Who: Quentin Coldwater & Napoleon Solo When: March 16th, 2018 Where: Ship: Classroom What: Napoleon teaches Quentin to relax and just dance. Warnings: PG Status: Complete
It was strange, how quickly Napoleon had started to feel fondness for Quentin. It was a different sort of fond than what he felt for Gaby or Illya, but the feeling was there nonetheless and Napoleon was all too happy to embrace it. He hadn't felt this light in months, not since before his kidnapping, not since before he started sleeping with Illya. He felt like this with Rogue as well - carefree and all to happy to occupy the same space as her - but it was a different kind of lightness than with Quentin. With Quentin, he could see that there would be life after Illya, that there were chances for something more meaningful in his life.
While he wasn't certain if there was something more permanent here, between the other man and him, he was certain that he wanted to see how this played out.
It was their second lesson, just one day before the ball, and Napoleon was smiling down at Quentin as they swayed to the music playing softly in the background. They had found an out of use classroom in the school area that had been large enough for a makeshift dance floor. Their music played from a small set of speakers, while the desks had all been pushed to the sides to create the space that they were dancing in.
"You're doing a lot better than yesterday," Napoleon observed, approval apparent in his voice as he shifted his hand on Quentin's waist. He was dressed down for once, wearing jeans and a t-shirt that showed off his muscles. He rarely did so, but he was comfortable enough around Quentin that he didn't feel the need to put on airs. "Going to dip you," he warned, before he tightened his grips on Quentin's body and did exactly as he said he would.
Despite any opinion to the contrary, Quentin hadn’t really meant to find himself in anything like this. He’d expected to be a while before anything hit him. He’d made peace with the possibility that in this life there might be no interaction outside of the occasional one night stands in ports with strangers he’d never see again and he wouldn’t have to worry about anything coming of it. And Camelot, for all it’s being Camelot hadn’t really struck him as the sort of place that would make end up with him starting something. He didn’t know exactly what that something was or where it was going, but he was trying not to get ahead of himself or think about it too closely. That wasn’t always something he was capable of and sometimes he still had to stop his mind from considering all of the consequences of everything he chose to do. Philosophy had probably been a terrible degree, but at least it would mean he’d have work after school.
All that being said, he didn’t regret anything that was happening in his life. Being with Napoleon was easier than most of the other things he’d done recently. Especially in this timeline, but in the original as well. The life that both happened and didn’t had hardships and complications, but Quentin had been at ease even there. He was curious to see what would happen with this, with them.
The dancing wasn’t easy for him. He was good at math, good at languages, good at learning the appropriate hand movements for a particular spell, but dancing wasn’t really something he was amazing at doing. So he tried not to overthink the possibility of his being excruciatingly terrible and just focused on it as if it was a spell he needed to learn in order to stay alive. It made learning the steps a little easier because things felt a bit dire. Plus, he wanted to be impressive, not ‘him and Julia dancing horribly to Justin Timberlake’ when it came to the ball. The last ball, he’d danced with a lot of the Marvel men, but he’d been fairly bad at dancing then and had no one to impress.
Napoleon’s compliment made him smile, which he’d been a little scarce with since his expression had mostly been one of concentration. Somehow, even dressed down, Napoleon managed to be ridiculously good-looking. Quentin tried to be careful about his dressed down because baggy shirts and somewhat ill-fitting pants were not, according to Eliot, attractive. But he’d gone with something a little more like something he’d have worn at Brakebills, since he was fairly certain being slightly sweaty in a t-shirt and khakis was less uncomfortable than anything overly dressed up for now even if that meant his wooden shoulder wasn’t covered. Tomorrow, he’d deal with it, but today, he could avoid it.
The dip made him smile again and he looked up at Napoleon for a moment. “So do all spies know how to dance well? Is this part of espionage 101? Distract the enemy with charm and smiles and dance skills?”
Making sure he was holding on just tight enough to not drop him, Napoleon pulled him back up, pressed chest to chest. “No, the CIA had been lucky when they had found me. My mother had taught me, didn’t want me to look terrible in comparison to the other high society boys.” He didn’t speak much about his earlier life - his youth, his parents, where exactly he had come from. Very few people even knew that Napoleon Solo wasn’t his real name. He hadn’t clued Quentin into that quite yet, having only known him for such a short while, but there was a whole past to Napoleon that he kept tight lipped about.
