To be honest, Eliot had thought Quentin would turn down his request for a walk. He wasn’t entirely sure why. Things were okay with them, right? Weird, but that was given since Q had shown up. They were trying… Yes. Talking more at least. Sort of. Okay, things still felt kinda fucked up. It was probably his fault.
Once at the beach, he paused before they hit the sand and took his socks and shoes off. He wanted to feel the sand. At least there didn’t seem to be anyone around given the time and season. Eliot just wanted to talk, hang out. Do something normal where they hopefully wouldn’t end up fighting.
“How are you? How are things going?” He asked as they walked. The water was soothing. Maybe it would help things. “Have you heard anymore about your interviews?”
Every few seconds, every few steps, Quentin had to remind himself to relax. Unclench his jaw. Uncurl his hands where they hung at his sides, one loosely holding his shoes. The invitation to go for a walk surprised him, but he wasn't so blindly optimistic to assume it was a sign of anything other than Eliot's boredom. God, Q really needed to get out of his own fucking way.
He sent a smile over in his friend's direction, but wasn't sure if it could be seen. It was dark along the beach at this time of night, really only lit by the streetlights and the passing cars. He could pick out El's features, but he thought his own might be backlit. "They're going. I had a phone interview with one of the consulting managers at that firm I was telling you about on Tuesday. Pretty short, but they want me to come in for a group interview on Tuesday, take a look around the place. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but I've got a feeling about it regardless. What about you? What've you been up to?"
Like Q didn't already know.
“That sounds really promising. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.” He smiled, but something felt a little off. He was no empath, but he could feel Quentin, always in ways he didn’t others. There was tension maybe? Something. Perhaps he didn’t want to be with him. Why was it always so hard with them? Why?
“I’ve been looking at jobs, too. I was offered one like my first day here as a bartender at a karaoke bar, but Q, I just don’t think I could bartend in a place where I’d have to listen to people sing badly and off key for hours and hours everyday. Not judging. Everyone get out there and get your song on, but no, I can’t do that.” He’d felt bad telling David no. "There’s a couple of bars hiring, but I was thinking maybe something in clothing or fashion. I doubt I’d get hired though because I have no experience in those fields.”
He stopped. “Mind if we sit?” He didn’t wait for an answer just sat down on the sand. There he fell quiet for a few minutes. Quentin hadn’t asked about the Anti-Valentine’s party. Probably didn’t care about it. Eliot didn’t even know where he’d gone during it. “You been out making any friends? Explore or anything?”
Q snorted, but it wasn't unkindly. "No, I think you'd go completely crazy in a karaoke bar. You'd totally abuse the cooperative singing spell, and you know it. Just take over all the performances." He nudged Eliot's arm very lightly with his elbow. "And anyway, that's what references are for, right? To make up for the formal experience. That's how I found out about that finance job.
"I ran into Steve Rogers in the courtyard, and we got to talking, and he said he knew a place that might be a good fit. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have even gotten my foot in the door if he didn't volunteer for places associated with the firm. Anyway, yeah, you've made friends. I'm sure they could hook you up with something. Aren't you friendly with Pepper? I think she runs her own business and employs a few of us displaced-types."
It didn't surprise him in the slightest when Eliot didn't wait for him, didn't faze him in the slightest. And of course Quentin followed him down, because what else was he going to do? Stand there awkwardly? He leaned back on his hands, which immediately began to sink into the damp sand. It'd make a mess later, but that wasn't a problem for now. "I've mostly been exploring. Found a couple of 24 hour places to hang out so—" you could have the place to yourself "—just to have a new location to read and do some occasional people watching. But instantly making friends? That's more your purview."
He laughed, smiling brightly. “You know me and get me, Q.” He didn’t judge him for what he’d said about the job offer. It was good. “I would do no such thing though.” Pause. He laughed again. “Okay, you’re right, I would.”
He dug his toes into the sand. “I don’t have any references here.” He shrugged a little. “I do know Pepper. She’s great. I’m not sure she’d know anyone in fashion or something like that. I could ask though.” He hadn’t really thought about that. He nodded. “Sounds like your scene.” Eliot nudged him. “It’s not just my thing. You’re great. Who wouldn’t want to be your friend? Besides, you gotta get out there. Meet people. Have fun. You’re only young once.”
