Chapter Text
Now
Laurel, Indiana
Quentin sits on the edge of the bed in Eliot’s childhood room. Head hanging down so low it’s practically between his knees. Gazing at his bare feet where they press to the floor. Gulping air, chest and shoulders heaving. Trying—and failing—to convince himself he’s not actually on the brink of death.
He’s pretty sure he’s having a stroke. He’s pretty sure his lungs have collapsed. He’s pretty sure his heart is going to leap from his chest and beat itself bloody and raw between his feet on the floor.
He plays the last few minutes of his life over on a loop in his head. He doesn’t remember even thinking about kissing Eliot before he’d done it. Well—in truth, he’s probably always thinking about kissing Eliot. But he hadn’t actually meant to do it. He doesn’t think so, at least. He doesn’t think he’d been thinking much of anything at all. There’d only been the shining, animal draw of Eliot and his lips, nothing more.
Sour sting of stomach acid scorching the length of his throat. The realization hits Quentin at once, knocking around deep inside him like a shard of glass. Jesus. The Eliot he just kissed hadn’t seen Quentin in nearly a decade before last night. He’s changed, he’s older. He’s married to someone else. So much time has passed for this Eliot, Quentin might as well be a stranger. The Eliot he just kissed isn’t his Eliot at all. Not that any Eliot in this version of their lives has been his before, but—well. Quentin knows it would be different if they were back at Brakebills. If Eliot was unattached and still in his twenties. Back when he was the sort of person who could have placated Quentin with a pity fuck. A little something to take the edge off his feelings until Quentin could get it through his head Eliot was never going to want him. Not really. Not—
Fuck. Quentin hangs his head a little lower, feeling like a goddamn monster. The room pitches nauseatingly as a broken carnival ride. Hurling Quentin’s brain from one end clean to the other. The whole state of Indiana around him spinning and spinning and—
—
Before
The Mosaic
“Daddy,” Teddy said, plopping down right next to Quentin on the puzzle. Touching the faded green tile Quentin had just pressed firmly into place with both hands. “Do you think I’ll ever be able to see the place where you and Papa come from?”
Quentin raised his eyes to Teddy, a little ping of something sour in his throat. Shooting his gaze to Eliot where he stood at the work table before looking back at Teddy. “You mean, uh—you mean Earth?”
Teddy nodded his head. “Papa says I’m half Earthling, half alien from another world.”
Quentin pinched his brows. Couldn’t help the little smile that played at the corners of his mouth. Offering Eliot his gaze as he said—“Does he, now?”
“Mhm. And Papa says being an Earthling is cool ‘cause you get to eat ice cream and the wine doesn’t taste like pond water and they have real cigarettes you don’t even have to—”
“Okay, I think that’s enough interrupting Daddy while he’s trying to work, don’t you?” Eliot’s long legs crossed the distance in seconds. Suddenly, he was standing right beside them. Gazing down with a look on his face like he’d committed a crime.
“But Papa, you said—”
“Only seven and already bullying his father.” Eliot’s gaze skipped from Quentin to Teddy and back to Quentin again.
“But Papa, I wasn’t—”
“Hey.” Quentin touched the top of Teddy’s ruffled head to draw his attention. “Papa isn’t wrong.” He pulled his hand away from Teddy slowly. Reaching over and touching Eliot’s leg beside him. Feeling the smooth curve of his calf under all that linen. “Just let me work a little longer and then we can—I don’t know. We can do whatever you want.”
Teddy frowned at Quentin with his whole face. And for a moment it felt like looking in a mirror. Seeing his own expression reflected back so fiercely it nearly doubled him over. “But you didn’t even answer my question,” he said.
Quentin turned his eyes from Teddy. Shooting his gaze to Eliot where he stood looming like a shadow stretched by afternoon sun. Closing his fist around the fabric of Eliot’s pant leg and giving it the softest tug. Saying nothing—his brows pinching together in a moment of perfect, silent communication. Entire sentences flowing between them without a single word being spoken. A little twitch of his mouth. Eliot’s eyes narrowing a hair’s breadth as he ran a hand along the top of Quentin’s head. A look shining in his eyes that said nothing short of—I hear you loud and clear, my love.
