When Quentin had eventually left the suite, Eliot had rose and followed him out the door. With the memories now thrust upon him, and the important discussion with Quentin having been taken care of, there was the matter of Margo. He'd not rushed to Margo's suite the way he'd rushed out into the hall, desperate to find Quentin, but there was a sense of urgency to his movement as he made way for her deck. If both he and Quentin had received memories, virtually at the same time, it only seemed logical to Eliot that there was a possibility Margo had as well. When he thought of Margo now, he thought of all the news he was going to have to give her that would be painful. He'd be giving her confirmation about her suspicions involving the faeries. He'd be telling her of the crisis the Kingdom was in. And it would be him who had to tell her about the Faerie Queen's torment of the Children of Earth; specifically of Margo. It was as though the Queen had a vendetta set against his beloved Destroyer. And the final news he'd be giving her? The most recent update? An arranged marriage of her own to a psychotic, kinslaying child groom.
And that wasn't even touching on the trauma Margo had to endure of being told of his and Quentin's deaths or becoming a gravedigger in order to get her hands on the key from the mosaic. His last memories of the situation involving Margo were wanting to continue to shield her in his arms.
He'd gone to Margo, now, on the ship because he needed to check. He needed to know if she knew. When he was greeted by a very two eyed Bambi, who didn't appear to look alarmed in any way, relief had rushed through him. And he'd stayed in her company for a great length of time, laying his head out against her lap, as he recounted everything she needed to know. And, arguably, some things she didn't but that he needed to get out himself.
Once he'd left Margo, however, he didn't go immediately back to the suite. It had been to the salon with his tired eyes and worn down demeanor. He'd wanted to avoid any of those he was regularly social with. His priority was to get cleaned up and then head back to the suite. He knew, or at least rightly assumed, that Kylo would be there upon his return. Having pushed open the door, with a clean shaven face, he shut the door behind him and crossed immediately to his lover. Both his hands had come up to catch Kylo's face between them and he'd leaned in for a kiss that had been long missed. The 'game' had been not completely withholding of tenderness the past two weeks, because neither had really insisted on following their own rules in the immediate aftermath of Han's arrival, but it had been back in session in earnest the last few nights. And while he his yearning for contact from Kylo had been ever increasing before that morning, his onslaught of new memories had pushed him to a point where he no longer cared about his own pride or the 'game.' He just wanted the touch of Ky's lips to his own. Breaking the kiss, but still only inches from his lips, Eliot breathed out, "Talk later," almost as a promise. He knew they needed to talk. He knew there would be questions. And he would be ready to face that soon enough. But first? First he wanted affirmation of the here and the now and everything that was his life of the present. And that affirmation could only come from Kylo and his embrace.
Later, in the darkness of their room, he lay in Kylo's arms, a small spoon in this situation. His arms held Kylo's arm in place, against his chest, almost as though he was afraid to really let him go. That wouldn't have been very far off from the truth of it. Eliot's eyes were fixed off in the distance away from them both, his mind slipping now away from their little room aboard the cruise ship, and back to the memories that were now so readily available to him. He took in a breath and sighed out, before shifting to curl up closer to Kylo. He dipped his head down and his lips pressed a gentle kiss against the man's arm, before he shifted and rested his chin against the very spot he'd just pressed his lips to.
"I remember it all. Everything they've all told me," he finally spoke.
For a heartbeat, Kylo didn’t say anything in response to Eliot’s words. Instead he only curled his own arm up the reaction not speech, but touch and physicality and the reminder that he was here for Eliot, and that Eliot was still here with him. His eyebrows drew together over his forehead as he considered words and pressed his lips gently to the back of Eliot’s head.
He’d known something was up. While Kylo hadn’t been leaving his room much at all this week - hiding from his Father if you wanted to be frank about it - Eliot had been in and out and typically there was more warning when he left. A cursory check in the Force had given him the feedback of emotional complexity, but there had been Q, and then Margo. So Kylo had settled in with Millicent, who had been behaving peculiarly herself ever since they returned – possibly just cat moods about the fact that she’d been left on her own for so long – awaiting Eliot returning to him.