But this small admission, that he came from wealth, was something not a lot of people got. It showed that he was starting to trust the other man, enough to let little things like that slip. It had taken much longer for him to do that with his partners.
“But it certainly doesn’t hurt when I can dance and smile my way into someone’s confidence and get them to tell me everything I need to know. So much easier,” So much cleaner, “Than some other methods.” Like torture. But he didn’t need to say that, he was certain that Quentin was intelligent enough to pick up on that. Spinning Quentin away, he asked, “Want to take a break? Because you look like if you concentrate any harder, you might break something.”
Quentin held back a laugh as he listened. It had sounded like a joke before, but he was quick enough to realize that this was shared information. He didn’t know that it wasn’t something Napoleon really told people, but he understood that it wasn’t something he’d brought up to him before. Quentin was fairly open about himself and who he was. Only, he hadn’t really gone into some of the darker aspects of himself. He hadn’t mentioned the hospitalizations that happened due to the depression. It seemed a little heavy. You couldn’t make jokes about depression like you could lamprey eggs. And well, he wasn’t sure how to explain it. It wasn’t so much that he was hiding it but it just hadn’t really come up. He’d mentioned that his mind wasn’t the best of places at times, but not to what extent. “Well, I didn’t have any high society boys to impress. I spent my whole childhood wishing that magic and Fillory were real and pretending it was with Julia. And you know what I came away with? I can flip a coin over my fingers. But then it turned out that magic and Fillory were real and Fillory was a real let down. But not as much of a let down as the author that wrote the series. They say you should never meet your heroes.”
He studied Napoleon’s face for a moment. It wasn’t really like he and his friends could talk about anything. “I’m just good at getting people to let down their guard because I’m awkward and weird, so they’re like, ‘Well, that guy has to suck’ and I mean, it works for me.” He shrugged slightly. It didn’t always work, though.
“Well, I guess a break can’t hurt.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I just want to get it right. It’s like a very complicated math equation, only I’m better with that. We had to use something like that to break into this bank once. Like a math spell? Um, but that was mostly with Alice’s help and she was a Niffin and trapped in my back tattoo at the time. It’s complicated.” He left out the part where he almost died trying to keep her trapped there. “She was really angry and mean about it, too. But I think that was the Niffin thing probably. And me.”
“You’re talking a lot,” Napoleon observed, running a comforting hand down Quentin’s arm before turning away and pulling two desk chairs out for them to sit on as they caught their breaths and thoughts. “Want to talk about why you’re talking a lot? Or the Alice thing?” Meeting her yesterday had been nice, meeting all of Quentin’s friend had been nice. To be able to put a name to the faces helped when Quentin spoke about his life.
Sitting down and patting the other chair’s seat in an invitation for Quentin to join him, he added, “We don’t have to talk about any of it either. But I want you to know that I am willing to listen.” He suspected that Quentin’s nervous habits stemmed a lot from the fact that sometimes people just didn’t listen to what he was saying - that they put it off to Quentin being awkward and left it that. But he could only guess, until he got to see Quentin around other people more.
Quentin took a moment to think about just how much he’d said. Sometimes he was keenly aware of when he was rambling and other times he was just rambling and realized after the fact. “Uh. Sorry.” He sat down, pulling his legs up and hugging them to his chest. “Still horrible at the not rambling thing.” But he shrugged. “I guess I...meant to make a joke and it suddenly got serious.” There was a lot. “It’s fine, though.” He didn’t really want to make things weird. Not that he hadn’t really talked about stranger things.
He smiled a little, letting his shoulders relax slightly. “I know you are and I thank you for your willingness to listen to my ridiculous ramblings about my entire existence.” He moved his arm so that it would lightly press against Napoleon’s.
“So once upon a time by back tattoo held a cacodaemon and then when it didn’t, it held Alice as a Niffin. I almost died because I was too stubborn to release her from the tattoo. I mean, it was a lot. I just wanted to make a funny math joke, though, so I don’t know. Sometimes my funny jokes end up going sideways and awkward instead.” He shrugged. “So we’re going to switch topics to you wearing jeans and how it is a nice sort of different because I don’t want to ruin a nice time with bad vibes.” Because sometimes he worried that was what it was. “We can talk about my terrible dancing, too. That is at least actually funny.”