Not a second later, Eliot went down to his knees on the puzzle next to Quentin, eyes on Teddy, tilting his head to one side with a smile playing on his mouth. “So you really wanna see Earth, huh, kiddo?”
His big wide eyes on Eliot, Teddy nodded his head.
Eliot shot at his gaze at Quentin. Offering the tiniest twitch of his mouth, a soft little nudge on the shoulder. And one of Quentin’s hands started moving of its own volition. No thoughts, only instinct. The natural gravitational pull of their bodies coming together. Finding the small of Eliot’s back with the warm, wanting cup of his palm.
“So, you, uh…” Eliot slowly turned his eyes from Quentin and set them on Teddy again. “You remember what me and Daddy told you about why we’re doing this puzzle, yeah?”
Teddy’s unsure hand touched the stack of tiles that rose like the tiniest spire beside him. “Yes, Papa,” he said, sounding almost dejected.
There was a knot in Quentin’s center twisting for a reason he couldn’t name. He kept his eyes on Eliot’s face. Watching as the next perfect thing he was going to say rolled to the tip of his tongue like magic. That’s what it felt like watching Eliot parent. It was magic. The sort of magic only a true-born Master could hope to understand. Like spellwork woven sure and easy from the fingers of the rarest adepts.
Eliot quirked a brow at Teddy, gave a soft little nod of his head. Reaching over without looking and resting one hand on Quentin’s knee. “That’s good,” he said, in the softest, sweetest, most earnest voice anyone could possibly manage. “So you know we can’t go back just yet, hm?” A little tilt of his head. He let his words sit with Teddy for a fraction of a second. “But Daddy and I will tell you anything and everything you want to know about our lives as lowly Earthlings, little love. All you have to do is ask.”
Quentin considered that for a moment, almost started to laugh. And when Eliot looked his way he said—“I mean, maybe not, like—” He squinted, corners of his mouth twitching up. “Everything.”
Eliot narrowed his gaze, giving Quentin’s knee a tiny squeeze. “Yeah…” For just a moment, he bared his teeth in a pearly-toothed grin. “Maybe not.”
—
Now
Laurel, Indiana
Quentin emerges from his room—Eliot’s room (whatever)—in the middle of the afternoon aching for a smoke so badly his hands are shaking. He all but tiptoes to the kitchen, terror and shame whirring around inside him and turning all his organs to stone. It’s a wonder he can still draw breath and that his heart’s still beating. It’s a wonder he doesn’t collapse into a big heap of useless nothing right there on the floor.
He exhales hard when he enters the kitchen and finds himself all alone. Making a beeline for the pack of cigarettes he immediately spies on the counter. Sparking one up with a quick little spell and plopping down at the island to smoke. He begs the gods of nicotine to tell him what the fuck he’s supposed to do now. Fill his lungs with answers sweet as poison; point him in the general direction of something resembling the truth. Or a home. Tell him why he’s here right now. Why he’s been pushed from the land of the dead back into the world of the living. And maybe—if they’re feeling extra generous—send him back to the moment just before he’d thrown himself at someone who’s never really going to want him.
Quentin hasn’t smoked the cigarette even halfway down when someone comes into the kitchen. Javier, of course. The sight of him rocketing Quentin’s heart at once from his chest to his throat. Guilt hitting him so swiftly it makes his stomach hurt. Jesus fuck.
“Oh,” Javier says the moment he sets his eyes on Quentin. A little furrow in his brow announcing his displeasure. “Hello, Quentin.”
Quentin holds his cigarette up to his mouth. Not smoking anymore, just letting the end of it smolder. His heart in his throat ticking out the rhythm of his shame. Fuck fuck fuck. “Um—” He swallows. Plucks the cigarette away from his mouth. Extinguishing the end of it in the ashtray on the counter. The furious gushing of his blood seeming to rattle his bones. “Sorry. I don’t want to get in your—”
“I’m making tea,” Javier says. He turns his back to Quentin. He opens up a cabinet and starts rifling around inside. “Stay. How do you like yours?”