Ren hadn’t expected a clean-shaven Eliot returning to him, but he had certainly not minded the kiss that followed that surprise. Nor any part of what followed. Eliot had promised him an explanation, and Eliot always delivered on his promises, and so Kylo had focused instead on the present, heart swelling with the pure delight of being wanted in this way and being able, perhaps to share that delight with Eliot as well. He only hoped that he was able to give that same precious strength back to the man he was with, sensing that it might be particularly necessary today.
The eventual words explained a bit -- if not the all of it. Kylo knew already how the information had been taken even without the emotional sense of having lived the events and there had been more than one time in the year they'd known each other that Kylo had comforted Eliot in the face of bad news from home. He let his breath out in a gentle sigh and he snugged himself around Eliot, even though, truthfully he couldn’t get much closer, but if it he could make it at all better because he would hold him close – then Kylo would try for it. “That’s a lot in one night,” he finally spoke soft, low near Eliot’s ear. “How are you feeling?”
"Better now," he said, both referring to the amount of time that had passed since he woke with the memories flooding his system and to the embrace he now found himself in. There was even the smallest hint of a smile as he thought on moments prior. His thoughts did not linger there, however, because there was other more pressing things to discuss. He'd always tried to operate with open communication when it came to Kylo, even if sometimes he failed in passing along information in a more timely manner.
There was so many points he could discuss.
Kylo had been the one who most frequently saw Eliot's determination to find out more about the situation regarding Fen and Fray. He also was the one who'd heard Eliot's larger fears and concerns about his wife be vocalized. And, for the most part, Eliot had been operating on a hypothetical when it came to the two women of his life that he barely knew. He knew he felt responsibility for them. An obligation. But he hadn't necessarily hit a point of feeling much in the way of tenderness and love in their direction because they were barely more than names in his mind. This wasn't the case now. And, certainly, he was going to go over that with Kylo.
And, of course, there was Fillory. No longer was Fillory just this abstract concept of a Kingdom that Eliot had been gifted because of a blood test. No. Fillory was home. If Kylo wanted, Eliot could go into vast detail of his Kingdom now, describing it in intimate detail.
But there was the priority that had been there this morning, when he'd rushed to find Quentin. His talks with Quentin had been handled but Kylo needed to know, too. Not only for the sake of communication between them as a pair but because, truthfully, Quentin was Kylo's friend now as much as Eliot's. He took in a breath.
"There's some horrible things happening but...I'm hopeful," he admitted. He had faith in his friends and he had faith in the quest. They would restore magic and then they would overthrow the Faerie Queen and then they would restore Fillory to actual glory. From there on, well, he couldn't even begin to consider what might happen. But at least, for now, it didn't feel so bleak. It was still a concern, and that wasn't going to go away, but he had hope.
"We got a lot we should talk about." Though he said this, because it was true, it didn't carry a daunting tone. It sounded more as though he wanted to include Kylo in the happenings of his life, instead of giving him a foreboding statement.
A smile played at Kylo’s lips at the initial words. He didn’t know how much he’d helped, couldn’t know he supposed, but he could hope that maybe it had been just a little, and he snugged his leg against Eliot’s, gently, just a reminder that he was there, even if there could be very little doubt with how close they were wrapped up in each other.
El’s words could have been intimidating, but they weren’t and Kylo didn’t intend to second guess whether or not they should be. He knew at least some of what Eliot had learned because Eliot had learned some of it before living it, and while no doubt there were pieces of it that only Eliot had known in the first place and thus he could not have known before now, that meant that there would be some things that would not be particularly a surprise. And the fact that Eliot was hopeful, meant that whatever it was – there was the possibility of something different and better. And for all Kylo had countered Leia’s determination that there was always hope with a more pessimistic viewpoint, that didn’t mean that he didn’t like the idea of it. That he did not necessarily share it when it came to the possibility of ever having a meaningful relationship with either Leia or Han ever in his life didn’t mean, that some part of him didn’t cling like a child to the want of it. He preferred hope, even if he found it difficult to believe in sometimes
“I’m here,” he told Eliot. “And I’m listening...” he hesitated briefly and then added. “Did you find out anything more about Fray?”