Napoleon quirked his lips into a small smile, at Quentin’s attempt to smooth over the suddenly serious topic of conversation to something more light. “It’s not awkward, you just have a lot to say and not enough time to get it out in, I think. I’m glad Alice isn’t a Niffin anymore or trapped in your back tattoo because she seemed lovely the other day, if not a little quiet. And I would have minded terribly if you had died then.”
Pressing his arm back into Quentin’s, he said, “I’m okay with changing the topic, but, I honestly don’t mind listening to you get it out if you need to. But, yes, I don’t do jeans very often. They’re comfortable though and it’s because I haven’t gotten around to getting my other clothes to the laundry service that I’m in them.” Eyebrows raised, smile widening, he asked, “So I know Julia mentioned something about terrible dancing. Care to elaborate?”
“I’m glad she’s not anymore, too.” He tried not to let the sadness he felt show too much. He wanted to say he wasn’t sure that Alice felt the same way, but he wasn’t sure he should. It was for Alice to let people know and maybe he wasn’t supposed to. He smiled. “Well, I’m kind of glad about that, too. Dying is a bit overrated. I mean, I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure there are 39 versions of me that know.”
Quentin smiled. “I mean, it’s kind of nice. It means I can occasionally dress down without feeling like Eliot’s going to pop out of the woodwork and remind me about the importance of looking nice. Not that I think he would actually.” He had other things to do with his time. Still, it was funny to think about. The smile grew, but there was an obvious pained expression mixed with it. “Oh god. You don’t want to know that. You really don’t want to know about that. It was a truly dark time in my life.” He ran his fingers through his hair again. “God. It’s so bad. Like you don’t know. It was so white. You would be embarrassed for me. Secondhand embarrassment is the worst.”
Napoleon, like anyone else with a relatively normal sense of what was fucked up and what wasn’t, couldn’t help but twitch a little about how often Quentin had died in all those other lives he had lived. Every life came to an end, sure, but those lives were brought to a terrible death each of those repeated times. But he kept his mouth shut about it, only gave a sympathetic nod. Quentin had accepted and didn’t dwell on it, so it was not his place to do that in his stead.
Letting the tougher topics die out, knowing that if Quentin really needed to speak about them, he now knew that he could, he tilted his head in curiosity. “So white? I don’t know if I understand the slang. What about your dancing makes it so white and embarrassing?” A little more mischievous in his next comment, he added, “I do think a demonstration would be best to explain this.”
Quentin wasn’t exactly sure he accepted his 39 - 40, if you counted the life that both happened and didn’t - deaths, but the only way to survive the knowledge of it was to pretend it was funny. It wasn’t funny. It was only seeing Napoleon’s face after he’d said it that made him regret trying to make a joke out of something that most assuredly wasn’t funny. But he decided he’d tell him at a later time. He’d explain that it was a fucked up system and it was hard, emotionally, to connect to all 39 deaths. He couldn’t remember them. The only thing that really hit him was seeing Alice from one of those timelines. The way she’d looked at him. And he was the reason Alice died in the one they’d been in. He knew he couldn’t really take on all the blame for it, but he felt it deep in his bones. He felt the guilt of it because he was supposed to die, not Alice. But it felt a little too much to explain in that moment.
So he focused on the pain of having to demonstrate something so terrible. “It’s…” He frowned. “Like when people say white people can’t jump? It’s like that, but dancing instead of jumping. It’s like...I don’t know if I’m explaining this right. Just bad dancing. Terrible dancing. Are you sure you want to witness this? You will never be able to unsee it.” Also now that he was thinking about it, the song was something. “There’s a lot of hip thrusting. It’s...I mean...are you sure?” Because he had to ask again. Really, he was pretty sure he had to ask at least three more times, but instead he slowly stood up.
