Eliot had never been the sort who needed an occasion to look his best or wear something fancy, but there was an occasion for everything and an outfit for every occasion, and tonight called for that lovely silk brocade tie-and-vest number he'd picked up on a shopping trip he didn't even remember. No jacket, because it wasn't a wedding, and it was far too hot for that anyway. It was just the right mix of sleek and comfortable so that he felt 100% himself as he walked into the restaurant with one hand around Q's and the other checking to be sure his hair was how he wanted it.

"Two under Eliot for eight o'clock," he told the man at the host stand. It was far easier than trying to get them to understand his surname, with all its silent consonants. He'd made that mistake more than once. He smiled over at his boyfriend as the man led them to their table, little butterflies of pleasure in his chest. They didn't do this kind of thing all that much, but he'd missed the one-year mark for one of their milestones, and he didn't intend to miss another. He slid into the dimly-lit booth. "Happy anniversary, Q," he said as soon as Quentin had squeezed in next to him and they'd been left behind with their menus. "What do you say we drink a whole bottle each of their most expensive wines and then tear up the dance floor?" He nodded toward the tiny, sedate space designated for a bit of slow dancing once the place's in-house string quartet started their first set.

There was no way Quentin could ever match his boyfriend for style, but he cleaned up okay in a suit he'd actually had tailored. It was at Eliot's insistence, of course, and his only one that wasn't right off the rack. Even Q could admit it actually looked better than 90% of the rest of his wardrobe. And he wanted to look nice for the evening, since they rarely got to go out like this. He wasn't upset about the lack of dates, because he knew how important the club was to him and to Margo. Getting the chance to be alone with Eliot at the end of the night and spend their free days together made it all worth it.

This was their chance, and Quentin wasn't about to squander it.

He pushed a bit of his hair behind his ear where it had slipped out of the tiny ponytail he'd gathered it in before leaving their apartment. The whole evening looked like it was shaping up to be their version of perfect, from the cozy booth to the soft lighting to the way Eliot had already planned out what they'd be doing. Q tucked into his side before starting to look at the menu, but he got distracted very quickly by the gut-swooping reaction to those two words that sent his brain scrambling. Shit, had he somehow missed one? "Anniversary?"

"Our first date?" Outside of Fillory, that was. Fillory counted in their romantic tallies in all the best ways, but they hadn't exactly had time for real dates outside of romantic picnics on the mosaic—which, to be fair, had happened not infrequently when they weren't ready to smash the thing to bits. Which also wasn't infrequent. "Dinner at the Italian place with the fabulous gnocchi followed by the musical I'm still not allowed to name because the songs will get stuck in our heads?"

He wasn't offended that Quentin had no idea what he meant. It was really only a fluke that he'd remembered the date himself in time to celebrate. But it did bring a mischievous little glint to his eye as he draped an arm around the other's shoulders and pouted. "Am I a joke to you? Did my drunken midnight serenade in the streets mean nothing?"

Quentin flushed, fast and hard—not at the memory of being sung to down the side streets near Broadway, but at the hours that followed. It wasn't that Q had forgotten. Not in the slightest. It was more than fifty years and now the start of fifty more meant that sometimes he lost track of which happy moment happened when. He chuckled and shook his head. "It meant everything, El. And it's still sweet of you not to hold it against me that I laughed at you at the time. I promise, it was out of love. Has it really been a year? On the one hand, I feel like we've barely been here that long, but on the other, so much has happened that how can it possibly be anything less than five years?"

"Oh, I held it against you. Plan to hold it against you later, too." Eliot raised one suggestive eyebrow, but that was all he allowed into his expression. This was a fancy place, and he was a fancy guy, and he was above such innuendo. For the next hour, anyway. Maybe half an hour, if he got testy. He softened a bit at the questions, the menus all-but forgotten on the table in front of them as he angled himself toward his boyfriend.

"I remember the first first-year being slow." They'd been more than a year into a frustrating tile puzzle when it had started, but it was more that those gifted memories came to him differently than those from this current life. They had a syrupy, distant quality that sometimes came to him with more difficulty but was no less sweet for the effort. "But it was only us in our little clearing then. New York has a different energy." Maybe that wasn't always a good thing, but he knew that being here with Quentin was, so he wasn't going to complain about what had been handed to them.

For just a moment, Q didn't have a care in the world for where they were and who might be around them. When he was with Eliot, everything else became secondary. Pushing up just a little, he nuzzled against the underside of his boyfriend's jaw and murmured a soft, "I wish you would."

