now, Brakebills is blanketed in white in a way that Upstate New York has no business being and Eliot has a sort-of boyfriend.
Mike is– he’s Mike. He’s a warm, pleasant distraction that Eliot finds easier and easier to keep around. He’s funny and charming and refined, and he likes Eliot, gives him his undivided attention, kisses him like he means all his sweet nothings.
Not that Eliot believes him just quite yet, but– he could, in time.
There’s disappointed jealousy in Margo’s eyes and she refuses to like Mike, which is not fair at all because Margo had her fair share of distractions after Quentin and Alice upgraded from emotionally-stunted fuckbuddies to officially a Thing a few weeks ago. She has Ibiza, and Madrid, and London, and the Naturalists parties, and Rio, and Eliot has Mike.
I only have one Bambi, he had reassured her, and he meant it. No one could ever replace Margo’s place on his heart, not even Quentin– she was the first person Eliot learned to love and there’s no erasing that; Margo’s his Bambi, that’s all.
Still, Mike is the closest thing he has to a boyfriend and he thinks he could learn to love him too, with time, so when Margo sighs long-suffering and weary but thaws her cold stare to allow Mike into their little group, Eliot smiles brilliantly and kisses her forehead, thank you.
Maybe she’ll never quite warm up to Mike, maybe she’ll keep thinking it’s a mistake, but compromises are compromises and Eliot opens a portal to their favorite bar in Amsterdam over the weekend– Margo grins and kisses his cheek.
All is forgiven.
*
It’s the end of winter and the Woof Fountain is cracking, melting under the fine frozen surface. The pale sunlight hits the ice and turns the crystals in tiny rainbows every once in a while and it’s surprisingly mesmerizing to watch the ice fracture bit by bit.
Eliot isn’t sure how long he’s been sitting at the bench, smoking a cigarette and listening to the splintering noises behind him, but it’s long enough that morning classes are dismissed and students start to filter out, eagerly running off towards their houses and portals.
Among them, there is Quentin and there is Alice– although, interestingly enough, there’s no Quentin-and-Alice. They walk close, but the awkwardness around them is not the we-just-had-sex-oh-my-god-i’m-sorry-you-heard-it-didn’t-you that usually lingers.
Don’t be foolish, Eliot tells himself. This means nothing.
Quentin spots him first, raising a hand to wave but deciding against it halfway and clumsily lowering it again, settling on a smile before turning to tell Alice something. She doesn’t frown, only nodding jerkily and making a sharp left in the direction of the Cottage.
“Hey,” Quentin says, a bit out of breath as he stops in front of Eliot with an undignified high pile of books on his arms. “What are you doing here?”
The late morning light is hitting Quentin’s eyes in the exact angle to turn them into that lovely chocolate color, honeyed with warmth, and now it’s Eliot’s turn to be breathless. To stall, he blows a puff of smoke, shapes it into a bunny and lets it run a lap before dissolving in Quentin's face. “Spending time not in the Cottage,” he finally answers, “I wouldn’t recommend going inside just yet. A few third years have decided to try their hand at transfiguration. It’s been going as well as expected.”
“Oh no, Alice– she’s on her way there,” Quentin frowns, charmingly worried, eyebrows knitting, and his books sway with him.
“No need for that, between all of us, I’m sure Alice is the most capable one to defend herself against a half-tiger, half-chair.” Besides, the thought of Alice Quinn, hands on her hip and armed with her self-righteous fury lecturing some cocky third-years on how not to fuck up spells is endlessly funny. It serves them right, he thinks.
“Oh,” he says again, conceding the point, and shuffles a little. “So, uh. Not a good idea to go back for a while?”
“Probably not,” Eliot half-smiles, putting out his cigarette and waiting amusedly for Quentin to finish his thought.
“Then, lunch?” Quentin asks, followed by more self-conscious shuffling. For a moment, Eliot considers declining. He thinks of Mike, off to Portland in a work trip for the next couple of days, and he thinks of Margo shaking her head infuriatingly knowing, and he thinks of his own breathlessness just a few minutes ago. It would be, perhaps, the kinder, better choice to say no.
“Then, lunch,” he agrees, getting to his feet and claiming half of Quentin’s books.
Oh, well. Eliot has never been very good at being kind to himself.
*
It’s spring and the days are warming up, color blooming around the lawns and bushes and even the accidental, occasionally cared for, tiny garden in the Cottage’s backyard. Eliot’s not sure the marigolds will survive the summer.
It’s also Spring Break, and the campus is blessedly empty, with only a few scattered students still hanging around, no drawn-out lectures or dull homework to get through. Normally, Eliot would have been the first to step through a portal with Margo, ready to lose himself in the best possible ways, but this year is– things are different.
For one, Margo is upstairs, having a crisis over her wardrobe and pretending it’s not because Alice asked her where she bought the tacos from last week and somehow got roped up into showing the twitchy little bird around New York. Good for her, Eliot thinks, although he hasn’t made up his mind yet how he feels about the latest Quentin-Alice break up.
It is a travesty that nearly six months in and Alice has not taken a tour around the real New York, though.
Maybe, and this is perhaps the wildest thing to date, so he’s taking it with a grain or two of salt, but maybe, they have changed a bit, too. Eliot does have a boyfriend now– a boyfriend that has a steady job, and pay taxes, and drinks moderately, perfectly reasonable amounts, and who has parents he wants Eliot to meet someday soon, and for some unfathomable reason seems to genuinely like Eliot even after learning the Sparknotes about Indiana.
“When did this happen,” he muses out loud, leaning against the railing and taking a swing from his flask.
“When did what happen?” Quentin asks, sounding mildly alarmed, and Eliot doesn’t bother turning around, waits until Quentin quits hovering at the doorway and joins him in the porch, tentatively hopping up to sit on the railing. “So, hm. Something happened?”
Yes, we grew up, how dreadful. “Not yet,” Eliot says, looking up at the sky. From here, they could see the sun and the tree line and if it weren’t for the multitude of spells keeping Brakebills separated from the rest of New York, the countless grey buildings, probably. “But something might– Margo has her eyes set on your, well, ex-girlfriend. Sorry, that came out harsher than I intended.” There was supposed to be a question there but it got lost somewhere between his thoughts and leaving his mouth, and Eliot kind of chickened halfway and overcompensating for that isn’t the smoothest way to choose words. Still, there’s a question hidden in the middle. Can you find it, Q?
He gets an answer in return– not the one he had been expecting because you have to know the question in order to expect something about the answer. That being said, “oh, thank god,” is still fairly shocking as far as responses go, “I wanted to talk to you about this sooner, but it wasn’t my secret to tell– and, and Alice was being so stubborn about this, you know? I told her, I told her, to go for it, but she wouldn’t listen and I’ve never been more stressed in my life– El, she kept chickening out every fucking time and I– it’s been weeks!”
“I don’t– you’re not upset?”
Quentin laughs.
“I was upset, yeah,” he shrugs, fiddling with the end of his long sleeves, “but then I was relieved, to be honest. We– Alice and I, we’re not very good at being together? I– that’s not. We work better as friends. Besides, it wasn’t really fair to anyone to keep, uh, dragging out something that was clearly over. And she’s been crushing so hard on Margo, it’s– it’s kind of sweet, actually? I don’t know, we were thinking of starting a club for bisexual disasters. There would be t-shirts involved.”
So much to unpack there. So much, like, wow– Eliot decides to wrap it all up and zip the suitcase back closed, to be dissected at a later date, preferably without Quentin’s soft, earnest eyes catching all of Eliot’s attention and sending his heart into a spiral on his chest. “As Margo’s best friend, I have to ask,” Eliot settles on the easier route, the one that doesn’t acknowledge the fact that Quentin is– that he isn't – “because if Alice’s only using her to rebound–”
“Oh, no, no,” Quentin nearly falls off his perch in his rush to stop Eliot’s train of thoughts, gripping the banister with white-knuckles to stay upright. “She’s not– Alice really likes her, there’s no rebounding, or second best, or anything like that. Margo’s the real deal for her, you know?”
Yes, yes, Eliot knew which is exactly why he had to ask. “In that case, I’m happy for them and their cute Taco Tuesday date.”
“Are you giving them your blessing?” Quentin’s eyebrows raise and amusement spills from his smile like sunshine after rain.