“I’m going to apologize for both my dancing and my singing. I guess it could be worse because I could be drunk. And I could be singing On a Boat. But...okay. Uh. Right. Like if you’re super sure...I guess…”
It was absolutely amazing. There was laughter and while a lot of the pop culture references that Quentin kept sprouting went over his head, he thoroughly enjoyed himself and told Quentin as much after.
“You, Quentin, are certainly something else,” the spy laughed, as he stood to pat the other man’s back. “Entertaining is one of those things.” He stepped into Quentin’s personal space smoothly, tilting the other man’s chin up. “But I think that if you were a little more relaxed, got out of your head a bit, you might feel more at ease with the dancing.” He leaned down, pressing a soft, slow kiss to Quentin’s lips.
Quentin wasn’t sure he’d have said amazing, but it was definitely something. He ran his fingers through his hair after the fact. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt he truly embarrassed himself, but at least Napoleon didn’t seem to mind too much. The laughter was only slightly a thing and not one that he minded terribly he found considering it came with compliments that he didn’t deserve.
“It’s just a part of me being me.” He smiled a little. “I should have been an entertainer, but instead I chose Philosophy.” It was half of a joke, but he didn’t think that he’d have done much good as an entertainer all the same. “I blame my desire to not end up poor and living in a cardboard box or my dad’s basement.” Getting out of his head. He’d never been very good at that. Even when doing shots with Dionysus. “I don’t know how to get out of my head,” he admitted after a moment. “I’m always thinking and over-thinking. Always. I mean, with a good distraction, I seem to be able to manage for a little while.” And the kiss was a fairly helpful distraction from thinking too much. His hands came to rest on Napoleon’s waist, one slipping around to his back.
He kept the kissing up as he slipped one hand onto Quentin’s waist and the other to Quentin’s hand that was on Napoleon’s waist. He lifted it, getting them into position as they kissed, starting to sway to the music that was only playing in their heads now. The movements were a lot more sensual, a lot less refined, but Quentin seemed to be moving more naturally now, not having to concentrate on the steps.
It was nice, Napoleon had to admit, to just be close to someone and be doing nothing more than sharing the same space, breathing the same air, without a care in the world.
The steps seemed less important in this instance, but it was possible that he was more focused on kissing Napoleon so it was easier to forget that he was terrible at dancing. Or at least that he felt like he was terrible at it. The other man’s hands were warm where he was touching him. He could get used to this. It was simple and easy and uncomplicated, which was what he liked about them. He’d had complicated and uncomplicated and a sort of unusual mixture of the two. This was nice, though.
He pulled away just far enough to catch his breath. “That’s definitely one way to distract someone from thinking,” he said after a moment. He hadn’t stopped dancing, not really wanting to give up the moment as it was just yet. He tried to think of something to say, but he hadn’t managed to think of anything witty or even pretending to be witty. So he just let them carry on dancing, leaning back in for a couple more quick kisses while he tried to think of something else. “I never considered kissing as a guide to learning dance moves.”
“I’m a fan of the carrot or the stick method for teaching others, with the obvious preference for the carrot,” Napoleon explained, a teasing grin on his face, while the hand on Quentin’s waist found its way to his backside. Giving his handful a firm squeeze, he added, “Though I’m always up for exploring the stick method too, if that’s something you’d like.” Oh he knew if he didn’t get this lesson back under control soon, that any other helpful tips would be lost to more fun activities involve hell of a lot less clothes. And possibly a stick, though he didn’t think kind, sweet Quentin Coldwater was into S&M play.
But who knew? The magician had surprised him multiple times before and he expected that the future would hold even more surprises.
“It’s a lot less stressful than some of the other ways I’ve learned.” Quentin felt a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth as Napoleon grabbed his ass. “Very nice.” He wasn’t sure of even his skill in overthinking himself out of the situation should it steer away from dancing. “While, I can claim to have had quite a few interesting sexual experiences since becoming a Magician, I cannot say that I’ve ever had experience with the stick.” A pause. “Not to say it would hurt to try new things. I just can’t say I know much about sticks except that Eliot had a fondness for poking me with them from his high seat and telling me what to do.”
He wasn’t sure mentioning the sex as a fox was something to put out there, but he guessed it was possible that it might come up anyway. “Sex magic is a thing.” That, however, was definitely safe. “We had to use it once to help Penny find his way out of the Neitherlands.”