Quentin sucks a breath and holds it until his chest begins to burn. “You don’t have to—really, I’m—”
“It’s no trouble.” Javier is facing Quentin again. Clutching a small box of tea with both hands like it’s something to be protected. “Please. Finish your cigarette.”
“Uh…” Quentin had been half out of his chair for the entire exchange, and he forces his body to surrender to gravity once more. Settling back into the chair with a terrible sinking feeling right in the center of him. “Thank you.”
He turns his eyes to the half-smoked cigarette lying in the ashtray like a dead thing. Sad little wisp of smoke flitting from its shredded tip. But he can’t bring himself to reach forward and spark it to life again. He’s suddenly paralyzed. He suddenly can’t do anything. He can only—
Sit there and watch Javier fill the carafe of an electric kettle at the sink. It might be the only truly modern-looking appliance in the entire room. After it’s filled—he sets it on its dock, clicks it on, swings around and focuses all his attention on Quentin. The terrible weight of his gaze like a hundred-thousand ton boulder pressing down on Quentin’s heart.
“So,” Javier says, letting a sigh slip free from his chest. Tilting his head to one side and then the other as he watches Quentin. “I wonder where my husband has gone off to now. You haven’t seen him, have you?”
At once—Quentin’s tongue burns like he’s been set ablaze. His lips begin to tingle. He swears he can feel the solid length of Eliot’s body pressed against him. “Um—”
He doesn’t have to lie about it. He has seen Eliot. He can say it simple as that. He doesn’t have to mention the kissing for the other part to be true. And yet—
“No, uh—” Quentin swallows, shakes his head, hands turning into white-knuckled knots in his lap, just beyond the reach of Javier’s gaze. “Not since breakfast.”
“Right,” Javier says, eyes narrowing by a hair’s breadth. On the counter behind him, the kettle lets out a hiss as it starts to boil. “Of course.”
Quentin looks away, back at the corpse of his cigarette in the ashtray on the counter. Minutes pass that feel more like hours. More like decades. A lifetime. Century after century. Eventually—Javier starts making their tea. Vision of him in Quentin’s periphery depositing teabags into oversized mugs and pouring steaming water on top.
“Can I ask you something, Quentin?” Javier asks the moment he returns the kettle to its dock. The tone of his voice is smooth and entirely devoid of emotion. He gives Quentin exactly enough time to raise his eyes and pinch his brows before he throws out the question. “What’s your theory on what happened to you exactly? I mean—” His face shapes itself into some halfhearted attempt at a grin. “Back from the dead after nearly a decade. Yet from what I can gather, no time seems to have passed for you at all. Even for a magician that seems…”
Gentle blaze of heat rising up the back of Quentin’s neck. He begs his body to cooperate. Begs his face to stay neutral. Begs his skin not to flush. “Yeah, it does seem, uh…” He shakes his head, averts his gaze. He swears Eliot’s scent is clinging to him. Wafting like perfume from his hair and his borrowed clothes. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out, I guess.”
“I guess I just don’t understand…” Javier sighs, and Quentin looks at him again. The way he’s leaning against the island’s counter, seeming to rest all his weight in the palms of his hands. “Why here, you know? Why now? Of all the places in the world you could have popped back into existence.” He huffs the softest laugh. “I’m having a very hard time making any of it make sense.”
The words feel like an indictment in the very worst sense. Like Quentin has committed a crime for which no just punishment exists. His resurrection an offense so egregious he deserves something worse than death.
“I’m, uh—I’m just as confused as you are. I don’t…” Quentin gives a little shake of his head, frowning at Javier with his entire face. Suddenly—angry? Hot swell of something in his throat. Anger or fear or shame. Right now he doesn’t think he can tell the difference. “I’m sorry, I really just don’t know.”