"Or forty-something times, if you count the first set of time loops Jane set up." Quentin couldn't help his wry expression. "And how many times did we try to figure out what would happen if we tried to confront Martin Chatwin before we knew it was him? Surely that has to count for something."
If he could joke about that, he could joke about anything, even if it still kind of twisted his stomach a little. Q shook his head and then leaned it on his own raised shoulder, face tilted toward the sky. "It was just me and Julia for a long, long time before I got to Brakebills. Except Julia had other people. Let's face it, the only reason I had you and Margo in my life was because you basically adopted me like an abandoned baby bird. I'm not great at… people. I never have been."
Eliot made a face then ran a hand over his face. He was thankful for the darkness. Thirty nine time loops. Just thirty nine. A wave of sadness and loss washed over him, and he worked hard to fight it off. Not the time or place. “I suppose it does count for something. What if we could remember all the time lines, wouldn’t that…” His words trailed off. Fuck What good had remembering time lines done them? “It’d be weird or something." Shit. Get a grip, Waugh.
“We adopted you because you were you and perfect the way you ar…were. You’re our friend, Q. I don’t think anything would have changed that.” Maybe Quentin wasn’t the best at people, but so what? People could be highly overrated, including himself. “Besides, there could never be another high strung nerd or King Quentin the Moderately Socially Maladjusted. Just sayin '’” he smiled.
"Very weird." Or very, very something. Seemed to Quentin there was enough going unsaid about all of that it could fill the ocean right in front of them. Best to keep it inside. Let Eliot find his happiness elsewhere. All that really mattered was that they could and should and needed to remain friends.
His abrupt laugh bounced off the waves and seemed to carry back to them. "I kind of forgot about that title. Sometimes it seems like a lifetime ago, but really it was, what? A year? Maybe two? We never really got to graduate from Brakebills. Or hadn't yet before we got pulled here. Could you have gone back? After everything? Pretended Professor Sunderland's lectures were the least bit helpful? Or that we didn't notice Lipson wasn't remotely sober during our labs?"
“It does seem like a lifetime ago at times.” Eliot could clearly remember that Quentin had told him he believed he would be a really good king. God, the faith he had in him when he had felt anything but that. The utter look of happiness, faith and… Well, Quentin had believed in him and that meant more to him than anything.
“Maybe we never go back.” Shit. Shit. Shit. "I mean, maybe we weren’t meant to go back. Hell, we have more experience than a lot of the students there. Maybe we just lived our lives as best as we could. You never know what could happen. Maybe I take the throne of Fillory again.” He laughed. That would never happen. “It certainly has all been an adventure.” He turned to look at Quentin. “And all of it with you. We make a good team.”
Q found himself smiling at Eliot before what he was saying caught him like a punch to the gut. It took effort to drag his eyes away, but he had to. Anger—ugly and hot—bubbled just under the surface of all his thoughts. Anger and regret. He shouldn't have hoped for something more than this, but there was a tiny part of him that had. It was time to bury it. Put up a tombstone. Plant flowers around the plot.
Here Lies Quentin's Unfounded Romantic Notions
He leaned back and back and back until he was laying on the sand, ignoring the way it soaked into the back of his shirt. They both had spells to fix it. Quentin stared in silence at the stars for a long moment, mulling over the could-have-beens of their future after the Monster and his sister. Yet his thoughts kept pulling back to the simple life he'd had in Fillory, before they were royalty and everything continually went to shit. He brushed his hands against his pants, knocking some of the sand off and raised them toward the sky. The circumstances were perfect. "Remember the night we did this with Teddy?"
A short tut. A murmured word.
The stars overhead began to twinkle and dance.
A tear slipped down his temple, and an ache ripped through Quentin's chest as the magic flowed through him.
Fuck. He’d been trying to paint a pretty, positive, hopeful picture, but had failed miserably. He could feel the emotion rolling off Quentin in crashing waves. God, would he ever stop fucking everything up and hurting Quentin? Even when he didn’t intend to, he still did! Maybe this was why they’d never really worked. Q knew he was a fuck up with more baggage than LaGuardia airport. Issues, walls, defenses…why would anyone put up with that?