A laugh coloured with surprise escaped Napoleon as he asked, “Okay, wait, what?” He had never before in his life encountered magic, let alone sex magic, so it had never occurred to him that this was a thing. But now he faltered in his dancing a bit, though his hand didn’t leave the generous handful it was holding onto, as they slowed a bit to just a subtle rocking back and forth that only slightly looked like dancing. “You’re going to have to explain to me what sex magic is because now my curiosity is piqued.”
If Quentin was honest, the reaction was most of the reason for mentioning it. He rarely surprised anyone, so the fact that he managed to do that with Napoleon added to the experience. This sort of “dancing” was more familiar to Quentin. But he noted that Napoleon’s hand handn’t moved even with the new information. “Uh. Well…” He wasn’t sure why he was flustered now, but it was probably because explaining it meant remembering everything they went through to get there. “This was when...when Alice and I...were…together.” He had mentioned him and his friends got complicated when it came to sex. “Well, her parents knew a traveler who knew a way to light up the pool so that Penny could find his way home. A sex spell is pretty straightforward in that it involves sex. The real trick to the whole thing is that you have to climax at the same time. Not as easy as it sounds. I mean, we managed it and saved Penny’s ass.”
Once he was done talking, he peered up at Napoleon, trying to gauge his reaction. “So that’s sex magic.” He’d left out the fact that when he and Alice got there, there’d been an orgy in process and that Alice’s parents were in a relationship with Joe, the traveler they talked to. “Basically my only experience with it, but it...was something, definitely.”
While as titillating as this conversation was, Napoleon was genuinely curious and wanted to understand how this actually worked now that he knew it was a thing. “So essentially, you’re harvesting energy from the act itself to power spells that require a lot of energy? Or am I off base here?” It’s what it sounded like because he didn’t know exactly sex had to do with pools and getting Penny out of where he was trapped, but, again, he didn’t have all the details, so he made the best guess that he could on the information he had.
Their swaying continued and Napoleon finally moved his hand away from Quentin’s bottom - mind you, it was very reluctantly done - before he spun them around the room once more before, finishing their dance. It was obvious that Quentin could move naturally when he didn’t focus too much on it and that he knew the steps. He just hoped that he could be this comfortable during the ball and truly enjoy himself. “Want to get lunch with me? We can continue the discussion at a restaurant or do something else.”
Quentin nodded at the question. “It’s basically like that.” They’d needed to figure out something. “It was sort of to power a...I guess a beam of light. Sexual energy seems to be a big deal? I don’t fully understand everything about it, but I know this particular instance. It was basically the only way to generate enough power to get it to work from what I understand.”
Dancing wasn’t something that he’d done a lot of, but it seemed easier than he was making it out to be. “Lunch sounds good. I’ll try to have answers and information enough to help you understand this whole thing fully.” Magic was one of those things he was still working out. He had a good amount of knowledge, but he didn’t have the Cottage or the books inside it to help him when he didn’t know something. “Basically whatever magic stuff you want to know you can ask.”
Smiling at how Quentin took on the qualities of an educator whenever he had questions about magic, he nodded, still not having quite let Quentin go after they stopped swaying. It was nice, just to hold him. “It’s honestly all just curiosity for me, there’s no real need for me to know much about your magic so long as it’s not harming you. But I appreciate the offer and may take you up on it.” Brushing a quick kiss to Quentin’s lips again, he finally stepped away from him and started to move toward the furniture to put it back where it belonged. “You pick our lunch location, I can eat anything.”
Quentin was happy to answer questions about what he did and how he did it if he knew. For all he said he didn’t want to teach, he seemed to find himself in the habit of doing it. “I don’t mind showing you or telling you. For the most part, it doesn’t hurt me, but then sometimes there are things that could be viewed like that.” He smiled a little as Napoleon went to move things, reaching out to grab his arm. “You know I could do that without much effort, right? I’ve got magic and telekinesis is one of my magical skills.” He started the spell as he considered where to eat. When he was done, everything was in place. “Okay, so now that that’s done, let’s go.” He grabbed his hand and walked out of the room. It wasn’t a restaurant per se, but at least the buffet offered a lot of options.