He sat back upright but still close, a hand moving to El's leg and staying there. "I remember tensions running high and a lot of frustration. Missing our friends, even though we had magic back." Quentin also remembered their first anniversary, drinking on a blanket covering the bane of their existence at the time. How all he'd been thinking about for the days leading up to that evening was "what if…?" What if this was their lives now? What if they solved the puzzle and nothing happened? What if they went back to the quest before Q could find out what it was like to kiss his best friend when he was clearheaded? "I think life outside of that bubble was always going to have a different energy. We were essentially in a microcosm. I like having you outside of it, too. Getting the past year to find out how we work when reality isn't put on pause for a fairy tale."

More than a year this time around, and Quentin's responsiveness still hadn't gotten old. Eliot knew from experience it never would, and he was already making plans to reward the sentiment after dinner. Preferably several times over and in several different rooms. He made another mental note to text Margo a warning: clear out or be prepared for the show, her choice.

"True." He had no illusions that it would be possible to recapture what they'd had together in Fillory, and most days he didn't want that anyway. He'd been as happy as was likely possible under their quest-laden circumstances, but he'd always been meant for something far brighter and more gaudy than the simple life in their little cottage. Another throne might have worked, but Threshold suited those ambitions just fine for now. "Now our microcosm is a bar, and we're allowed to escape it occasionally." He ran his hand over the one on his leg. "But know that I'm on guard for things getting boring. You never know when another drunken serenade might be needed."

He laughed, and their waiter took that moment to step in and take their drink order. Good on his teasing, Eliot ordered two bottles of wine—not the most expensive, but certainly the most enticing of the list. "Order the specials?" he asked, turning a questioning eye on his boyfriend. "We haven't exactly paid much attention to anything beyond the drink menu."

When the waiter chuckled, it didn't seem mean spirited or indulgent in the slightest. Even so, Q went a little pink around the edges. He was actually pretty proud of himself for not immediately pulling away or putting any distance between them. Screw that puritanical nonsense. "Yeah, the specials sounded good."

Quentin could barely remember what they were, but they actually had seemed like something he would like. Really, he'd been far too caught up in the effortless way his boyfriend had ordered their wine. "You are such a marvel, Eliot. I hope I remember to tell you that often. And if I don't, at least I hope I show it? I don't really care how micro or macro our cosmos gets, so long as I get to move through it with you—and with Margo, because I know she'd kick both our asses if we left her again."

"Yes, I've been told that before," Eliot teased, preening more than a little at the praise. There was a difference between people who got caught up in the persona he'd crafted and those who could see the him wound within it, and that meant that the things Quentin said counted at least double. He laughed as he wound their fingers together. "More like she'd castrate us. Since at least one of us needs a fully functional dick for any future procreation, best we avoid it altogether." He sipped his water and absolutely did not watch for the other's reaction to that comment.

Q went still.

Not in a bad way, just a thoughtful one. A surprised one. He leaned away, just so he could see Elot's profile, to judge if he was serious. The fact that he wouldn't look at him told Quentin he was. He gave El's fingers a light squeeze. Eliot had loved Teddy just as much as Q had, had been every bit the father—the dad—Q had been. It had simply never occurred to him that Eliot might want that again, that their next fifty years could encompass a family again. "Yeah, I'd like to keep our theoretical progeny safe and sound. Do you—" Quentin swallowed, but he wasn't really nervous about the answer. "Do you really see that for us? Like a solid possibility?"

Eliot could tell he'd caught Quentin off guard—which might have been half the point, if he'd intended to make the comment at all. It hadn't even really been on his mind, except in the way that everything about Quentin was on his mind any time there wasn't something else occupying it. He was still, looking down at his glass, as he waited for the other man to work through his words, only looking over at him when it came to a question. "If this is our last chance, no more redos...I can't imagine not at least exploring the idea." His response was calm, assured, but the feeling in his stomach was less so. Even still, he added, "Really solid, Q...if you want that, too."

Quentin didn't so much lean in as he lunged at his boyfriend, practically plastering him to the back of their seat so he could kiss him senseless. While it was the kind of move he was usually on the receiving end of, he liked to dole out this sort of exuberance every once in a while. The restaurant fell away. All that mattered was the incredible man and this impossible life they'd been handed. Again. Somehow. It was a gift horse he had no intention of examining too closely.