“I’m being a concerned friend, that’s all.”
“I know,” Quentin’s smile gentles, tugging at Eliot’s every heartstring and making his ribcage constrict painfully because he sounds as if he means it in the honest, unadulterated way only Quentin could ever be.
Eliot clears his throat. “Anyway. Are you sure you’re okay with this new development, Q?”
“Yeah,” he says, without missing a beat, “I really am. As I said, it’s been over even before we broke up. It’s fine, I’m happy for them too.”
There’s something in his voice, though, that nags at Eliot’s mind, but he shakes the thought off, slips it into the stack of things not to obsess over right now, and simply passes Quentin his flask even though it’s the middle of the afternoon, only beginning to tip towards evening, and Quentin doesn’t always partake in day drinking as often as Eliot does.
“Thanks,” Quentin murmurs, taking a big swing before handing the flask back, and his hair falls in his face like it always does, and Eliot sighs inwardly like he always does in response. “Hey, so. I’ve been talking to Julia and she thinks– I mean, that’s not. Nevermind, it’s stupid.”
“Q,” Eliot shifts, turning fully to look at Quentin, frowns at his tone, wishes he could erase the worried crease on his forehead, “come on, what’s going on?”
“No, it’s fine, really. And it’s not about Alice and Margo, either, don’t worry. Julia’s wrong anyway, there’s no point.”
Eliot wants to argue, press him for details, remind Quentin that Julia is an irritatingly exceptional Knowledge student and thus, is rarely wrong, but his phone goes off with a text, reminding him he has to hurry if he wants to make it in time to his date with Mike in fifteen minutes.“I have to meet Mike now,” he explains slowly, studying Quentin’s face for any signs he would not be okay on his own, “but we’ll talk later, when I get back, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah. Right, you should– I’ll be fine. Have uh, have fun on your date?”
The last part is said in his usual awkward, cringing self and Eliot can’t help the rush of fondness even as he walks back in the Cottage. With one last look behind him, Eliot leaves Quentin in the porch, silhouetted by a halo of sunlight and Spring.
*
It’s a little after the halfway mark on the season when the world is blooming in color and the breeze is a light perfume that Mike finally breaks up with him.
Do you honestly see a future with us in it, Eliot? With me? Mike had asked looking worn out and heartbroken, and Eliot had never wanted so badly to say yes but– his eyes must betray the hesitation inside his chest and Mike has enough of an answer. I’m not a consolation prize, I deserve better than to be someone else’s second choice.
And how could Eliot argue with that? He lets him go and selfishly doesn’t apologize, watching Mike leave with a sort of dispassionate emptiness. His world turns a little grey at the edges, dulled with an aching sadness, but it’s not off-kilter.
Mike is gone and Eliot– Eliot’s not nearly as heartbroken as he wishes.
*
It’s summer and spring has slipped away to give space to higher and higher temperatures. The heat is merciless and the sun is barely even in the sky when Eliot wakes up, too uncomfortable with the too warm weather to go back to sleep.
The Cottage is still stuffy even after he opens every window and door of his bedroom, so he admits defeat and takes a shower, climbing down to the kitchen once he’s done with his hair still dripping and his polo shirt sticking to his back.
He doesn’t expect to find anyone else awake at this hour, and yet–
“Oh,” Alice breathes, looking up at him like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, and Eliot thinks too early, too early, too early, but it’s also too late, so he steps into the kitchen pretending the air isn’t suddenly awkward. “Good morning,” she offers.
“Morning,” he nods, making a beeline for the fridge and taking out the orange juice he saw Todd hiding behind the milk yesterday. Resisting the urge to look for his flask, Eliot forces himself to sit at the table with a polite smile. Margo likes her, it’s the least Eliot can do, and besides, he can’t fault her for falling in the same rabbit hole as him. If anything, Eliot should be asking her for tips on how to dig himself out. “Early morning or late night?”
Alice twitches, eyes darting at him and away, back down to her mug, but her lips quirk into what resembles a small smile. “I couldn’t go back to sleep,” she explains with a shrug, “and didn’t want to wake Margo up, so.”
Now, his smile turns more genuine. To be honest, Eliot had been a little wary of their relationship, in the beginning, always hovering in the periphery of things, worried Alice didn’t feel half as much as Margo did, but– he sees it now, he really does. Alice is still a bit too uptight, and twitchy, and not too comfortable around Eliot, but it’s in the little things that show– the concessions, the smiles, the I didn’t want to wake Margo ups.
“Well, cheers, then,” Eliot raises his glass in salute and Alice clinks her mug against it amusedly, clearly recalling Todd labeling the orange bottle with his name yesterday. He winks at her and she laughs.
It’s in the little things, you see.
“What, uh, what about you?” Alice asks, adjusting her glasses. “I’ve never seen you up so early.”
With a theatrical groan, Eliot leans back on his chair, “it’s too hot upstairs! Impossible to stay in bed! It’s a disaster– there goes my beauty sleep.”
“A tragedy, truly,” she agrees, mockingly serious, and her eyes gleam with mischief he hadn’t realized could spark there. Hmm, yes, perhaps he sees how she could work with Margo. “Would knowing Q is due to come back from his pastries run anytime now help lift your spirits?”
A whole minute ticks by while Eliot stares at Alice, frantically searching for the right words for an answer that wouldn’t come off defensively rude or desperately indifferent until she takes pity on him. “Eliot,” she says, smiling gently, “I’m not blind. And I also don’t mind,” Alice adds, meeting his eyes head on, bolder than he’s seen her in– ever, perhaps. “I’m in love with Margo and– I like to think we’re friends.”
Friends don't let friends drink Long Island Iced Tea, he recalls with a tentative grin of his own.
“So, the point I’m trying to make is– don’t be stupid,” she sips her coffee primly as if giving out love advice at the crack of dawn is a thing she regularly does, and hey, for all that Eliot knows, it might as well be. It’s not like he’s ever awake at this hour.
But wherever else their conversation is idling to go, it gets abruptly cut off by the sound of the Cottage’s front door opening and closing and Quentin stumbling inside, paper bags gathered in his arms like precious cargo.
“Oh, hey, you’re up early,” he grins, his whole face lighting up and bringing the sun inside with him and setting Eliot on fire. The bags are set on the counter and Quentin starts to unload them, oblivious to it all.
“A blueberry muffin, a croissant, and a soy latte macchiato for you and Margo as requested,” he hands Alice a box and a paper cup, “bagels and a latte for me,” another box is set aside, and then Quentin is looking up at Eliot again, holding the last plastic box towards him victoriously, “scones and chocolate chip cookies– which is terrible breakfast food, I know, but you said they were your favorites, and they were there, so I figured why the fuck not, you know?”
Eliot takes the box numbly, carefully peering inside to find exactly what Quentin had listed, but his brain loops uncomprehendingly around the concept. “How did you know–” He trails off, unsure how to end the question.
“I didn’t know you were already up, I was gonna leave it here and hope for the best, to be honest,” Quentin shrugs, snickering at his own idea, like that would make it any less thoughtful, like Eliot could think any less of it.
How did you know it was my favorite is what he truly wanted to ask, he realizes.
“Thank you,” he says honestly, swallowing around a lump he hadn’t noticed forming on his throat.
Quentin ducks his head, smiling.
A bit of rustling at his left reminds him they’re not alone and Eliot shouldn’t work himself up over every little crumb of affection, but the look Alice throws him as she takes her and Margo’s breakfast upstairs is pointed and sharp. To Quentin, she gives a different sort of glare over the kitchen counter.
Eliot is not sure what to make of any of this.
Not that it matters, of course, as Quentin is soon launching into a story about his trip to the nearest coffee shop and Eliot eats his scones and listens, listens, listens, watching the rising summer sun filtering through the window and reflecting off Quentin’s eyes.
It’s in the little things, alright, and he wants to know them by heart.
*
It’s Autumn again and Eliot is smoking on top of the Brakebill’s stone sign, watching the clouds slowly paint the sky in shades of grey and pondering on the past year. He watches the tree line with an almost nostalgic feeling, catching himself expecting Quentin to come bumbling out of the woods and crashing headfirst into magic and Eliot’s life and a whole new world for him, for both of them, if Eliot’s being honest for once in his life.