When Quentin spoke again it wasn’t what Eliot had expected. Teddy. Their son. Fuck. His throat tightened and familiar feelings washed over him as he tilted his head back and looked up to the sky. Bright twinkling stars danced. Of course he remembered. “Do it again, daddy,” he murmured. Those were the words Teddy had spoken when the illusion magic had ended.
“I’m sorry.” Eliot abruptly and quickly stood up then walked a little ways off. He took several deep breaths fighting off the tears that were threatening to spill over. He stood there, staring into the darkness. He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Get it together, Waugh,” he whispered to himself.
While not the same voice, the request seemed to stretch back through time and space, rippling through dimensions until there was just the mosaic and their little hut. Quentin shut his eyes, lost in the memories, so he didn't react until Eliot was already a few feet away. His hands dropped on to his stomach, and the spell stopped. The stars were just stars. Teddy was in the past, as were the best years of Q's life. He didn't know why Eliot was apologizing, when he was the one who kept dredging the whole thing up.
Quentin sat up slowly and drew his legs in so he could perch his chin on his knees and wrap his unpleasantly sandy and damp arms around his shins. The ocean was dark and didn't care. He wished he could emulate it, even for a second. Just to get a break from his feelings. His petty jealousies. He hadn't meant to read El's exchange with Matt, but he had. And then he'd still followed his best friend out to this damned beach like a puppy who would never learn better. "Hey," he called out, just loud enough to be heard. "We don't have to stay if you don't want to."
“I’m okay,” Eliot answered once he’d walked back over to Quentin. He’d done what he’d been so desperately trying not to do, let his emotions get the best of him. He’d been told from a young age that emotions were “girly” and real men didn’t show them let alone cry. Then those words were literally beaten into him because he liked boys and was called a sissy among other things by the very person who should have loved and protected him no matter what. No wonder the emotion thing was hard for him. “We can leave, if you’d like. It’s getting cooler out here. It’s wet and…Maybe not the best idea I’ve ever had.” He’d just wanted some quiet.
“We could get some coffee and go back to the apartment. If you want to.” He slid his hands into the pocket of his pants. Everything felt so uncertain with Quentin. They walked on eggshells and he’d make it better if he could, but he couldn’t.
The fact that Eliot was placing the decisions on his shoulders wasn't lost on Quentin. For a very uncharitable moment, it felt a little like he was saying it was Q's fault there was this growing distance between them. But that was just his fucked up brain. He knew that down to his core. Eliot wasn't like that. Even at his most vicious and unfeeling and cruel, it was never meant to be lasting. Wasn't meant to dig in like a splinter left to fester. So Quentin just uncurled himself and stood as well. His clothes were a lost cause without a spell, so he performed it quickly. The magic shivered over him, leaving his clothes as dry and sand-free as they could be. "You wanted a first. Nothing wrong with that." He smiled faintly in Eliot's direction. "Thanks for wanting to share it with me."
Walking to where El stood, he paused and rocked back a little on his heels. He'd meant to accept the offer of coffee. It was fully formed in his head, ready to make its way out into the world. What came out instead was, "Should we have a system? For when you bring someone home? I can find somewhere to go for a few hours, if so. Maybe you can text me some kind of emoji. I don't want to get in your way."
Coffee was a safe bet. Some conversation shared over the warm liquid. Easy. No stress. No worries. No eggshells to break. Only it wasn’t like they’d done a lot of talking and truthfully that’s why Eliot had wanted them to hang out. There was a growing distance between them. It was like the big fat elephant in the middle of the room that neither of them talked about. He didn’t want that though, so he was trying. He really was.
He watched Quentin use magic and smiled, wondering how much he’d used it since arriving. However, all such thoughts left him when Quentin began to speak. System? What was he…Oh shit. Eliot felt as though he’d been caught red handed or called out. Warmth spread over his cheeks and he fidgeted where he stood. Why was Q saying all this? It was his apartment as well. “Uh, you don’t have to leave if I bring someone home.” Fuck. Why did he feel like he was doing something wrong? “You’re not in the way. You live there, too.” He opened his mouth to say more then stopped. Obviously Quentin knew about Matt. He had no idea when he’d gotten home the night of the Anti-Valentine’s Day party and he’d been gone the next morning. Eliot had even checked his room.