It feels like watching the world in slow motion when Javier’s expression starts to shift. Drinking in every detail of his face like Quentin might need to remember it later. He’s handsome, Quentin thinks. He can see why Eliot chose him. Drawing a deep ragged breath and feeling it flutter like wings in his throat. Javier’s brows come together slowly and his eyes narrow themselves to dark slits. But just before he can open his mouth to spit something at Quentin in response—
The sound of someone approaching rips his attention away. And the moment is over. And the world is moving by at its regular, steady slog once again. And Quentin’s gaze goes to the doorway just in time to see Eliot totter into the kitchen.
Oh no.
Oh fuck.
He catches himself against the doorframe, looking just as handsome as he does totally wasted. Hair a dark smudge of soft curls fanning out from the top of his head. His shirt’s untucked halfway and his sleeves are rolled up all wrong. One lopsided cuff sits not halfway up his forearm; the other reveals his bare skin going all the way up to his elbow.
Quentin feels his stomach drop. Eliot pushes away from the doorframe with glassy eyes and unsteady legs as he says—
“Who’s hungry?”
—
Before
Midtown Manhattan
Quentin blinked. Gazing back at him from the long stretch of the kitchen island were two identical black axes. Two pointed ends on each, the blades just as dark as the handles. Less Gimli’s battle axe, more something Quentin imagined coal miners might use. But weapons nonetheless, the crude shine of the blades terrifying and terrible. Like they’d been forged in hellfire and baptized in motor oil. The strange magic spilling from them making the hair on the back of Quentin’s neck stand on end.
“So, um—” Quentin drew a breath and huffed it out. Thick brume of sleep still clinging to him like a fever. “Okay. Explain to me again how we’re supposed to use these things to get the Monster out of Eliot.”
Quentin’s heart was pounding so hard it rattled his bones. His eyes flicking from the axes to Margo where she stood beside him.
She quirked a brow, hand on her hip. Her eyes black-rimmed hollows of exhaustion. It was an exhaustion Quentin knew well. The exact same exhaustion he felt every waking second. “Axe blade goes in, Monster comes out. We genie in a bottle its punk ass—” Margo gestured to the ancient-looking, gourd-shaped bottles near the axes on the island— “and shove it somewhere it can never get to El again.”
The floor waved under Quentin’s feet. It was like the penthouse was made of water. A bubbling ocean beneath him. Nothing but a deep black pool above him and below. “So, um—your…” Quentin pinched his brows. Drawing a breath. Trying with everything he had to stop himself from throwing up. “Your plan is to impale Eliot with one of those things and toss the Monster into Mount Doom?”
Margo turned her entire body in Quentin’s direction. The fire in her eyes so radiant Quentin wondered if he would burn. “You got a better idea, Coldwater? ‘Cause from where I’m standing it looks like you’ve got squat.”
Quentin’s stomach coiled under his shirt. His organs felt like serpents trying to eat him from within. “Yeah, um—my idea is to not stab Eliot, Margo.”
There was an anger in Quentin’s voice he hadn’t expected until it was coming out. Dry-mouthed and groggy. Dizzy, hapless, hopeless. He wanted to go out onto the balcony and scream into the night for the Monster to come. Fall to his knees at the feet of that terrible thing and beg it to give Eliot to him. Beg and scream and howl and rend his fucking clothes. Promise to give it anything it wanted. Do anything, go anywhere, make any sacrifice it needed if only Eliot would return to him right there and then.
“Listen.” Margo’s voice was thick and low. She stepped into Quentin’s personal space. So close their toes nearly touched. The fire in her eyes shifting into something dark. “I didn’t give up my Kingdom and get a gallon of sand in my crack while tripping balls on lizard and nearly dying out in the desert to cock out two seconds before we finally finish this thing.”
Quentin set his eyes on the axes again. The stark black blades glinting in the light spilling down from the ceiling. He tried to imagine the sort of damage they could do to a human body and his stomach burned. They were too long, too wide. They looked like instruments of torture. “Can I just have, like—like a second to process—”
“Process whatever you want.” Margo picked up one of the axes and turned it over in her hands. She looked like a warrior princess. An executioner. A brave and vengeful king. “I’m saving my best friend.”
It was only then that Quentin registered Julia standing beside him. He flinched when she reached for his hand and threaded their fingers together.