It didn't need to be vocalized how desperately Eliot had needed the closeness. He always sought out comfort through physicality and touch. And though he had plenty of tender moments that morning, where he'd invaded the personal space of Margo and Quentin, he had very strong memories of the actual timeline his life had been back on back home. He had been largely touch starved there, for a variety of reasons. It's been relegated to tiny brushes of the hand or draping an arm across Fen as she slept at his side; but nothing more intimate. He was separated from Idri for the time, with the Faerie Queen preventing him from seeing the man. And really there was little time for anything. It was day in and day out a political nightmare prior to the Quest. And now the Quest had been the sole focus.
He shifted, turning in Kylo's arms and finally relaxing a little, as he felt anchored to the spot in time that he wanted to be. He shifted just enough to be able to look into his lovers eyes comfortably.
"She's a little shit," Eliot stated, though not with a callous tone. It was with an actual amount of affection, though guarded, as if he wasn't sure he should feel any. He took in a breath. "I'm not… I'm not certain if she is ours or not. But she could be?" He went into further detail, as a hand moved just to relax against Kylo's side. "Either she is, and the faeries told the truth about her rapid aging, or she isn't. It's hard to say. Either way...she is a spy," he continued. He hadn't forgotten this fact, even if he was becoming fond of her, regardless of his better judgement.
"Fen is doing better with her being around," he then offered up, his expression turning troubled, as though there were something in that statement that troubled him. Worry was visible and it was clear that now, unlike all the previous times, it was because of events Eliot had witnessed for himself. "I want Fray to be ours. For Fen." He didn't want to imagine how his wife would act if this was pulled from her. The frown deepened.
Kylo nodded, not smiling exactly at Eliot's statement, but there was a lightness in his eyes despite any other visible emotion. The entire conversation felt too serious for actual joking about the daughter Eliot was speaking of. There were shifts there too, shifts in emotion that Kylo could sense, all of them shifts that made sense under the circumstance, because Eliot had lived a lot more, really.
He listened, his thumb gently rubbing against Eliot's arm, keeping him close, if at the same time allowing him some space to talk.
Kylo had never had this sort of memory drop or whatever you wanted to call it. He knew that his mother knew things from beyond that he didn't know, but she hadn't provided a lot of details other than to suggest the First Order had decimated the Resistance fleet. The implication might be that he'd been a part of that, but Kylo knew enough about how things worked, to know that he might, or he might not be. It wasn't as if he'd given the order for Starkiller to destroy the Hosnian system, after all. So memories from other people were automatically biased with their own version of the events - and he had no idea what it would be like to get them himself. If all the things he'd been told were underlined with the emotional weight of having lived them.
"A spy for the faeries," Kylo clarified quietly. Fen was a question mark in Kylo's mind. He knew Eliot really hadn't known much about her before, but he surely knew her better now. There was concern in his eyes at the thought of Fen's perspective, which wasn't particularly surprising to Kylo. Eliot was a person who cared about those that were close to him, and while he might not have chosen Fen for a partner, she was still close to him. There were questions there about what Fen was like, but Kylo wasn't certain if he should pursue those are let Eliot guide the conversation.
For a moment, his gaze held on Eliot's face, and then he squeezed his lover's elbow. "Fen wants her to be yours, then."
Eliot nodded his head in affirmation to the clarification Kylo had put forth. "The Faerie Queen made it quite clear she was having Fray watch Fen and I," he offered up, but then it occurred to him that Kylo didn't actually know why they needed to be watched at all. He cleared his throat some. "The Quest Julia has been talking about? One of the magical questing beasts of Fillory put me onto it. It required us searching the entire kingdom, and the areas beyond our borders, in search of these keys that will restore magic. I came up with this elaborate ruse about collecting taxes in order to get away from Whitespire. And Fray's been put with us to ensure I do nothing that would be disapproved of by the Queen," he explained, matter of factly, but the following statement was spoken with his eyes glancing down and a hint of sadness. "She's been raised completely by them and her loyalty to them is an issue."
If they all succeeded in the quest, and restored magic to the realms, the next step would be taking back Fillory. They would need to overthrow the faeries and then restore faith in the monarchy. It was a very long to-do list. But, in relation to Fray, doing this would most certainly create a rift between her and her parents. He'd already seen how the girl wasn't fond of being lied to. It wasn't the type of relationship he had hoped to have with his child. In an ideal world, where everything actually went according to plan and without failure, he was going to have a lot of work ahead of him with trying to gain her trust when there was no steady foundation. But that was a concern more for the future. He had to prioritize when it came to Fillory. Fray was a priority but at the moment, honesty just wasn't in the cards, and he'd manage the consequences later.