"I know I do, but you were there first. And let's face it, you're the one most likely to have company." A smile did its best to creep on to his face, but that didn't mean Quentin could look up far enough to see his best friend's expression. He could imagine it, though: awkward, embarrassed, exasperated. "I don't want to get in the way of whatever you might be able to have in this new world. It's just a courtesy more than anything, really."
“It doesn’t matter who was there first. You don’t have to leave and there doesn’t need to be a system.” Right? They were adults. Eliot sighed. “Why do you always say things like that?” He hadn’t intended to say it out loud. Quentin had never been able to see himself the way he did…the way others did. “You’re not in the way of anything. Come on, you know that.” Why did this all feel so awkward when Quentin had made it clear he only wanted to be friends? “Come on,” he reached for the other's hand and gave it a tug, “Let's go get some coffee.”
He didn't, though.
He didn't know that.
How could he know that when it wasn't what his brain and his heart were telling him all the time? By some minor miracle, he didn't wince. Probably because Quentin was far too busy swallowing down the barbed edges of his feelings until they sat in a lump in his stomach. His fingers closed around Eliot's palm automatically, and he fell into step alongside him. Because he'd learned a long, long time ago that there weren't a lot of places Eliot could go that Q wouldn't follow. "Sure, El. Let's get coffee."
It was typical Quentin to avoid nearly everything he’d said. Was it possible he was….no? Definitely not. Q wasn’t the type. He was his own unique self and that’s what he loved about him.
Coffee was acquired and they went back to the apartment. Eliot tossed his keys on the table then sat down on the couch. He bent over to take off his shoes and exhaled loudly when he stretched out his long legs. “When did you get home on Valentine’s Day?” he asked, patting the spot beside him. “You were gone in the morning.” Hey, if the subject had been broached then it could be brought up again. He had nothing to hide.
The trip to get coffee and then make it back to The Station wasn't exactly a short one, but Quentin had been sorely wrong if he thought it was long enough for the previous topic of discussion to be dropped. Fuck me. And that was the entire problem right there in a nutshell. "I didn't," he admitted once his shoes were off, but he didn't sit. Not yet. "I was coming back from the bookstore when I heard—"
Q broke off. Took a deep breath that didn't actually do anything. "I went out again. Found a 24 hour diner. Probably left there around 3 AM? And then I just went up to the roof. Fell asleep trying to finish the book I'd bought. Like I do. Guess you'd already stepped out when I finally made my way back inside to shower and change."
Eliot sipped at his coffee then arched an eyebrow. “You didn’t come home?” That was interesting. Ah, he thought when Quentin continued. Heard. He almost grinned. “You heard Matt and I.” Get it out there. Rip off the bandaid. It wasn’t like Q would care. They were friends and it seemed he’d done his best to say or show that over and over in the few weeks he’d been there.
“You fell asleep reading on the roof?” He made a face. “Q, you can’t be doing that. It’s not safe. You could catch a cold or something.” Was he really so intent on not being in the apartment if Eliot had someone over that he’d actually sleep on the roof? Ridiculous. “Sit.” He tugged on Quentin’s hand again. “The couch is warm, dry and comfy. And I only bite if you ask nicely,” he winked then chuckled.
Fucking Matt. With his devilish smile and his charm and handsome face and the six-pack he was probably hiding under those nice suits. Bastard. How could he ever hope to compete with that? Not that he could to begin with. Eliot had made that very clear. Quentin felt his paper coffee cup give a little under his hand and made himself stop. Once again, he had to force his shoulders down and made himself unclench his jaw.
"Don't," he wanted to say. "Stop fucking flirting with me, you asshole," he wanted to say. But asking Eliot to stop flirting was like asking him not to breathe. It would start up again eventually anyway. And Q would be powerless to do anything but roll with the tidal pull that was Eliot Waugh. "Why do you keep doing this to me?" he wanted to say.
"Okay, Eliot," is what he said instead as he sat, the space between them companionable and not the gulf Quentin desperately wanted to create. They were trying. He was trying. Goddamn, he was trying. And he was so, so tired.