“I’m having a deja vu,” Quentin announces and for a second Eliot wholeheartedly agrees, but there’s no mistaking this Quentin for past-Quentin, and it’s not just his hair– shorter, less tangled, hiding less of his eyes– or the lack of his messenger bag. This time around Quentin is smiling at Eliot and leaning against the stone sign, none of the nervous ticks he gets around other people, only his usual earnest, open self– and Eliot’s heart skips so many beats at the idea of how much trust is there for Quentin to give Eliot unrestricted access like this. Doesn’t he know by now? Eliot shouldn’t be trusted with breakable things, Q, don’t you know?
“Careful,” Eliot says around his cigarette, knowing fully well his eyes are doing enough smiling on their own, “Dean Fogg might hear you and decide to stick you with the Psychs and then where would you be? Penny just might murder you in your sleep if you room with him again.”
“Yeah, it’s too late for that now,” Quentin says, carelessly happy to let the words spill, “turns out I really am where I belong.”
“You got your discipline?” The surprise in his voice is impossible to mask, but Eliot knows Quentin hears the genuine happiness along with it.
“Yup,” he grins, excited and bright, impossibly gold in a greying season, “it’s nothing flashy, but– “his grin goes impossibly wider and how overwhelming it is to be smiled at fully by Quentin Coldwater. Eliot had been doomed from the start, really. “Repair of Small Objects.”
“You’re a Physical Kid,” Eliot tells him with a proud grin of his own.
“I’m a Physical Kid,” Quentin agrees.
“I told you belonged here,” he allows himself a second to be soft in disguise of being smug.
“You did,” Quentin agrees again, suspiciously mellow about it, and then goes on overly casual, “but in hindsight, that’s kinda obvious. You’re here, after all– where else would I belong?”
Eliot’s heart stops beating, stops being, stops– “Q,” he sits up, pauses, lost as to how to explain how terrifyingly bad Eliot could fuck this up if Quentin means what Eliot thinks he means, how fear is seizing up his bones in an unshakeable grip and clenching Eliot’s jaw shut, grinding down any words that might be brave enough to try and escape past his lips.
“El,” Quentin counters softly, slipping between Eliot’s legs and resting his hands in Eliot’s knees, and Eliot is sure he must be burning hand-shaped holes into his jeans. He looks at Eliot and he’s still smiling and he’s still the brightest, most beautiful thing in any room and Eliot– he’s terrified. “If you don’t want this, you don’t want us to be a thing, that’s okay, really, nothing has to change, but, uh– this is me, choosing this, choosing you. Sorry, I had to tell you or I would go insane, you know? I’m so in love with you, and you’re one of my best friends, and I don’t want to fuck this up, but– Julia thinks– she wouldn’t leave it alone, she says you’re in love with me too, and I– yeah. I wanted to believe in that so bad.”
There are so many ways this could blow up in their face, so many reasons Eliot should walk away, stop this before it wrecks everything, but Eliot is only human, and isn’t human nature to be selfish? He’s not strong enough– fuck that, he doesn’t want to be strong enough to turn Quentin down, turn his shot at something great, at the kind of love he’s only ever allowed himself to wonder about at the dead of night and inside his thoughts.
So instead, he tells himself to be brave and reaches for Quentin with shaking fingers and his heart on his sleeves, says, “haven’t you learned, Julia is rarely wrong,” and Quentin grins, grins, grins, leans up, and Eliot meets him halfway. “How could I not fall in love with you, Q?” He whispers against Quentin’s lips, drawing Quentin closer, closer, deeming every inch between them an unforgivable crime, “I love you, of course I love you,” Eliot says, feels Quentin wrapping his arms around his waist and shivering against his chest, “I met you and I loved you, and I’ll have you for as long as you’ll have me.”
Quentin kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him.
Queliot Week ( @queliotweek ) | Day 2: Hedge Witches AU
let me play among the stars ( read on AO3 )
The Brakebills system to find new students is not without its flaws.
There’s a globe on the Dean’s office lighting up with new candidates all around the world every fall, but the spell is old and fraying at the edges, washed up by time and use.
So it should come as no surprise that some people just… slip through the cracks.
Small miracles, parlor tricks, cheap psychs– sometimes, it just goes unnoticed.
There are safe houses, though. Places for those people smart enough to figure it out for themselves to be more. Hedge Witches are everywhere and New York is crawling with them just like it’s crawling with everything else.
*
or, the gang has nothing to do with Brakebill, but they still come together.
Queliot Week 2019 ( @queliotweek ) | Day 1: Fake-Dating
no matter how they toss the dice ( read on AO3 )
“You don’t?” Eliot asks, sounding a little off, hoarse, and Quentin passes him his water bottle, shrugging when Eliot looks uncomprehendingly down at it. “What– okay,” He clears his throat, starts again. “So you’re over your ex, that’s good. I’m sure your father will understand.”
“Yeah, I mean– yeah, he’ll get it, but he’ll worry,” Quentin runs a hand through his hair, huffing, “he’ll worry, and he’ll start asking questions and wondering– El, what if he wants to visit? He can’t come to Brakebills! I’ll have to, I don’t know. I don’t know. Pretend to show him around Yale? Is that illegal– it sounds like it’s illegal–”
Eliot presses another drink into his hands.
“Before we resort to felonies,” he stops Quentin’s rambling, taking a large drink of a flask he produces from under the cushions. “Why don’t we try something easier? How about you ask someone else to go with you?”
Once again, Quentin’s brain freezes.
*
or, Thanksgiving is upon them and Quentin needs someone to bring home, Eliot is accidentally willing, and Julia is only in for the entertainment.
The Welters Challenge ( @thewelterschallenge ) | Week 2: Destiny
once in a while, two people meet ( read on AO3 )
Alice pins him with an icy glare, jutting out her chin as she crosses and uncrosses her arms over chest. “I’m not upset,” she scowls, still standing in the middle of the room, “I’m pissed. I spent all morning tearing mistletoe from the doorways of the Library.”
“Mistletoe?”
Her anger crumbles, cracking into a worried, desperate confusion that Quentin would know. Seriously. He’s seen it every day in the mirror for the past couple weeks. “It’s not even Christmas!” She complains, striding to sit down beside him in the couch, “I don’t know– something is happening and I…” she trails off, huffing and giving him a helpless look.
“Oh my god,” Quentin breathes, unbelievably relieved not to be alone in this clusterfuck, “it’s happening with you too? I’ve got– Alice, there were rose petals in my bed! Rose petals! And they kept appearing as I threw down out the window!”
*
or, the Powers that Be decide to intervene on the soap opera drama that is Quentin's life and to no one's surprise make it worse, Alice is planning a secret road trip that is definitely not the same as running away, and everyone else is more or less caught in the crossfire.
*
So. Things have been– Quentin’s gonna go with weird even though he’s not sure that’s the best word for the situation.
Like, it’s been super weird, as in supernaturally weird, and he would be appropriately worried if he wasn’t so tired from throwing buckets and buckets of rose petals out of the window of Marina’s apartment before anyone gets back from wherever the hell they go.
He’s just collapsed on the couch, bucket blessedly, finally empty at his feet when the front door is thrown open and Alice marches inside as if on a warpath, a couple of petals stuck on her hair.
“You look, hm. Are you okay?” He ventures to ask, valiantly soldiering on through the lingering awkwardness after their last break up. Admittedly, this one has been the most amicable and least awkward yet. “You look a little, well. Upset?”
Alice pins him with an icy glare, jutting out her chin as she crosses and uncrosses her arms over chest. “I’m not upset,” she scowls, still standing in the middle of the room, “I’m pissed. I spent all morning tearing mistletoe from the doorways of the Library.”
“Mistletoe?”
Her anger crumbles, cracking into a worried, desperate confusion that Quentin would know. Seriously. He’s seen it every day in the mirror for the past couple weeks. “It’s not even Christmas!” She complains, striding to sit down beside him in the couch, “I don’t know– something is happening and I…” she trails off, huffing and giving him a helpless look.
“Oh my god,” Quentin breathes, unbelievably relieved not to be alone in this clusterfuck, “it’s happening with you too? I’ve got– Alice, there were rose petals in my bed! Rose petals! And they kept appearing as I threw down out the window!”
“The mistletoe– it kept blooming too!”