A polite cough brought renewed awareness of their surroundings, and Q pulled back, pink cheeked, but not embarrassed. "I got carried away." He smiled meekly at their server, who had arrived with their first bottle of wine and appetizers he didn't remember them ordering. "I promise I can behave in public. Usually. It's just—"

"Anniversary?" The server smiled back, a look far warmer than simply customer service. "The bruschetta is on the house. Love is love."

Whatever Eliot might have expected, it wasn't the reaction he got. He sighed into it, happy in his bones in a way his neuroses rarely allowed. By the time they were interrupted by the waiter, he felt like his usual wit had seeped out of his pores, leaving behind only a puddle of very pleased goo. He tried to smile at the server and show his appreciation of both the free food and the sentiment, but it was all he could do to pull his eyes away from Quentin.

"I really like it when you misbehave in public," he said softly, dazedly, when something like coherent sentences seemed possible again. He sagged a little into his boyfriend's side while simultaneously attempting something like coordination so that he could pour a glass of wine for each of them. "And in general." He held up his glass. "To us...and our future children. Happy anniversary, Q."

With Eliot handling their drinks, it left Q with the rare opportunity to settle his arm across his boyfriend's back where he could rub random lines and patterns into his shoulder. He clinked their glasses together with his free hand, smiling softly all the while. "To our gorgeous future children and their scarily protective godmother. Happy anniversary, El."

~*~

Dinner had been as good as Eliot had expected, even after they'd set the bar high with their Pride-infused bruschetta. They'd had far too much wine, which meant they were in exactly the perfect state of mind to take a break from their table and hit the tiny dance floor. The live music was far more sedate than what they always had at Threshold, ideal for joining the two other couples out there in holding each other close and paying no one else any attention at all as they swayed.

Between the wine and the near euphoria that had followed their discussions, he felt like he was floating, disconnected from himself in the best possible way. "Are we sure they don't pump opioids into the air here?" His lips brushed near Quentin's ear as they moved. "We should come back here."

"If they did, I reserve the right to rename it 'Fillory Lite' or 'The Better Fillory', since no one is asking us to rule anything or trying to kill us every five seconds." His words were wry, but the way he was holding on to Eliot—arms around him, cheek pressed into the comfortable thrum of his heart—was as genuine as a thing could be. This night really was exactly what Quentin hadn't known he'd needed until he was right in the middle of it. His fingers tightened in the satin of Eliot's vest, and he sighed softly. "Keep that up, and I'm going to be a puddle of very happy boyfriend goo."

"At least we'd die happy." At this point, Eliot was so happy that he felt like he might drift away on the first nice breeze. It was all because of the man currently in his arms, and because...what had they been talking about? This feeling had started with their dinner conversation, was fed by alcohol, and now.... Well, it didn't matter. All that mattered was he had Quentin close and was whispering sexy nonsense in his ear. "It would be my pleasure to take you home and work you back into something very fuckable, Q."

He swayed a little more as the song changed—and then Q slipped away from him and the floor slipped closer and he was falling into a bottomless pit that tugged away his happiness with the eerie familiarity of a life he thought he'd left behind.

"I—" The words barely made it past his lips as his body convulsed violently. "Outlet—" One arm reached for the man hovering over him without really seeing. "Allanbarraväljagarchpoza—" He broke off, screaming unintelligibly.

If Q's arms hadn't been around Eliot, he was sure his boyfriend would have cracked his head on the dance floor. Naturally, his turned-on-ed-ness turned on the tiniest dime known to anyone as soon as El made his unexpected slide to the floor. All Quentin could do was turn it into a slow descent rather than a flat-out collapse. There were gasps around him, but all his attention was on the parchment color of Eliot's skin and the way he couldn't seem to focus on anything, pupils blown wide where they fluttered beneath his lids.

And then his body began to pitch and words bubbled out of him. Panic clawed up the back of Q's throat, even before the screaming started. He shoved his own emotions down, but it didn't stop his eyes from filling with tears, blurring the room. "I'm calling 911," he heard someone say, and someone pulled at his shoulder. "Give him space. Does your husband have a history of seizures or epilepsy?"

"No, no—" In that moment, he didn't know if he was answering the woman or merely talking to the situation playing out like a nightmare in front of him. He needed a spell. He needed Penny. Fuck, Penny wasn't there. Wasn't there someone at the Facility he could call? Someone who would help?