“Okay, Eliot? Two words?” Eliot stared at Quentin, really stared trying to figure out what was going on in that head of his. Trying to figure out why he was so fucking hot and cold since the goddamn moment he stepped foot in the apartment the day he arrived. He bit his tongue not to say what was on the tip of it, it wouldn’t do either of them any good. But God, how he wanted to! No. He was trying even if it felt like everything he said and did was wrong.
He couldn’t joke, he couldn’t be honest, he couldn’t talk about his life without Quentin basically being silent. What was he supposed to do, to talk about? The fucking weather? He drank more coffee and looked down at the floor. “Do you want a snack or something?” Fuck, that was lame, but safe.
"I'm good." He wasn't. Far from it. Quentin took a breath, held it so he wouldn't let it out as a sigh. Released it with a flood of questions instead. "Tell me about Matt? He's from this universe, right? And weren't you two trapped in that same TV world before I got here? Must've been weird."
“I honestly can’t remember where he’s from right now.” He knew Matt had told him, but as much as he racked his brain, he couldn’t recall. Was that bad? “Yeah, this universe, but I don’t remember what state. California, maybe.” He frowned. Why couldn’t he remember? “He’s nice. Funny. I like his sense of humor.” He didn’t want to say too much because he knew Q was only asking about him to be nice or feeling guilty. “Yeah, we were both in the 80’s sitcom. I hated it. The clothes were awful.” He grinned a little and shook his head.
“What book are you reading?” Forever reading. Forever in another world escaping from the one he actually lived in. That was Quentin.
"And he's hot." Quentin was proud of himself that he hadn't muttered it. Just made it a statement of fact, because Matt-the-lawyer was objectively hot. "That can't hurt." He sipped at his coffee, which had cooled enough that it was getting dangerously room temperature. There were spells to remedy that, but, meh, effort. He nearly snorted the drink he'd taken through his nose as he laughed abruptly. "You get sucked into some screwball reality, and that's your takeaway: the hideous clothes. I love that about you."
And he did. So much. But it didn't matter.
"The Song of Achilles. I'm about halfway through. It's really good." He'd already teared up twice. Knew how it had to end. Kept reading it anyway, even though he knew he'd get his heart broken. "You're not reading anything, are you?" Quentin's mouth twitched traitorously. "Legal briefs, maybe?"
“He is attractive.” Eliot paused for a long moment. “Can I tell you something? You know Matt’s blind, right? There’s this…What I really like about him is that he can’t see me. I don’t mean I’m happy he’s blind. I mean, he wanted to hang out with me, talk to me, go places with me without knowing what I look like. He wanted to get to know me better because of me. It’s refreshing and special.” Eliot knew he wasn’t explaining his thoughts clearly, but it was a feeling that was hard to explain. He thought Q might get it though. “So much of what people think of you is based on what you look like and how attractive or unattractive they find you. I don’t worry about that with him.”
Eliot laughed, really laughed. “You know me. I’m a clothes and fashion whore. No shame in my game when it comes to that!” It felt good to laugh with Quentin. He missed it. “What’s it about?” He gave Quentin a look as he grinned and shook his head. “No, I’m not reading any legal briefs.” Though he did like the play on words. “I’m sure they’d be Greek to me.”
If Eliot was trying to hurt him, he was doing a bang up job. As it was, Quentin thought that taking the plastic lid off his coffee cup and using its blunted edges to carve open his own chest might be a lot less painful than this conversation. He wanted to tell Eliot that that's how he thought of him all the time, that all he wanted was to make sure Eliot knew he was just as special and wanted as he deserved to be. And make no mistake, Eliot deserved the world. The universe. All of them. Q swallowed more coffee, downing nearly half the cup just to be doing something other than spiraling. Shove it down. Bury it. RIP. goddammit. He couldn't smile, but he also kept his attention on the cardboard sleeve around his cup, anything to keep the agony from his face. "Yeah. That's great. I'm really happy for you. Do you think he'd take me seriously if I tried to give him the shovel talk?"
And the Oscar goes to…
Quentin groaned at the pun and rolled his eyes so hard he thought he'd sprained something. "Nope, no, you're cut off. No more literary quips for you."