They look at each other, wide-eyed in their shared curse, but the relief of finding someone else going through the same weird ass stuff is fleeting. The worry lasts a lot longer. “What the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Alice purses her lips, back stiff and hands primly closed into fists on her lap, “I’ve never seen anything like this before and I can’t see why someone would do this.”
“It’s just– there’s no point,” he says, definitely not whining, and closes his eyes with a distressed sigh as he hears a low humming from the kitchen that can only mean whoever is fucking with their lives is at it again. “I really don’t wanna go check, but we’re going to have to, aren’t we?”
Without deigning to answer him, Alice gets to her feet and cautiously approaches the kitchen. Not about to let her face whatever is there alone, Quentin huffs and follows, acutely aware they're being the dumb white people at the beginning of every horror movie ever.
She reaches the room a second before him, stopping at the doorway and while Quentin can’t see what’s in there, he sees it makes her frown in confusion. “Is that– are those peaches?”
“Hell no,” he hisses. The roses and the mistletoe and the weird ass romantic soundtrack randomly playing, he can take it, but this? It’s too personal, too woven into Quentin’s heart, and just the thought of anyone else knowing about it is–
It makes his skin crawl, alright?
“Quentin? Are you–” the clear sound of the front door unlocking cuts through the apartment and Alice snaps her mouth shut. If the laughing and the shushing is anything to go by, Eliot and Margo are back. “How bad is it?” She asks instead, eyeing warily the bowl of peaches and plums adorned with a neat, red bow on top.
“Very. Shit, okay, help me get this to the bathroom, come on.”
Quentin has always been naturally clumsy but with the added pressure? He’s an absolute disaster. Fruits roll to the ground and Alice has to chase after them, giving up halfway and kicking them under the couch before shoving Quentin and the bowl into the bathroom and closing the door behind her just as the front door opens.
“What now?” She whispers, arms full of peaches that definitely would not fit in the currently full bowl in Quentin’s hand. Outside, Margo is cackling at something Josh said.
“We flush them?” Quentin suggests, helplessly looking around the admittedly large bathroom, then thinks back to the way the pot is always full and adds, “bowl and all?”
The noise Alice makes is half-disbelieving and half-indignant. “We can’t– it would clog the pipes!”
“Magically make them disappear?” It’s worth a shot, he supposes.
But Alice shakes her head. “With magic the way it is the risk of it backfiring is too great.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, wishing more than ever that this time’s after-world-saving fuck-up had been straight-forward like the last ones. No magic would really come in handy right about now.
“Oh no,” Alice interrupts his spiral into despair with a desperate whimper of her own, “Kady’s here too.”
“How do you– oh,” a mistletoe is curling on the doorway, flat on the wood and seeming unsure which way to go. This explains– well, not everything, but a few things. “Should we… wait it out?”
“No, we can’t just wait, they’ll notice something’s wrong,” she says, throwing a worried glance towards the door. The mistletoe perks up hopefully. Shuddering, Alice shrinks back. “Okay, no. You go out there and distract them while I take care of this.”
“What? No– why? Alice, wait, don’t! Alice–” Quentin wants to explain how terrible this idea is because Quentin can’t, for the life of him, come up with a good lie, let alone a believable explanation to this, but Alice is having none of it. She seizes his arm and pushes him out of the door, leaving him alone to face the sudden crowd staring at him like he grew a second head. “Hm, hey, guys? How was the, uh, how was the trip?”
Josh, whose hands are busy holding way too many shopping bags, raises an eyebrow. “Nevermind us, you okay there, man?”
“Yes, Q,” Eliot takes a step in his direction, frowning concernedly, and Quentin instinctively takes a step back, hitting the bathroom door. The hurt that flickers through Eliot’s eyes is unmistakable and Quentin hates it, but how does he explain that it’s not that Quentin wants distance between them, is just that Alice is hopefully succeeding in flushing a shitton of fruit down the toilet and he’d rather not have Eliot and the others barging in on that? “You’re looking a bit upset, is all.”
Quentin kinda wants to snort at that echo from earlier, but he manages to bite back on the hysteria and keep it relatively cool for a little while longer. “What? I’m fine,” he tries to play it off with a laugh, even though it ends up sounding too strangled, “it’s– everything’s fine.”
“Is that why it looks like a flower shop vomited in our curb?” Margo asks, hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes at him in suspicion. Shit, shit, shit.
“Flower shop?” He repeats weakly.
“Yeah, there was a bunch of tourists taking pictures for some reason,” Kady nods, entering the room with a beer and Quentin refuses to look back to check if the mistletoe is deciding to cross to this side now. “Blocking the fucking way like assholes.”
In the silence that follows as they all look expectantly at Quentin for some sort of explanation, a loud yelp drifts from the bathroom behind him, undeniably Alice’s, and he closes his eyes, resigned.
“Is there a reason Alice is hiding in the bathroom, Q?” Margo says dangerously calm, and while Quentin has no idea why she’s so pissed, he figures he’s had a long enough run as it is. At least, whatever is fucking with them can’t follow him into the afterlife.
So– and he’s not proud of it, okay? – he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind: “there was a spider!”
“A spider?” Eliot repeats slowly as if testing out the word to see how well the lie sticks.
“Yeah!” Quentin nods furiously. He might as well commit fully to this now. “It was– El, it was huge, like, it has to be Australian or something. Marina must have gotten it for some ritual and it got loose? I don’t know, but I cornered it in there and Alice is trying to kill it.”
“You’re scared of a spider?” Kady sounds unimpressed, dropping down on the couch, “and you sent Alice to kill it for you?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I did.”
Margo barks out a laugh, and Quentin is almost believing it’s crisis averted for the time being when there’s another, more panicked yelp and the door behind him flies open, shoving him aside, and Alice is stumbling out, slamming the door closed behind her. “There’s a giant spider in there!”
“No shit,” Margo snorts, eyeing her amusedly, “weren’t you going to kill it?”
“What?” Quentin, hopefully subtly, elbows her in the ribs, “oh! Right, yes, I was going to do that, but. Only I did not do that. It escaped.”
“It escaped?” Josh looks horrified, shuffling away from the bathroom.
“It crawled up the wall,” Alice informs them, adjusting her glasses before stepping away herself. “I’m not going back in there, someone else kills it.”
“How about we let it have this bathroom?” Quentin tries, still confused about whether or not there really is a spider. Although, by the wildly panicked look on Alice’s eyes, he’s more inclined to believe it. “We have more bathrooms, right?”
“This is the one with the bathtub, though,” Kady points out, not that she’s bothering to even try to be helpful here, oh no, god forbid.
It’s in this moment of cacophony, while everyone is speaking over each other that Quentin happens to look down.
Big mistake.
Because looking up at him with too many eyes is the spider, attempting to crawl up his left shoe.
And like any other sensible person, Quentin is understandably upset with this situation. He acts accordingly, of course.
He screams.
A lot of things happen, then.
First, Quentin kicks the spider without thinking, sending it skidding to the middle of the room and towards the others.
Second, beside him, Alice startles and tries to go back inside the bathroom, probably deeming it safer now that the spider is no longer there, but finds it locked for some reason.
Third, Josh shrieks and jumps up to the couch, causing Kady to smack him and curse loudly.
Fourth, Margo and Eliot scatter, scrambling in the direction of the kitchen.
Lastly, silence once again falls on the apartment as they all stare down each other, hoping someone else will take the lead, and the spider skitters around, exploring its new territory. Silently, Quentin wonders if they can find another place here in New York with the same rent.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Eliot huffs, rolling his eyes, and charges out of the kitchen with a broom in hand– like he’s not still recuperating, like he hasn’t had major surgery less than two months ago, like he’s not giving everyone a heart attack right now. “Move aside, I’ll deal with it.”
Both Margo and Quentin dive in his direction with a resounding No! and Margo tears the broom from his hands while Quentin fusses over the bandages. “Stay still,” he bats Eliot’s hands away, glares up at his eye roll, “we need to see if you ripped any stitches. Idiot,” he adds under his breath, not quite managing to sound anything but fond.
“I’m not crippled, you know,” he complains, sighing long-suffering, but oh-so-graciously allowing Quentin to check on him. “I can kill one spider without falling over.”