“Maybe we, um…” Julia’s voice came soft and low. She paused until Quentin turned his head and offered his gaze. “Q, she’s right. I mean—we’ve been trying, but we don’t—” She pinched her brows together. He could see she was choosing her words very carefully. “This might be our only shot.”
Quentin swallowed and plucked his hand away. Taking a step back and running his fingers through his sleep-mussed hair. “It’s not even—” His thoughts were strobing at a hundred-thousand beats per second. He shut his eyes, drew a breath. And when he opened them again the vision of Margo before him waved like a mirage, an illusion. “I’m just saying.” He clenched his jaw so tightly it hurt. “This doesn’t sound like much of a plan. You don’t—” Vision swaying. The blades on the weapon in Margo’s hands glittered like a jewel. “Where are you even going to put it once you get it out? ‘Cause it doesn’t sound like you have any idea.”
Margo narrowed her gaze. Passing the axe handle from one hand to the other with a hint of a smirk on her mouth. “Well, you got me there, Q,” she said, eyes flitting from Quentin down to that terrifying weapon. “But I figure one of those bottles’ll hold it for a hot second while we figure it out.” Her almost-smirk shifted into something more like a grin. “And you know how much I love stabbing first and asking questions later.”
“I don’t get how you can be so casual about this, Margo.” Quentin’s teeth pressed together so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t turn to dust. He had to reach over and steady himself on the island for a second to keep from falling over. “It’s Eliot.” He was just this side of yelling. Just this side of his voice being way too loud for the room. “I don’t get how you can stand there and pretend like this is going to be some whimsical stabbing adventure. I don’t—”
“Don’t you dare.” In a single calculated motion, Margo blindly set the axe down on the counter. Pushing close enough to Quentin that he could feel the heat of her skin. “I am this goddamn close to losing all of my shit, okay? I gave everything I had to get those axes. Eliot is my best friend.” She was gazing up at Quentin like she might be thinking of using one of the axes on him. “My best. Friend.”
“Yeah, and he’s my—” Quentin’s voice rose high and dark with anger. He shut his eyes, hands turned to claws turned to white-knuckled fists. He’s my best friend too. More than that. A piece of my soul that was ripped from me. You don’t understand. You don’t—
“Q.”
Julia’s hand curled like a wing over the top of Quentin’s shoulder. Quentin had to fight the urge to push her away with everything he had. He drew a long, deep breath. Held it in for a moment and shoved it back out. And when he opened his eyes his vision quivered with a slick of tears. And the penthouse all around him was swimming. He was drowning all alone in the dark. Deep sea water filling his lungs to the brim until he thought he was going to burst.
“I think I know a place where we can put the Monster.”
A voice rose just above the sound of blood in Quentin’s throbbing head. It came from the living room. A voice Quentin had felt pretty sure he was never going to hear again. A voice that made him angry and hopeful and sad and bitter all at the very same instant.
It was Alice. Quentin hadn’t even realized she was there.
Quentin spun around. Blinked. At a distance, Alice Quinn sitting on the sofa looked less like a person, more like a visiting spirit. Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Maybe Quentin was out of his mind. Her hair like sheets of white smoke. Her skin so pale it was almost translucent. He felt very certain that he was looking right through her.
“Spill,” Margo said at Quentin’s side. Almost immediately—Alice was standing.
Quentin swallowed around the tidal wave of dread rising up from his belly. Beside him, Julia linked her arm with his, pressing tight to his side.
“In the Mirror World.” Alice was suddenly moving. Rounding the massive sectional sofa and making her way into the kitchen. Stopping just shy of the island where the rest of them stood. “There’s this… sort of in-between space. I saw it when I was a niffin. All the other magical creatures called it the Seam.”
“The, uh—” Quentin breathed in, breathed out. The penthouse seemed to be turning like a carousel all around him. “The seam in between what exactly?”
Alice fixed her gaze on Quentin. He had no idea how it made him feel. If it made him feel anything at all. There was only the sickening dread deep inside him. A vision of Margo’s axes slicing into Eliot like hot knives through butter. “The universe and the antiverse,” she said. “Everything is dead there. And anything that goes in can never come back out.”