He brought his hand up and rubbed at the back of his neck with the following statement, looking up when Kylo spoke. "Fen wants our family to be whole. She's desperate for it," he clarified. There was a flash of guilt that worked across his features and it caused him to glance down. He couldn't look up into his lovers eyes as his mind wandered back to the many weeks he'd spent studying his wife's mental state. "She was in the faerie realm for so long, Ky," he added, and though he'd kept his gaze down to avoid showing his guilt, his tone wasn't able to mask it away.
The guilt would have been obvious to Kylo, even without the tone, and it was an emotion he was well acquainted with. That pull of feeling as if you ought to have done something differently, even if it wasn't always terribly clear exactly how that should have been done, but that you messed it up, somehow, that you ought to have been capable of changing everything for the better. Kylo's situation was different, in most cases he was the one in charge of what he'd done, whereas Fen hadn't been his regret to hold. Only that he couldn't get her back sooner.
Kylo leaned forward to press his lips gently to Eliot's forehead in a kiss, as he sought out what to say that might be able to help his lover.
Kylo had been there when Eliot had found out, he'd been there every step of the way watching Eliot try to figure out a way to get Fen back even in this universe, even far removed, even when all he remembered of Fen was a marriage he hadn't wanted or asked for. Kylo had watched Eliot find out that his daughter had grown-up without him, and how that had affected him. Kylo knew as well as anyone, and maybe better than most, just how much Eliot cared about it. And while perhaps he couldn't relate specifically to this, he could relate to having a hope that was buried so deep, and so fragile, and so tied up in who you were and who you wanted to be for others.
Kylo brought his hand up to Eliot's cheek, running his thumb against the now smooth cheek of Fillory's High King. "I'm sorry, El," he said softly. If Kylo could have changed something, then he would have, he realized suddenly. If he could somehow have stopped that sequence of events so Eliot wouldn't have to hold on to that regret - Kylo would do it in a heartbeat. But it wasn't an option, not here, and in no other way that Kylo could think of. So he was left only to help his lover hold the pain of it even if he felt rather desperately unqualified to do so.
"She isn't now though," he said finally. "She's with you now. You have her back. Not here, I mean, but at home. And I know you - you're watching out for her now," Kylo pressed his thumb against Eliot's cheek again, the fondness and admiration he felt for the other man evident in his tone. The next words felt ridiculous in some ways, a parroting of his mother's favorite thing to say, even if Kylo didn't always believe it, but when it came to Eliot, if Kylo were honest, he nearly always did believe it: "There's hope."
Eliot's eyes closed with the feel of Kylo's kiss to his forehead. Though his thoughts were in Fillory, it was a gentle reminder that there was someone here that was here and ready to help him sort through it all.
He was, indeed, watching over her. In the beginning, when she'd first arrived, it was only mere moments before the Faeries announced their take over. And prior to her arrival, magic was gone and there was the peasants dismay growing louder as the crops continued to falter and the food shortages increased. He didn't know how to really help her cope with the circumstances. He'd not thought it wise to try to break the illusions she'd built for herself. He'd smiled, wearily, as the creatures she'd swaddle or the log she'd hold in her arms. The smile was only offered when she addressed him and expected him to show an interest in their 'daughter.' Otherwise, when her gaze was turned away from his eyes, there was a lingering sense of concern and worry. He dreaded what would happen if he was right and Fray ended up not being their child at all.
But, it wasn't as though Kylo was wrong, and Kylo was using the very words Eliot himself had chosen. There was hope that Fray was whom she presented herself as. And maybe, once everything else was taken care of, they'd have a moment to breathe and he could figure out of Fen was truly alright now that the hole in their lives was finally filled. He'd told himself, in the mosaic, that once he got back to Fen and Fray, he was going to do everything he could to be the husband and Father they each deserved. This was still true.