“Where did you even get that? I didn’t know Marina even owed a broom,” Quentin mutters, satisfied nothing is bleeding. He’s tracing the bandage outline over Eliot’s shirt and Eliot is standing stock still under his fingers, and Quentin is suddenly aware how close they are.
He clears his throat and steps back.
Behind them, Margo is trying to get Josh to take the broom and kill the spider, while Alice is inching along the wall, trying to make her way around it.
As it turns out, Kady is the one to take action. “Jesus Christ, it’s just a spider,” she says, and then proceeds to squish it under her boot. “Okay, ew, it’s grosser than I thought.”
“Oh, thank god,” Alice breathes, staring at Kady with an awed look for a fleeting second before she shakes herself out of it. “I’m still not cleaning that, though.”
“Don’t look at me,” Kady makes a face, peering at the sole of her boot and scrunching her nose in disgust, “I’m setting these on fire.”
“I’m hungry, is anyone else hungry?” Josh asks loudly, already picking up the car keys from the counter, “I vote we go to that Thai place two blocks down.”
“Penny and Julia can handle this, right?” Quentin feels obligated to say, and rescues his jacket from the couch.
“Sure,” Margo breezes past him on her way to the door, “they weren’t here for the killing, they can stay for the cleaning.”
Sound logic, if Quentin ever heard it, and it’s all they need to murmur their agreement and leave the dead body behind for Julia and Penny to find and hopefully clean after.
*
Since the Spider Incident, life goes on as normal, which is to say, not normal at all.
Quentin has to rid the house of mistletoes at least five times in the past week, and the peaches appeared only once again in the kitchen, but never after he threw the whole thing out the window, and twice his phone accidentally called Eliot while Quentin tried to tell Julia how fucked he is. There was also the epic disaster that was the time the wall between their room disappeared and the place turned into a master bedroom, king-size bed and all, for an entire afternoon.
From what Alice told him, she had been putting out similar fires all week too, and between that and wrangling the Library into some semblance of non-fascist order, Alice is frazzled and ready to snap.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, they have no leads.
“Hey, Q, can we talk?” It’s Eliot, and Quentin knows this because ever since the Monster, Eliot makes a point of not sneaking up on people and Quentin makes a point of always keeping Eliot on his line of sight if he can help it. “Like, right now?”
He sounds hesitant, almost nervous, and Quentin frowns, wants to reach out and ask what’s wrong, say yeah, sure, but with the weird stuff going on, being alone with Eliot is probably the last thing he should do. He doesn’t need Eliot to see a bowl of peaches and plums magically appearing out of thin air.
“I don’t think–”
“Yes, thank you, fucking finally,” Margo barges in, because Margo has no problem with sneaking up on people, “now take your perky butts out of my living room and go sort your shit.”
There’s no arguing with Margo and with Eliot looking expectantly at him, Quentin can’t find it in himself to say no. “Yeah, let’s uh, my bedroom?”
The sound of the lock clicking shut is way more ominous than it has any right to be.
“Okay,” Eliot clears his throat, standing imperiously in the middle of the room, even if his shoulders are set in a tense line and the shadows under his eyes are stubbornly refusing to fade. Quentin sits at the edge of the bed, drums his fingers on his tights, and waits. “So, we haven’t really had the time to talk since, well, I was me again, and,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair, and Quentin aches to erase the lost air around his every move. “I’ve been meaning to tell you something.”
Not now, please, Quentin prays, watching out of the corner of his eyes the doorknob faintly shimmer and click again. Goddamnit.
“Eliot, wait,” he interrupts him, apparently startling Eliot out of whatever pep talk he had been running on his hand for this, “I think– the door, I think someone locked us in here.”
“What? That’s not. Margo wouldn’t do that– if you don’t want to do this, Q, we don’t have to.”
“No, no, no, I do want to know what you want to tell me,” he rushes to reassure him, but the lock thing is kinda pressing and Quentin has a hunch it’s got nothing to do with Margo or any of the others, so he tries to turn the knob, shaking the entire thing on its hinges for good measure. “But shit, it’s really locked, someone really locked us in here, I can’t– damn it.”
The spell he tries is one of the easy, weak first-year ones he learned in Brakebills, the kind that sure, works just fine on cheap padlocks and chains, but it still snowballs out of proportion like all magic is bound to do lately, and sparks fly from the handle far enough to burn the tips of his fingers.
“That should not have gone so bad,” Eliot frowns, taking Quentin’s hands to examine the burns, but he shrugs him off because there’s no time for that. Things could escalate at any moment, Quentin doesn’t know how it all works yet. “Okay, no touching. Message received, but how about we take a breather?”
That’s not– Quentin is fucking this up, damn it. He needs to get out of here before he makes it worse. He can fix this thing with Eliot after he fixes this thing with the whole romcom tropes attack. He can fix it, he can fix everything. It’s what he’s good at, after all.
But first, he has to get out of this room.
“Margo?!” He calls, banging on the door, fully aware he’s sounding kind of deranged, “Margo? We’re stuck here! Margo?! Josh? Anyone?!”
“Quentin?” Alice’s voice is muffled and confused, and Quentin has never been more happy to hear from her. Okay, no, that’s not true, but it’s definitely on the top 5. “Are you– is everything okay?”
“The door seems to be disagreeing with us as of now,” Eliot explains calmly, studying Quentin with something very similar to concern. “Could you find a key or something of the sort?”
“Yeah, I’ll uh, I’ll check with Kady,” she says, and the sound of her hurried footsteps fade into the hallway.
“Almost a year later, and we’re still searching for keys, hm?” he offers in a ditched attempt at lighting the mood and Quentin feels even worse for souring the situation in the first place. His fake laughter probably isn’t helping either.
“Guys?” Alice is back, saving him from putting his foot on his mouth again, “I found the key but for some reason, it’s not working? Kady says I should knock down the door with Battle Magic anyway, but I don’t think that’s a good option.”
Eliot and Quentin trade a look, both of them clearly thinking back on the multitude of sparks.
“Yeah, don’t, that’s not. We’re going to try to kick it down. Maybe. So, back off a little,” he warns halfheartedly, not really believing on his potential of kicking magically locked doors down. Hell, he wouldn’t bank on his potential for breaking normal doors down.
“Wait, wait, wait,” Eliot slips in between him and the door, hands in front of his chest, “if this door is somehow spelled shut, I’m not sure kicking it down is going to work either.”
“Eliot has a point,” she calls, “you’d most likely only hurt yourself.”
“Should I be offended? I feel like I should be offended.”
“I’m sure you would have succeeded, Q,” he says, condescending in the familiar way Quentin recognizes as entirely fake and it warms his chest to no end. “But let’s avoid any more injuries– oh, well, that’s convenient and not at all suspicious.”
The previously locked door swings open easily, revealing an alarmed and disheveled Alice at the other side. “I didn’t do anything,” she defends herself, standing like a deer in the headlights.
“Good! You’re still here, so let’s uh, go do that thing,” Quentin tilts his head gesturing the front door and pointedly repeating, “you know, that thing, we were talking about?”
“Right, yes, let’s go. I have new information,” she adds, hopeful for the first time in the past weeks, “so we should go. Do that thing.”
They’re so bad at this, Jesus.
“Not that this isn’t riveting,” Eliot says, and there’s something on his voice– Quentin wants to explain this isn’t what this looks like, he knows it sounds bad, but it’s not at all what he’s thinking, Quentin just doesn’t know where to even begin without sounding batshit crazy– “but you should go do your thing if it’s so important instead of parroting the same words over and over.”
They need to figure out this shit as soon as possible, come on.
Quentin and Alice exit stage left.
*
The coffee shop they end up at is busy for a Friday afternoon and Quentin sits in a table at the back, sipping his latte while he listens to Alice’s rant on the possible ritual they could try.
“It says it’s supposed to reveal hidden things,” she shrugs helplessly. They’re both at the end of their rope here. “Like the Key, actually. So it should at least give us some clue on who or what is messing with us.”
“But it’s dangerous,” he guesses. Nothing is ever easy and breezy with them.
“Well, yes. Especially with how things are right now, but I don’t see another way,” Alice sighs, tucks her hair behind her ear, “aren’t you tired, Q? It’s screwing up things for you too, I saw Eliot’s face today.”
“Yeah, but I can’t fix anything if we’re dead. Maybe we just need to keep looking, are you sure there’s nothing else in the Library?”