“Okay,” Quentin said, voice a thick, shattered fragment of itself in his throat. Julia pressed a little closer to his side and he wanted to crumble. Wanted to shatter to the floor and beg her to stomp him apart. “Well, that still doesn’t solve the problem of Margo wanting to stab Eliot to get the Monster out of him, so…”
“Q…” Margo’s husky drawl was nothing short of a warning there beside him. “I swear—”
“Can I talk to you, Quentin?” Alice’s gaze bore twin tunnels down into Quentin’s soul. But at least she appeared to be totally human now. Solid and real and frowning there with the rest of them in the kitchen. “Alone.”
Quentin pinched his brows. And for a moment he almost wanted to laugh. Jesus. Toeing that minuscule line between sanity and delirium. “Uh—” He huffed all the air from his lungs. Julia was already pulling away from his side, and he felt the world tipping on its axis all around him. Unmoored and drifting, unsteady legs wobbling like he’d just been born only seconds ago. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. This might as well happen.”
There was a fuzzy gray cloud all around him. In a daze, Quentin followed Alice out of the kitchen and into the living room. Sat down stiffly on the sofa far enough away from her that their bodies didn’t touch.
“I know you hate me,” Alice said. Quentin could feel her looking at him but he couldn’t bear to meet her gaze.
“That’s not…” Quentin sighed with his whole chest. Eyes locked on the mountain of books he’d left stacked on the coffee table. The books with answers inside to all the problems he didn’t have. “I really can’t talk about us right now, okay? I’m just—”
“I don’t want to talk about us.”
Quentin slowly offered Alice his gaze. Blinked. It felt like his brain was trudging through an ocean made of pitch dark oil. “Okay,” was all he could manage. He still had no idea how he was feeling about Alice. If he wanted to be near her or if he wanted to run away. Every atom in his body utterly consumed with worry for Eliot.
“You know, I remember a time when you did everything you could to save me,” Alice said after a long, deep moment of silence. Turning her eyes from Quentin and staring down at her hands. “Nothing could have stopped you from getting me back in my body. Saving me from that thing I had become.”
“Yeah, well…” Quentin gulped air into his lungs, heaved it back out like some unwanted thing. “Saving you didn’t involve gutting you like a fish with a magical weapon, so…”
Alice was silent for another handful of seconds. And then their eyes met. And she asked him—“So what’s the alternative then? Because the way I see it you either try the one thing you have to get that thing out of him right now and deal with the damage later. Or you let it ride him around until there’s nothing left of Eliot to save and he’s gone forever.”
Quentin looked away again. Down at his hands. Gazing at his upturned palms in the light spilling down from the ceiling. Lines like roadmaps to nowhere he wanted to be. All dead-ends and pockmarked, crumbling pavement. Like his body was trying to tell his brain something it didn’t have the power or the will to understand. Useless as the magic they tried to suck from the air at the end of each day after it had all run out.
Quentin said nothing. Blinked. Choking back a swell of tears until his stomach burned. In his periphery, Alice shifted. Blonde hair, pale face, dark clothes. Like a shadow all tangled up in a wondrous plume of smoke.
“You love him,” Alice said. A statement of fact. It wasn’t a question.
“He’s my friend,” Quentin croaked. Turned his head. Setting his eyes on the distant figures of Julia and Margo where they stood in the kitchen. “Of course I love him.”
Alice was blissfully silent for a handful of seconds. Then—“It’s more than that,” she said, her voice all hollow and wrong. Like she was forcing the words to come with every last bit of strength she had. “We both know it. I think I’ve always known. There’s no reason to lie about it now.”
A stone of something bitter lodged itself in Quentin’s throat. His unsteady gaze flitting over to Alice for only a second. “Alice, I can’t, um—I don’t—”
“Can I just say something? As someone who’s fucked up a lot and has enough regret to last a thousand lives.”
Quentin pinched his brows intensely. Frowning with his whole body, but not daring to look at her again. “Yeah okay,” he said, so quickly the two words ran together as one. “Say it.”