"I'm keeping them safe," he stated, before he turned his head just enough so that he could press a kiss to the inside of Kylo's palm. Then he brought his gaze forward to look at Kylo again. "I left them on Earth while we returned to Fillory. Margo, Quentin and I," he went on. "They are with..." A pause, as he pushed down the usual disdain that came with the following name, "...Todd." Disdain or not that he felt for the man, he knew Todd wouldn't let any ill happen to either of them. It was a good solution.
Kylo offered a smile back as Eliot met his eyes. He’d known that Eliot would be doing that even without being told. He knew Eliot, knew how he took care of people he’d taken into his care voluntarily, or even perhaps involuntarily – as had been the case originally with Fen. He brushed his thumb against Eliot’s cheek once more, before sliding his palm back, his hand settling against Eliot’s neck, and Kylo leaned forward and kissed him again – a proper kiss, but not one that lingered.
When he drew back again there were other questions to be answered. Eliot was in Fillory – his wife and daughter on Earth. Magic was dead, which Kylo knew briefly of, and of the quest, but recently most of the information had come from Julia, and if Kylo were being honest – and there was a tinge of guilt, and shame at how self-absorbed he’d been of recent – he hadn’t been so very focused on Fillory, or the new information Eliot had gotten, outside of what had come early on with Julia. Kylo had been focused on his own problems from home, particularly those in the shape of his father. He frowned slightly, mostly at the fact that he’d been so wrapped in his own stuff, that he only vaguely knew what Eliot had discovered from Fillory outside of what he’d learned about Fray’s age. His fingers shifted against the base of Eliot’s scalp, sliding between the hairs there.
“You said magic is gone, and you’re looking for keys?” Kylo asked. “And the Faerie Queen … is having Fray watch you?”
"It is," Eliot answered. He didn't expect for the problems of his world to be at the forefront of Kylo's mind the way they were his own, especially given what Kylo was simultaneously going through at present. Eliot had been trying his best to do a juggling act between caring for Kylo and his needs while always addressing the increasing concerns from home. "Quentin killed a God," he began, repressing a sigh. He'd told Quentin already that the fault wasn't solely to be placed on his shoulders. Everyone had been involved in the orchestration of the plan. It was just Quentin who had been the one to deliver the killing blow. But that did not mean that Julia, Margo, or himself were without blame for their part in the entire situation. It was shared, even if Q was still trying to keep all of it upon himself. "They didn't really like that so they took away all of magic that relies upon the Wellspring. Magical creatures still have it in abundance but not us," he explained, before nodding further.
"I sought out of one our Questing Beasts. I was hoping he'd grant me a wish. Evidently, not really his thing," he continued with a shrug of his shoulders. "He put me on the Quest instead. Gather the keys, unlock magic."
A pause.
"We have three."
Then a further nod. "Precisely. And Fray is more than willing to remind me of this at every opportunity."
"You said she was a teenager, yes?" Kylo raised an eyebrow. "That sounds about right to me."
But there was more to it than just Fray. More information about Fillory - about Eliot's kingdom - and Kylo half wished that maybe they could end up in Fillory at some point on this cruise. It might make everything else worth it to be able to see Eliot's kingdom, even if it was bereft of things that Eliot knew. He listened, concern in his eyes. Having magic taken away - well he could hardly imagine the Force being taken away like that. No longer having access to it - what it would feel like. He would certainly do what he could to get it back - even if it hadn't always been a blessing to him.
"How many keys are there?" Kylo asked Eliot softly, fingers sliding against his scalp.
"Fifteen, give or take," Eliot expounded on. If his daughter ever did arrive here, he was certain he was going to have his hands full.
His eyes shut for a moment and he focused on the feel of Kylo's fingertips as he thought on the Quest once again. They had three keys and there were four to go. They weren't even half way finished. "There's seven in total. We're not even at the halfway mark," he answered, before he opened his eyes and gazed ahead at Kylo.
"Each key has a specific trait or purpose from what we can tell. There's this book? And every time we've found a key, a chapter will show up in the book, giving us a compelling little narrative. I suspect once we have them all, it'll give us the final answer of how to proceed." He hesitated for a moment. "The first was based around illusion magic and the second deals with the truth of things."
"The third was all about the beauty of life."
Kylo watched Eliot for a moment, listening as he described the keys, even and the quest, even if that didn't give him a lot of information.