She gives him a look. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Then, I don’t know– what the fuck?”
In the wall beside them, a portal glimmers to life, buzzing with magic and energy and stable like nothing ever is these days, but they have no time to be properly surprised before it’s sucking them in, throwing them down the rabbit hole without warning.
Not again, he thinks, recognizing the trip from the last time he was free falling this path with Josh. Beside him, Alice just screams.
*
If falling into a corporate, office kind of setting had been jarring and weird as fuck, falling into a cozy, homely living room is tenfolds worse. Around them, the walls are painted in pastel tones and the couch has crocheted throw covering it with throw pillows adorning it. There’s a fireplace beside them with an actual fire going. The air smells like cookies and what Quentin supposes the witch's candy house must have smelled like when Hansel and Gretel first came upon it.
“Oh, sisters, look, look, they are here already!” The voice belongs to an old lady, dressed in a sensible old lady dress and wearing an old lady apron over it. The picture-perfect grandmother: her gray hair in a bun and laughter-lines around her smiling eyes. “Children, please, take a seat. The floor cannot be comfortable!”
“Who are you?” Alice demands, glaring fiercely at the old lady, “and what do you want with us?”
“Always so suspicious, Miss Quinn,” she tuts, seating in the couch herself, “no need for that here, I assure you. And you can set that fire iron down, Mr. Coldwater, it will do you no good here either.”
“I don’t– sorry,” he flounders, trading a confused look with Alice as he lets it clank to the floor, “just, where are we exactly?”
“Our house, silly,” another voice pipes in. It’s another old lady, but the kind that might do yoga and travel all over the world and dye her hair red. If she told Quentin she’s got to cut this short to go skydiving, he’d believe her. She sits down beside the other old lady, grinning at them. “I hope the trip wasn’t too bumpy? I haven’t opened portals to your plane in a while, you see.”
“It was okay,” he offers, earning a jab on the ribs from Alice. What? he mouths to her and gets a pointed glare in return.
“Please, sisters. You’re all scaring the humans,” yet another old lady walks in, this time all dressed in darker tones. She looks more serious, austere than the other two– a widow, maybe, still grieving. When her stern gaze falls on them, Quentin shudders. “We are the Moirai.”
Holy shit.
“I am the one they call Clotho,” says the first one.
“I am the one they call Lachesis,” says the second one.
“I am the one they call Atropos,” says the third one.
“Holy shit,” says Quentin.
“Are we dead?” asks Alice.
“No, child,” Clotho smiles indulgently, “it is not your time yet. Not this time around at least. God knows how many times we have spun your threads.”
“They make for such sad tapestries,” Lachesis laments.
“The beautiful ones always are. There’s beauty in tragedy, or so believed the Greek and I am inclined to agree,” Atropos adds.
Okay, so the old gods are batshit insane, it’s not like this is news for Quentin, but holy shit, he needs some adjustment time here. “Wait, okay, so, why are we here?”
“Are you responsible for the weird shit happening lately?” Alice scowls, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting out her chin.
“Yes, yes, we’ll get to that, but first,” Clotho waves them off, clapping her hands together, “who would like some tea and biscuits?”
A loveseat appears behind them and an invisible force forces them to sit down, sliding forward until their knees are almost knocking on the table. In front of them, teacups appear alongside a tray with cookies.
“They’re delicious,” Quentin says, happily chewing on one. Butterscotch is his favorite kind, after all.
“Quentin!”
“What? The cake was so good last time! You should try it– the old gods are very good at cooking.”
“Alright, kids,” Lachesis hits the side of her cup with a small spoon, calling their attention, “now to business. To answer your earlier question, yes, Miss Quinn, we are the ones interfering with your boring, dull little lives.”
“We were only trying to help you,” Clotho adds, apologetically, “give you the tiny nudge in the right direction if you will.”
“Help?” Alice glowers, unimpressed and still refusing to touch the food. “By making our lives hell?”
“Also, why?” Quentin asks because this is a valid question, okay?
“Zeus asked us to,” Clotho says, shrugging, “and we do like to humor him every once in a while.”
“Zeus?” He echoes– he’s pretty sure they haven’t met Zeus yet.
“Yes, yes, Hades talked to him in your behalf,” she giggles, leaning in closer like she’s gossiping with old friends, “he doesn’t do that to just anyone, you know?”
“Hades talked to– why? I mean, I don’t remember meeting the guy– the god, I mean!”
“He runs the Underground branch, Q,” Alice hisses, “still doesn’t explain why he would do that, though.”
Clotho rolls her eyes, sharing a look with her sisters, and it’s Lachesis that answers. “Because of what you and your friends did, dummy! You killed the unkillable! Those monsters have been a point of debate in the Olympus for a real long time. Someone would bring them up in council meetings at least once every two months and suddenly everyone and their mothers had an opinion! It always drove the Big Three up the walls!”
So much to unpack there.
“Hades bestowed his blessing upon you,” Atropos says, face unreadable, “we are merely carrying out his wishes.”
“Just this one time, though,” Clotho rushes out, “we like to think we are more like independent contractors. You know, outside the Pantheon and stuff.”
God, he can feel a headache coming. This is way too much crazy before dinner. “Okay, okay, say we roll with that, what does that mean? Why were you doing all… that?”
“It means we are trying to speed along your happiness,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “out of your little family, you two were the ones allowing happiness to slip through your fingers.”
“You, Miss Quinn,” Lachesis sips her tea, staring Alice down over the brim of her cup, “turned down Miss Orloff-Diaz’s invitation because you are planning on leaving after you finish your latest project.”
“And you, Quentin,” Atropos tilts her head, saying his name gently like an old friend who hasn’t seen him in a while, “your thread has frayed too many times over this current life as it did again recently.”
“In the Mirror World,” he whispers, remembering the resignation he felt as he repaired the mirror and slowly understanding what she means by fraying.
“Yes, in what you call the Mirror World,” she nods, “such a beautiful tapestry it is turning into. I do not wish to cut it off just yet. I think it needs more colors before it’s finished. Don't you? From what I have seen you will be given a choice soon, I wished to help you make your decision.”
“So you invaded our privacy,” Alice summarizes, voice tightly controlled, “and decided to fuck with our lives?”
“We did notice you both have been very resistant to our attempts on helping you two along,” Clotho admits, “which is why we decided to bring you here. Atropos thinks honesty would be the best way to go.”
“That’s because we were freaking out,” Quentin can’t believe he’s having to spell this out, honestly, “because that’s a normal reaction when things start to appear out of thin air!”
“We are sorry for the undue stress,” Atropos says mildly.
“Very sorry.”
“Terribly sorry.”
To avoid answering, Quentin shoves another cookie in his mouth, risking a sideways glance at Alice. She’s sitting stiffly, hands gripping the hem of her skirt with white knuckles and her hair is a curtain hiding her face. This whole thing must be really throwing her for a loop, especially if she’s been meaning to leave as the lady said.
Quentin himself is trying to wrap his head around the fact that the Fates seem to be invested in his life, enough to have noticed his feelings for Eliot. Although he’s sure it’s plain to anyone to see, Quentin’s never been good at subtlety, it does make him think– “are you saying it’s, like, our destiny or something? To be with Eliot and Kady?”
Because as romantic, as perfectly fairytale-like it sounds, Quentin is not sure he likes it. This whole predestined thing kinda feels like taking their choices away, taking the merit and the weight out of all they did, all they’ve been through to find each other.
And Eliot’s choices have been ripped away from him for far too many times already in these past months.
But Lachesis only rolls her eyes. “You humans and your obsession with destiny,” she huffs, “what do you think we do all day? Sit around and play puppet show with you lot? Please.”
“Your kind has always prided themselves in your free will,” Atropos reminds them not unkindly, “your choices are yours alone. Clotho spins your thread, Lachesis measures it, and I cut it when the time comes. What you do with the time you are given is entirely upon you. Alice could choose to flee the city in a few months and you could choose to bury your feelings again.”
“Or,” Clotho says, setting her cup down, “you could choose happiness as it’s being offered.”
“We see what could be,” Lachesis tells them, “Hades asked us to be kind. The gods have never really understood that is not up to us. You kids make your own destiny, all we can do is try to nudge you in what we think is the right direction.”
“Life deals you a hand, you decide what to do with it.”