The seconds of silence that followed were the most excruciating of Quentin’s whole life. He needed the Monster to come right then. To make something—anything—happen. To do what it was going to do and let this whole thing be done.
“Don’t give up your one shot to make things better just because you’re afraid,” Alice said at last. Her words sounded muffled when they reached Quentin’s ears and clawed their way into his brain. Like he was listening to her speaking from a distant planet. “That thing inside him is going to kill him sooner or later and you’ll never forgive yourself.”
The stone in Quentin’s throat swelled until he thought he might explode. Until it was so heavy he could feel it sinking inside him. Tumbling in some impossible dark all the way to the bottom. “Yeah,” he said, voice nothing more than a ruined croak. “I know.”
—
Now
Laurel, Indiana
A flash of cold, a spark of heat. Quentin’s whole body feels pinned where he sits at the island in the kitchen. Watching Eliot cobble together sandwiches from what he was able to find in the fridge. It’s a miracle he’s even standing, Quentin thinks. Let alone able to make anything resembling a meal for three people. Eliot is visibly, obviously, undeniably wasted. The scent of booze and weed and who knows what else spilling from his body like a fever.
“You know, you don’t, um—” Quentin eyes Eliot’s hands as he picks up a knife and starts slicing through one of the sandwiches. Wincing when the blade comes uncomfortably close to the tips of his fingers. What the fuck. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not—uh. I’m not really even that hungry, so…”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Quentin.” Eliot shoots his gaze at Quentin with a tuft of hair tumbling wildly over his brow. He has a half-smoked cigarette hanging from his mouth like it’s trying to escape him. “It’s no trouble.”
“I don’t think it’s the trouble he’s worried about, my love,” Javier chimes in from where he leans against the opposite counter. Glaring and smoking a cigarette of his own. “Maybe you should go sit down and let me finish that, hm?”
Quentin watches with his heart in his throat as Eliot smokes, ashes the cigarette into the sink still holding the knife in one hand. “I’ve got it,” he says, popping the cigarette back in his mouth before slicing his way through another lopsided sandwich. “Sit down. I’ll bring it to you.”
Quentin inhales, feels the air catch in his lungs like a million hands desperate to hold him down. Watching Javier slowly, silently, almost menacingly push his body away from the counter. He stubs his cigarette out. Snatches the plate that holds the last remaining sandwich that hasn’t been cut. Trudges over to the table and all but throws the plate on top before yanking out a chair and sitting down. The cacophonous sound of it filling the room like strains of discordant music.
Quentin only exhales when the plate decides not to shatter. “El,” he says very quietly. And turns his eyes back to Eliot. And draws the full force of Eliot’s gaze all at once. And—
Oh.
Those eyes like moonlight illuminating every hidden thought inside of Quentin. Roaring silver light in the dark. Laying bare the terrible thing that he’s done for everyone to see. Like Eliot’s ripped the heart from his chest and laid it raw and pulsing on the counter. Erected a billboard right there in the kitchen that howls—Quentin Coldwater is in love with me.
“I’m—” Quentin starts and stops. Blinks. Eliot’s drunken gaze drawing him in like a tractor beam. “I’m sorry.”
A long moment passes in which Quentin isn’t sure Eliot’s heard him. Watching the subtle, miserable shift in his drunken expression. Watching him smoke. Watching him stub the remnants of his cigarette out. But then he straightens his neck very carefully. Reaches up and shoves that wild tuft of hair away from his brow. Letting the knife clatter onto the counter as he says—
“For what?”
And Quentin goes instantly tense. Hands shaping themselves into white-knuckled fists just out of sight in his lap. And he wants so badly to scream—You know what I’m talking about.
“Uh—” Quentin ducks his head, lets his eyes settle over the plates on the counter, the two unevenly cut sandwiches on top of them. Choking down a swell of shame so thick he almost chokes. “Nothing. Forget it. Thank you for the sandwich.”
When Quentin works up the nerve to raise his head again—Eliot is still looking at him. At Quentin’s back, he can feel Javier’s presence like a ghost. Like he’s literally being haunted. Or hunted. Eyes boring holes into the back of his head like two perfectly pointed arrows.