"The beauty of life?" He raised an eyebrow as Eliot finished. "The truth of things?"
If he were being honest, the whole thing reminded him a bit of some sort of Jedi nonsense. Vague ideas that sounded grand, but didn't tell you much of anything about them. In fact, it seemed a lot like some activity Luke might have come up with to frustrate them all. Go to a place, quest and meditate, come back filled with new knowledge about the Force, whatever that meant. Snoke had sometimes done similar, but usually he gave more instruction. It had felt more comfortable typically, the unknown, being far more frustrating for Kylo than even a known that he disliked.
"That sounds like something Luke would have come up with to torture me," he shifted just a bit, but his fingers stayed connected to Eliot's scalp. "What do you have to do to find the keys?"
Eliot gave a light huff of a laugh with the raised eyebrow and the repeating of the statements, as his mind leapt back to the first time he'd heard the expression about the purpose of the mosaic. He'd laughed it off himself. "Vague, I know," he said with a hint of a chuckle.
"I don't know if the Quest was designed by the Gods to make us prove we are worthy, or if it was the Great Cock's design, but damned if it isn't a little bit of torture," he agreed, smiling as he said it. Then he took in a breath.
"Yeah, about that." He knew he needed to go over this part with Kylo and he was fairly confident it wasn't going to be a negative conversation. He didn't want it to be negative. It had been an actual good thing for Eliot, back home, and the lessons he'd learned from it were even more important when applied to here. "The Illusion and the Truth key were just a matter of apprehension. A priest on one of my outer Islands was using the illusion key to control the populace," he explained. "Julia and Quentin got a hold of the second key. It'd been taken out of Fillory by one of the Chatwin's a few decades ago, but wound up in the hands of someone else. And it showed us Penny's alive, still," he added as a further note. "I have no idea what we're going to do for him and his lack of a body, but, at least he's not completely gone."
He brought in a breath. "The third key required living an entire life. And...we did that," he said, quieter, looking now at Kylo more intently. This was what he needed to talk to him about.
Kylo's lips turned up in a small smile at Eliot's laugh and agreement. And as Eliot continued explaining, he slid a foot up across Eliot's ankle, not with any intention to be distracting, but simply to be there with him in the moment. Sometimes Kylo suspected he'd had no real awareness of how much he wanted physical touch - even non-sexual touch - until Eliot had gifted it to him. It calmed him down sometimes in ways that he couldn't have imagined possible.
"That's good, about Penny," he offered. "If he's there, maybe you can find some way to help him?" Kylo had no idea if that was a possibility - it would fall outside of his realm of knowledge with the Force, but he also knew the Force could be used to speak with those who were dead, and for those who had passed beyond to return, and Eliot's magic had a lot of possibilities Kylo didn't know about, and he suspected a fair number Eliot didn't know about either.
"But -" he hesitated. "Living an entire life? You mean years?"
There was a twitch of a smile at the brush of contact. He always managed better when he was able to be reassured of someone's presence through touch. His hand shifted, slipping down to rest against the small of Kylo's back, as continued on with his story.
"It's at least in the realm of possibility now. Isn't finite," he agreed. If Penny actually would have been dead, there wouldn't be anything that they could have done. It wouldn't have been like Alice. She hadn't ascended and become something else. He would have just been gone and relegated to a servitude of life in the Underworld's library branch.
"No," he said now, exhaling as he moved a hand to brush back his own curls. "I mean an entire lifetime." He pursed his lips as he tried to figure out how to frame this. These words were going to matter. "Time is difficult magic," he began, quoting from Fillory and Further without necessarily even comprehending that he had. Quentin would be so proud. "I lived an entire lifetime...and I also didn't."
"The third key was able to open our clock. The clock that leads to Fillory and when we went through, Quentin and I, we got pushed into the timeline of the past. It inserted us there and we had an impact. Our actions mattered. So, even though Quentin got the key to Margo decades later, and she was able to use it to come and stop Quentin and I from going through the clock, it still had to have happened in order for her to stop us. So...it happened and it didn't."