Destiny is bullshit, Quentin remembers saying so long ago, a lifetime and a half ago, at the top of a cliff with a crown in his hands and his heart on his sleeve. So much has changed since then, but this has always stayed with him. If anything, knowing what he knows now, he believes it more than ever.
Hearing it from the mouth of gods is relieving, though.
“Will you stop now,” Alice speaks softly, quieter than she’s been all afternoon, “messing with our lives? It’s not helping, it’s only making things harder.”
“Please,” Quentin nods, “thank you for trying to uh, help, but we’ve got it now.”
Atropos smiles her melancholic smile. “Of course. Our job is done, I believe. You have the tools to make an informed decision. There’s nothing kinder than that, the way I see it.”
“But before you go,” Clotho grins excitedly, “we have a gift for each of you.”
Between a blink and the next, a tapestry falls on their laps. Quentin’s is colorful with patches of darker tones, full of patterns that remind him of Fillory, swirling and changing before his eyes and– it shows a cottage in the woods, a little boy running around piles of tile, a garden, Quentin laughing while Eliot chases Teddy around and Arielle smiles fondly at them.
“Oh my god, this is–” the words get stuck on his throat, squeezing at his lungs and wrapping around his heart. The mosaic timeline.
“And this,” Alice chokes, staring down at her own tapestry– it’s all in shades of blue, with geometrical shapes and hard lines. Oh, her time as a Niffin.
“You died, in a way, and was reborn,” she explains, “your life as a Niffin is its own thread.”
“Thank you,” Alice breathes, still not looking away.
“You are welcome, kiddos,” Lachesis winks, “this has been nice and all, but it’s goodbye for now.”
“Good luck,” says Clotho.
“Godspeed,” says Atropo.
“Off you go,” says Lachesis, and the world goes dark.
*
Because all gods are kind of dicks, the Moirai don’t return them to the coffee shop. Instead, they blink Alice and Quentin back in the apartment, in the middle of the living room where Julia seems to be retelling the dragon egg story to Eliot and Margo.
“Hey, uh, guys,” Quentin awkwardly waves his hand, smiling the fakest smile ever at them. “It’s kind of a long story, so, can we hm, can we press hold on the questions?”
“Has anyone seen Kady?” Alice asks, taking a step forward before thinking better of it and pausing, tapestry clutched tightly on her hands.
“She’s at the Library,” Julia answers slowly, frowning at them as if they are a puzzle she can’t quite solve. Fair enough, he supposes, suddenly appearing in rooms will do that to someone “Not sure when she’ll be back. Are you– did Penny drop you off or…”
“I have to go,” Alice says abruptly, whirling on her heels and stalking off to her bedroom. She slams the door closed.
Quentin clears his throat.
“It’s a really long story,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair. In the couch, neither Margo nor Eliot have said anything, simply staring at Quentin as if things might go back to making sense if they wait long enough. Eliot looks less tired today, fully there with them and not lost in thought, and Quentin’s heart skips a beat at the sight.
The tapestry in his hands is heavy, holding fifty years of memories and shared life, and Quentin misses Eliot terribly, even if he’s sitting less than a foot away from him.
He makes a decision.
Why waste any more time?
“Hey, Jules,” he says, breathing in deeply, “can I borrow Eliot for a second? Great, thanks.”
“Excuse me?” Eliot raises one eyebrow but lets Quentin pull him up and drag him to his bedroom. He sits on Quentin’s bed, watching Quentin pace back and forth. There’s amusement on his eyes, but there’s worry too, a hesitation that Quentin wants to kiss away. “You know, if you wanted to get me into your bed, all you had to do was ask, Q.”
“I– look at this,” he hands him the tapestry, stuffing his hands into his pockets in an effort not to fidget too much.
“Since when are you into Victorian decorations,” Eliot snorts, spreading it open on his lap. His fingers trace the patterns gently and his eyes widen as recognition dawns. “Shit, Q, how? I mean, where did you get this?”
“It’s an apology gift from the Moirai.”
“It’s a what from who?”
“The Moirai– it was a whole thing, I’ll explain later,” Quentin promises. He needs to do this first. “I just wanted– I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” he sighs, shaking his head and he looks so resigned, “I understand, truly, after everything–”
“No, no,” Quentin rushes forward, sitting beside him, close enough that their knees are touching, and takes his hands. He needs Eliot to see he’s not afraid of him, not at all, on the contrary. Quentin misses the casual touches, the little things– the Monster had disregarded his personal space so many times, now that Eliot is back, all Quentin wants is to have this back too. “It’s not. That. There was some shit going on, and I didn’t want to drag you into it, but it’s gone now. I can– we can do this now.”
“Do what, Q?” Eliot asks softly, threading their fingers together and glancing down at them, “because from where I’m standing, you’ve been sending a lot of mixed signals.”
“I know,” he bites his lip, averting his eyes, “and I’m sorry. But I had a pretty interesting conversation today and I kinda want to believe that. So. What did you want to talk about earlier?”
Eliot regards him warily before exhaling, saying, “I guess I had a pretty interesting conversation too when I was stuck in my head.” The reminder of that time is once again enough to send chills down Quentin’s spine and he shuffles a little closer to Eliot. “And I promised I’d be braver if I ever got the chance. Q, that day in the throne room,” he runs his hand through the tapestry and Quentin knows from experience how soft it feels against your fingers, “it was the biggest mistake of my life. I don’t expect you to forgive me, or to still want– I just wanted you to know you were right. I was scared and I ran away, but you were right. And I’m still in love with you, and I’m done running.”
This is– Quentin had hoped but to actually have this, his heart is trying to claw itself free from his ribcage and Quentin just might let it, he can’t think of anything beyond the fact that Eliot loves him.
“You know, I’ve been told today that destiny is pretty much just the choices we make along the way,” Quentin says, breaking out in a stupidly dopey grin, probably looking as lovesick as he feels, “and El, choosing you is like, the one thing I’m one hundred percent sure right now. So, be my destiny too?”
He cringes as soon as the words are out of his mouth, but Eliot only laughs a happy, soft huff and dares to smile. “That was disgustingly sappy and you are incredibly lucky I’m so gone on you,” he leans in and Quentin stops breathing, a thousand butterflies making a home on his stomach.
They kiss and believing this is his destiny is the easiest thing in the world.
**
Alice is nervous.
That in itself is nothing strange, but the fact she’s being nervous while sitting in a Hedge bar and nursing her second Whiskey on the Rocks definitely is.
Maybe she shouldn’t have done this, maybe they would both be better off without messing up something that’s working so well, maybe the Moirai were wrong, maybe Alice shouldn’t be allowed to make her own destiny because she has a tendency of making the wrong choices, maybe–
Maybe Kady won’t show.
Not that Alice would blame her after she had turned her down in her spectacularly awkward way two weeks ago. But Alice hopes–
“I really thought Julia hadn’t heard right.”
Oh. Alice looks up and Kady is there, beautiful and terrifying and knocking the air out of her lungs. “I wasn’t sure you would show up,” she says to fill the silence and tucks her hair behind her ears, hating herself for betraying her own nervousness. “Do you, can I buy you a drink?”
“I wasn’t sure either,” Kady tells her, unashamedly studying her for a long, drawn-out moment before sitting on the stool beside her. “But since we’re here, knock yourself out.”
Flagging the bartender is an ordeal since they don’t seem to like Alice here very much, but it gets easier once they see Kady beside her. She orders them both beers. “So,” she begins, reaching for the duffel bag she had left at her feet, “I wanted to show you this.”
“It’s empty,” Kady frowns, turning it inside out and back again, “what am I supposed to do with this?”
“Yes, it is empty,” Alice steels herself, thinking back at her own promise she made after returning to this plane. No running. “I had started to pack, last month. But I put it all back, I want to stay.”
The suspicion in Kady’s eyes is clear, and it hurts Alice like a knife, but it’s not like she can blame her for this either. “What made you change your mind? You sounded pretty sold on your road trip.”
“It’s not that I changed my mind, not really,” she explains, ducking away from her eyes. It’s easier to bare her soul when Kady’s not looking at her like Alice is holding a gun to her head. “I always wanted to stay but– going away was the easier choice, I thought since I did it once, I could do it again and be happy.”
“Can’t you?”