For a few sweet seconds Eliot had been hopeful before his face fell and his smile slipped away. He'd fucked up again. He'd said too much. He'd crossed some invisible line Quentin had drawn, but he had no idea where it was so he kept fucking up. "Sorry," he said, running a hand through his hair and scratching at the back of his neck. "I should talk about stuff like this with Margo, but she's not here. Even if she was, she'd tell me he's just some flavor of the week. Maybe she'd be right." Maybe she wouldn't. All one had to do was look at his track record with relationships.
Quentin wasn't happy for him and that was a mystery too. He didn't want to be with him. They were best friends and yet clearly there were things he wasn't supposed to talk to him about. “I don’t think you are.” He left it at that because there was nothing else to say about it. That was okay. What the hell was happiness anyway? It wasn’t like he got much of it. Just tiny bits the universe gave then snatched away.
He hadn’t made the legal briefs pun, Q had. It was still a good play on words though. Quentin hadn’t bothered answering what the book he was reading was about. He glanced over to the other and sighed quietly. “Will you tell me what I can talk to you about so I don’t…keep fucking up?”
His eyes snapped over to Eliot, even though it meant he had to turn his whole head to do it. The soft accusation was a livewire, and for several very tense seconds, all Quentin could do was breathe and stare. Any humor building between them had utterly evaporated. "How could you say that?" he croaked. The yelling was right on the tip of his tongue. The physical evidence of it was in the way his cup shook and how his other hand had drawn up into a tight fist where it rested on his thigh. God, how did they keep winding up here? "Don't tell me what I'm feeling. Let's start there."
He wanted to get up, to run, to just be away from this space that sucked them in over and over. "Why isn't this working? Why can't we make this work? I'm not trying to be a prick all the time. I want to be around you. I love you, remember?" His heart flipped, and he swallowed. "We were in each other's orbits for fifty years. Why can't we do this?"
"I can say it because you look like someone kicked your puppy, and I wasn't telling you what you're feeling. I told you what I saw, what I felt." Fucking feelings and emotions. He really wished there was some spell to get rid of them. They really didn't do him a whole lot of good.
Eliot leaned forward and sat his cold coffee on the table. "I don't know." Well, that wasn't entirely true. I love you... Like friends love each other and hey, it was what it was. He nodded. "Yes, I know. I love you, too." He looked away and cleared his throat. "Remember how much we fought at the beginning of those fifty years?" It was kind of a role reversal if Eliot thought about it, but he didn't let his thoughts go there, go that deeply.
As soon as Eliot said it, Quentin could feel the wind being pulled right out of his sails, leaving him flat and stupid and paper thin. He didn't have it in him to apologize, however, just abandoned his cup the same as El had, then leaned back with a soft groan into the hands that covered his face. It'd be really nice if the couch would just absorb him. "Fuckin' mosaic. Fuckin' 'beauty of all life'," he grumbled after drawing his hands roughly back down to his lap. "Maybe that's what we need. A project. A quest. A-a way to justify whatever this keeps on being."
His sigh carried the weight of the world on its back. "I am happy you're carving out some happiness for yourself here. God knows you deserve it. The book I'm reading… I know it won't end well. The story of Achilles was never going to end well, unless you threw the whole ending of the Trojan war right out of the window, but that's what I want for you. A good ending. A happy ending. Why do you think I fought like hell to bring you back?"
Eliot reached over and smoothed down some of Quentin's hair that had gotten messed up then tucked it behind his ear. It was automatic, something he’d done a million times at one point. He loved Quentin’s hair. Always had. “A project? Hmm.” He fell into thought about that. Wouldn’t that have them spending more time together which always seemed to go tits up? Still, perhaps something else to focus on would be helpful. “I’ll have to think about that. I don’t think there are very many quests going on around here.”
That time Eliot felt like Quentin meant it. If he was splitting hairs he would point out that carving out some happiness in this place and being happy for him that he liked Matt were two different things. Then he had to add he wanted a happy ending for him. “Do you think either of us are meant to have that? Sometimes I really wonder.” Once more Eliot reached out to touch Quentin, resting a hand on his thigh. “Because you love me and I think you’d do anything for me.” Whoa. He had not intended for that to be so serious. “Or because you know, I bring a certain sparkle and fabulousness to your life,” he grinned.