Kylo supposed that there shouldn't be anything particularly surprising about this idea. He had lived a year of his life here in this place, where he would return to the moment he came from at home and be there and live another life. If he stayed twenty or thirty or fifty more years here, that would still be true, and he would have lived two lives. His fingers slid against Eliot's curls. One of those lives would almost certainly be better than the other - at least from where he was sitting right now and knowing what he knew about the other life thus far.
He frowned, processing through the implications through. If Eliot remembered that then did he also remember the lifetime that he had lived? However many years that might have been?
"How did you get the key?" He asked. "I mean, you lived an entire life to get it? In… Fillory's past?"
He reflexively sought out the feel of Kylo's fingertips as they slid through his hair. It was enough of a gesture to help continue to remind him of his place in the present, which was what he'd been wanting when he'd come back to the suite. He felt fairly grounded but he was needing to recollect.
"There was this puzzle. We call it the mosaic. It was a giant square with hundreds of these colored tiles that we thought we were supposed to put into an intrinsic design. To show the beauty of all life, according to the books, anyway," he explained before shaking his head to indicate that this wasn't accurate at all. "The puzzle wasn't the point. Living was."
He flashed his eyes up to Kylo now. "I did. No." He was avoiding the fullness with that word choice. "We did. Quentin and I." He was watching Kylo very closely as he spoke now.
"We spent our whole lives trying to solve that puzzle. The key only revealed itself once --- I was gone."
Kylo's fingers reflexively pressed against Eliot's neck as the implications of what he was saying, that he had lived an entire life, and died at the end of it - the key revealing itself only then and to Quentin presumably - settled into his mind. Kylo drew a breath, pressing himself against Eliot, reminding himself that he was warmth, and flesh and blood, and right here, and he wasn't going to disappear on Kylo. At least, he needed to believe that.
"I see," he offered softly. A mosaic that was supposed to show the beauty of all life, actually requiring an entire life. That really did seem like a Jedi trick. "You really spent your entire life solving a mosaic? You've more patience than I would have had, I think." Although if it was him and Eliot, he supposed there could be worse ways to spend a life.
It seemed clear to Eliot what he was trying to get across but this was likely because it was still so very fresh in his mind. It felt like it had all just happened but had also been so very long ago. But, as he listened to Kylo's response, he realized that he wasn't necessarily being as clear as he needed to be. This was a fault he'd demonstrated in the past with his previous relationships. He hadn't made his connection to Margo very clear nor had he really explained the original night with her and Quentin as well as he should have.
He wasn't going to do that again. "That was part of it," he responded before reaching up and resting his hand on Kylo's cheek. "But that's not what I'm trying to tell you."
He let his thumb gently brush up and down against Kylo's cheek as he sought words. "Solving a puzzle isn't living a life, Ky," he offered up, but knew that wasn't as direct and concise as needed. "Finding the people you care about? Figuring out what is important to you? Falling in love? That's living. That's what we were meant to do."
Kylo pulled his gaze up to Eliot's face as he spoke again, countering Kylo's words with additional information. Solving a puzzle might be the sort of thing Jedi would consider a life lived, but it wouldn't be something he would consider to be a life lived, and so he could hardly disagree with that.
The rest of it seemed nearly equally as obvious, and it was part of why Kylo didn't feel as if he'd really lived before he'd arrived in Tumbleweed. He hadn't had any of those things - not people he cared about, or knowing exactly what he really truly believed was important, nor Eliot. And for a moment his mind wandered and he was going to ask who they had fallen in love with - someone in the past for Fillory, likely. Someone who was at the mosaic - And then it settled, obvious, so blindingly obvious to Kylo that he didn't know how he'd missed it before. "Quentin," he breathed, his eyes flickering over Eliot's face, but he was here. Still here. "You and Quentin?"
Eliot didn't want there to be a divide between Quentin and Kylo. There was already a divide between Margo and him; and that had formed before either of them could form a relationship among one another. Quentin and Kylo were friends. From Eliot's perspective, the friendship was meaningful and aided both of them in different ways. It was imperative that this new piece of information not ruin that for either of them. And so, rather delicately, Eliot nodded his head in agreement.
"That was what we had there," he said, quietly. "But Quentin knows that isn't how things are here."
A pause. "Nor does he want that to change." This was spoken more for Kylo's benefit than anything else. It was the truth and Eliot had believed Quentin when they'd spoken earlier.