Can I? Alice knows Kady didn’t intend it as an accusation, not entirely at least. She genuinely wants to know. So does Alice, actually. “Maybe,” she admits. She always been good at being alone, it’s when she’s surrounded by other people that things get confusing. “But I don’t want that. I’ve been told today to follow my heart and well,” her cheeks are feeling warm, too warm, and Alice hopes she’s not blushing, “here I am.”
There’s a beat of silence where Alice doesn’t dare look up.
“Here you are,” Kady finally says, so soft it’s almost lost to the background music, and she risks a glance. The smile on Kady’s lips is worth every thorn bleeding her throat from giving voice to these feeling she had locked away on her chest. “So your heart told you to hang out in a Hedge bar?”
Alice laughs, surprising herself– though she really shouldn’t be surprised, Kady is good at bringing light out of her. “No,” she allows her own smile to bloom, “it led me to you.”
“That’s some corny shit,” Kady laughs, but she reaches a hand to pull Alice closer and her perfume is overwhelmingly addictive, and then she’s kissing her and Alice can’t think at all.
Today has been a strange day after a string of strange days, but Alice can’t say she regrets any of it, not when it ends with Kady biting her lip and tasting the whiskey on her tongue. If they all make their own destinies, Alice figures she couldn’t do better for herself.
The Welters Challenge ( @thewelterschallenge ) | Week 1: The Library
under renovations and other spells ( read on AO3 )
They’re all reconvening in the Conference Room.
It’s not the first time they’re all together after defeating both Everett and the Monsters, it’s not even the first time they’re all together after Eliot’s been checked out of the hospital, but it’s definitely the first time they’ve been back in the Library.
Quentin isn’t sure how to feel.
To be fair, that might have more to do with the fact that Alice is sitting primly at the head of the table, a name tag pinned on her shirt. In front of her in the table, there’s a coffee cup in a coaster.
*
or, Alice calls a meeting to decide on the fate of the Library, sort of. It goes better than Quentin expects.
*
They’re all reconvening in the Conference Room.
It’s not the first time they’re all together after defeating both Everett and the Monsters, it’s not even the first time they’re all together after Eliot’s been checked out of the hospital, but it’s definitely the first time they’ve been back in the Library.
Quentin isn’t sure how to feel.
To be fair, that might have more to do with the fact that Alice is sitting primly at the head of the table, a name tag pinned on her shirt. In front of her in the table, there’s a coffee cup in a coaster.
She catches him looking at the cup, smiles something that looks kinda like a grimace, “drinks are allowed in administrative zones,” she explains, and with a wave of her hand and weave of her fingers, identical coffee cups on identical coasters appear in front of them. “Just make sure to dispose of them before re-entering the archives.”
“Uh,” says Quentin, which, by the way, is a totally valid response.
“Can I trade this for something alcoholic, maybe?” Eliot asks, frowning disdainfully at his cup, but sighs in defeat under the twin withering glares from both Quentin and Margo. Pain medication doesn’t mix well with alcohol and he knows that. “Fine, I suppose I’ll settle for some cream.”
Another wave of Alice’s hand and he hums satisfied.
“So,” Julia taps her fingers on the table top nervously, flinching away from Penny23’s hand when he reaches for hers with an anxious glance at Kady. “What exactly is happening here?”
Kady, sitting at Alice’s right, also with a name tag pinned to her chest– which, again, super weird, in so many levels– clears her throat. “We’re running the Library now.”
“I’m the Head Librarian,” Alice adds with a less grimace-ish smile, “Kady is my advisor.”
“We did not decide on that name,” she protests, glaring at Alice in what looks like a well-practiced argument.
“Hm, can I– just, I have to ask,” Quentin interrupts before they can devolve into arguing, turning to Kady, “is this you, uh, is this you trying to save Penny again? Penny40, I mean– which is cool! We can all, hm, be on board with that! Just, is this it?”
“No!” Kady glares fiercely at him, knocking back her coffee like it’s Scotch, and– okay, yeah, that’s definitely an Irish Coffee. “We talked. No rescue missions, we’re just running the fucking Library.”
“But, the thing with the Hedges?” Josh asks, sipping his coffee, “wasn’t that like, a ticking time bomb or something?”
“We resolved that,” Alice announces, “a while ago, actually. When we stopped hoarding magic?”
“We’re drafting a deal,” Kady translates, her scowl reluctantly fond. It’s the most diplomatic Quentin’s ever seen her, and, again, so weird.
Margo leans back on her chair, smirking. “So we’re taking these bastards down from the inside,” she muses, smirking, “smart. Not as satisfying as burning it to the ground, but I can get behind it.”
As much as Quentin hates, hates, the Library, the thought of destroying so many books doesn’t sit well with him, and a quick glance at Julia tells him she shares his sentiment, if the distressed sound she made is anything to go by.
“No burning anything,” Alice rushes out, half pushing out of her chair, before sitting back down, sheepishly smoothing out her clothes. “And we’re not taking anything down either. I– we are reforming this place.”
“Right,” Margo drawls, winking, “reforming.”
“That’s not– why are you winking? We really are under renovations– there’s, didn’t you see the signs in the hallway?”
“Renovations,” Eliot echoes, also winking, and Quentin clutches his hand under the table to make sure he’s still there, he’s not off to the next world-threatening plan yet.
“No scheming,” Quentin tries to be stern, half-heartedly glaring, but it kind of devolves into a vaguely constipated frown. “You’re not even supposed to be here– the doctor said bed rest, you know.”
“Of course,” he agrees, squeezing Quentin’s hand back, and Quentin should be concerned about the mischievous glint on his eyes, but it’s hard to be worried when all that it brings is a knee-buckling sort of relief and unbridled affection. “I wouldn’t dare think of it.”
“Guys, I mean it,” Alice is still having a one-sided argument with Margo, “we’re not destroying the Library–”
“No offense,” Julia intervenes, gently like she definitely means full offense, “but your track with executive decisions hasn’t exactly been,” she pauses, searching for the right word, “sound.”
“I know,” she looks away, taking a sip of her coffee, and– yup, there’s totally vodka there too. “Which is why I asked Kady to be my Chief Advisor,” she sneaks a grateful smile at Kady, “and all of you, too. This place, all this knowledge– it’s huge. It’s too big for just one person to decide everything, I know this now.”
“That’s why we called you here,” Kady continues, covering Alice’s hand in support, “we want you to be advisors too. Help us keep things fair.”
“You’re proposing we form a council?” Julia’s eyebrows raise higher and higher as she speaks.
“Of sorts,” she allows, “just to keep us from fucking things up too much.”
“Or becoming an authoritarian goddamn fascist organization again?” Margo rolls her eyes, but her expression is pure steel. None of them have forgotten how the Library screwed them over time and time again, and just being here is unnerving enough.
“Or that, yeah,” Alice grimaces for real now, earnestly trying to get her point across, “we’re really trying to do better here.”
Maybe it’s how she looks neither like the old Alice nor her Niffin self, not exactly older, just– grown up. Or maybe it’s just that Quentin really wants to believe things are finally going their way, just enough for this one thing to work out without any world-threatening scenario.
Or, it’s how Kady seems to be weirdly good at balancing out Alice, and the new slightly colorful touches are, well, hopeful.
But whatever the reason, it’s enough. “Okay,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair; it’s getting long again, he’s not sure if he’ll cut it yet. “That’s– okay, let’s give it a shot.”
There’s a murmur of reluctant agreement and Eliot squeezes Quentin’s hand again, and yeah, this could potentially be a really bad decision, and Margo is trading a look with Eliot that’s frankly troubling, but Eliot is alive, and recovering, and holding Quentin’s hand, and Quentin trusts Margo to keep their scheming to a minimum for a while.
“Good,” Alice breathes, “Phyllis will present you your contracts soon, just– thank you.”
No one’s riding off to the sunset in a happily ever after, but no one’s dying and no one’s possessed and this is quite possibly what their best case scenario looks like, so when Alice asks if they a want a tour of the place and Kady teases her about wanting to show off her innovations, Quentin can stay back and help Eliot out of his chair because Margo and Josh have already said yes and Julia is trying to pretend she’s not excited to see all their archives– it’s the closest thing to peace that Quentin could ever dare picture.
Although he has to admit– he didn’t exactly expect it to play out in the Library’s halls.