The motion of Eliot fixing his hair was so ingrained in Q's head that he didn't think anything odd about it until well after El had moved his hand away. That didn't seem fair somehow, that they could be so comfortable physically around each other while navigating emotional minefields that blew up in their faces every other second. Case in point, Quentin didn't hesitate in the way he leaned in until his head was on his best friend's shoulder. Either they would figure out something to do or they wouldn't. It was enough that Eliot hadn't dismissed the notion altogether. He chuckled at the attempt to diffuse the charged reply to his ultimately rhetorical question, but it was a tired sound. "Yes, you do that. And beautifully, I might add. But a happy ending? For me? I think I'd just settle on going out on my own terms, if I can. Maybe doing something heroic. You, on the other hand, are going to live until you're 105, and still somehow still look exactly like you do right now, because you will have cracked the fountain of youth out of spite."
Like it was the most natural thing in the world, Eliot leaned his head against the one on his shoulder. He just didn't think about which was odd considering how tense everything had been. Maybe their subconscious knew far more than they did and was far more smarter.
He smiled at Quentin's reply and swatted his thigh. "My sparkle is legendary. Don't be jealous of it," he teased. Suddenly Eliot's heart began thudding in his chest as Quentin went on. "Stop it! Don't talk like that!" He snapped, his head bolted up straight, his body almost went rigid at just the thought. "Are you having those kind of thoughts? Do you need to go see someone?" His eyes wildly moved over Quentin's face. Was this a moment where things were actually relaxed between them and he'd just let it slip out? And what the fuck? Had Julia said something to him? No, she wouldn't do that. They had agreed to not tell him yet.
Talk about whiplash. Once again, Quentin was reduced to staring and blinking stupidly. "What?" he whispered, lips barely moving. A boulder had taken up residence where his stomach once resided. He'd hit the wall without even knowing how he'd gotten there. Yet a-fucking-gain. But his frustration was eclipsed by a cold dread suddenly working its way through his veins like ice. "What? What the—? What the hell are you talking about? I'm not— That's not— Why would you—? It was just theoretical! Why are you freaking out on me all of a sudden?"
Why was he freaking out? Why? “You have a history, Q. And who says ‘going out on my own terms’? Who talks like that.” Especially given his history. No, he didn’t know about his own death, but that paled if he was having suicidal or self harm thoughts. “You can’t just spring shit like that on me.” His heart was still drumming away in his chest and he felt hot all over. “I can’t…” No, he couldn’t say that. “You know how I worry about you.” Fuck! Had been blind to what was going on with Quentin?
"You—" Quentin was shaking. He was sitting down, and he was shaking. Swallowing did nothing. No amount of air passing into his lungs was softening the hurt that came from the inside. He forced the words out in a hiss. "You don't get to just throw that in my face, Eliot. I was talking about some theoretical future, not an actionable one. Jesus Christ, I'm nowhere near that! Why would I be? Just because you're dating? Get over yourself."
“I wasn’t throwing it in your face, Quentin. I was telling you why I’m worried about you talking like that.” Was he allowed to worry anymore? Because damn, everytime it seemed to blow up in his face. “Can’t you see, how that would alarm me, worry me?” he asked sincerely. Eliot literally recoiled back into himself when him “dating” Matt was thrown in his face. He shook his head and was fighting the urge to snap yet again, but in anger this time. He took several deep breaths. Nope.
“I didn’t think it had anything to do with me dating. I wasn’t even thinking that. You’re just a jealous little bitch. You get over yourself!” He stood and walked to his room, slamming the door behind him.
Q sat there in silence. For what felt like hours. They'd never been this bad before. What changed? It wasn't Eliot. Not really. Or maybe it was, a little. A body, a mind didn't come back from what he'd experienced completely unaffected. Something must have happened between them afterwards. It was the only explanation. Quentin wasn't sure he wanted to know what it was.
He cleared away their coffee, picked up a few things, straightened others, contemplated the liquor stock and the benefits of getting blackout drunk. In the end, he didn't do the latter, simply crossed to Eliot's door, leaned his forehead against it, and whispered an, "I'm sorry," before disappearing into his room where a fictional Greek tragedy waited for him instead of the real one he seemed to be living in now.