“If you’d told me this was goodbye sex, I would have had to get angry at you El,” Kylo retorted dryly, but there was no vehemence behind it.
Instead he pulled his hand away from the back of Eliot’s neck, pulling it out to press his thumb gently to Eliot’s cheek. Eliot’s smooth cheek, because he’d shaved off his beard, giving in to their whole ridiculous game so that he could come back and kiss Kylo without any protest. Although, Kylo couldn’t help but think if Eliot had said why, he might have waved the game. Truthfully, while he’d had years of hating beards because he associated them with Jedi he hadn’t really minded Eliot’s. For all he’d made a big deal about it, and for all he wasn’t likely to confess this to Eliot aloud, he might be okay should Eliot ever decide he was going to keep it. There was something about Eliot that always pulled Kylo in, scruff or no.
So he gave into that, pulling himself forward and pressing his lips gently to Eliot’s. His hand settled gently against Eliot’s cheek, and he pulled back again, his eyes searching his lover's.
It was possible that Kylo should be reeling from this piece of information… but he wasn’t.
Maybe because he could sense how fully with him Eliot had been in the moments just prior, maybe because Eliot had promised Kylo that if anything ever changed in their relationship, they would talk about it, and was following through, by doing just that even if it was something far different than they'd spoken about. Or maybe even Kylo wasn’t so terribly surprised, really. El and Q were close, and he knew it. It wasn’t such a surprise that in a situation where they’d been thrown together with only each other to rely on, they might have grown to love each other.
He ran his thumb across Eliot’s cheek. “You’re sure?” The question surprised him a little, but it also felt right, even if as he asked it a tiny edge of worry caught and threatened to grow.
"Break up sex does no one any favors," he murmured. Not that Eliot had much in the way of knowledge on that. His relationships hadn't ever been as serious as this and most of his sexual exploits prior to Kylo, ignoring Margo, had been completely casual.
He leaned up into the kiss when it was given and felt a wave of relief wash over him. He'd hoped to keep Kylo from worry or any serious negative response. He wanted it to be clear where he stood; and the kiss felt like an acceptance and as though he'd succeeded.
His hand had slipped back from Kylo's cheek and moved to slip up underneath his hair, resting at the base of his hairline. And when Kylo pulled back to gaze into his eyes, he gave a reassuring smile and a simple nod.
"I got to have a lifetime with Quentin. It's more than I ever could have dreamed of back home," he explained. He had resigned himself to a marriage of convenience and a potential second one as well. Having a relationship that was built on love? That hadn't even been something he had thought he'd have. "My love for Quentin is probably always going to be there, just like the love I have for Margo and Fen."
Maybe him and Quentin would come together again, in the future and back home, but here? It wasn't meant to be here. This was the only world where he could ever experience a life with Kylo. He didn't want to give it up. He didn't want to leave. He knew he had happiness in his life back home and potentially would in the future. He at least had hope. But he knew what he wanted here and it was the man laying beside him.
"I love you and I want us to have our lifetime."
There was no place for Kylo's worry to take root, and it withered back, instead replaced by a blossoming of affection and warmth and hope. He met Eliot's gaze, swallowed, and his fingers moved along El's jawline as he tried to find the words to respond.
The truth was he'd never dreamed of having anything remotely like what Eliot had given him. There were times he still wasn't certain he deserved it, times he was afraid it would all fall apart, but this wasn't one of those moments.
Our lifetime.
The idea of it stretched out in front of Kylo like the best thing he could ever be offered. Forget galaxies, and rulers, and destinies, and the inevitable pain that seemed to come with every single one of those things. A lifetime with Eliot, sharing mornings and evenings, and being able to support each other through the darker ones of those, and everything in between? One year building on the next, building on the one after that - together. Kylo wanted that. He wanted it desperately and like he'd rarely wanted anything before. And it held an allure that was completely different than the power he'd been offered by Snoke, and yet, felt as if it held a power all of its own.
He leaned forward again, this time with a claim, and a delight, and the knowing that this was his, as he pressed his lips once again to Eliot's. "I love you," he whispered, murmured against those lips, the break only momentary before he found them again, and slid an arm down to pull Eliot close.