“You’re welcome,” Eliot says, voice lightly slurred at the edges. Gripping the edge of one plate and sliding it slowly across the island to Quentin. Their eyes locked together all the while like they’re connected by fluttery, invisible strings.
—
Before
The Mosaic
“You know, you’re, like—” Quentin tugged at one of the ties on his shirt, a little smile playing at the corners of his mouth. It was just after dark. Fillory was quiet. They’d just walked into their room after tucking Teddy into bed on the other side of the cottage. “I probably don’t say this enough, but, um—you’re a really good dad, you know.”
Eliot paused. Shirt undone and falling halfway off his shoulders. “I don’t know that I would say…” He sighed, looked away, almost bashful. Like he couldn’t bear to take the compliment. Almost like he’d been wounded. “He’s… not exactly hard to parent. For now.” He shrugged out of his shirt and let it tumble to the floor. “Wait until he’s fourteen and transforms into a zit-faced hormone monster.”
Quentin groaned. Finished undoing his shirt and took it off, let it pool like water behind him on the floor. “God—” He laughed. “Please just let me pretend he’s going to be seven forever, okay?”
Eliot grinned and stepped close. Pressed his warm, sweet mouth to Quentin’s brow. “As you wish,” he said, and gave Quentin a soft little swat on the hip. “Go on. Sit. Let me take your hair down, hm?”
Heat flared between Quentin’s legs at once. The shock of it so immediate it left him dizzy. Backbone catching like a wick and leaving the rest of him to burn, burn. He didn’t speak. Just nodded his head and sat down on the edge of the mattress. Face tipped upward as he watched Eliot push close and sit down on the bed just beside him. Bodies so close their hips pressed together. He didn’t need to be told what to do next. They’d done this particular dance a hundred-thousand times before.
He turned away to let Eliot’s hands get at his hair. The braid that tumbled like a rope ladder clean down the center of his back. Shut his eyes. Drew a breath and waited, waited…
Eliot’s hot mouth on Quentin’s bare shoulder. A bone-deep shiver ran through him the way a current rides a wire. Quentin exhaled with his entire chest. It was almost maddening how quickly his whole body surrendered. Relaxing into the heat of Eliot so close just behind him. Those big warm wonderful hands pulling the tie from Quentin’s braid and beginning the task of unraveling the length one solitary rung at a time.
Desire cracked like lightning all up the back of Quentin’s neck. He couldn’t believe it still felt like this every time they did it. Like it was the very first time. Like it was some strange, exciting, otherworldly experience. Like the two of them being this intimate was all brand new. Eliot’s skilled magician’s hands unraveling Quentin’s braid bit by bit by—
After—Quentin’s hair tumbled like dark water all down the length of his back. Eliot’s fingers combing through it like he was coaxing something up from the depths. Hungry nerve ends sparking over Quentin’s scalp and spreading out to the rest of him. Lighting the whole of him up until his body was engulfed in flame.
“How’s that?” Eliot asked, pushing Quentin’s hair aside to get at his skin. Mouth pressing warm and sweet against the back of Quentin’s neck.
“So good,” Quentin sighed with his eyes still shut. Leaning back into Eliot’s heat as two big arms reached forward and slowly coiled around him. “Thank you.”
Eliot hummed against Quentin’s temple. “You’re welcome,” he said, nuzzling Quentin’s ear with the end of his nose. Hands on Quentin’s arms and bare chest. Two clever fingers just grazing the nub of one hard nipple. “Now how about you take off those pants and get under the covers.”
Quentin breathed out, breathed in. And then Eliot’s mouth sucked a kiss in that tender space where the slope of his neck met his shoulder. And everything started going all sideways and spinny. A voice he was ninety-percent sure was his own muttering something like—“Are you—are you sure he’s actually… actually sleeping…”
Eliot laughed. One of his hands slipping down to grope Quentin’s half-hard cock through the fabric of his pants. “Don’t worry, sweetheart,” he purred against the side of Quentin’s neck. “Promise I won’t make a sound. You on the other hand…” Another laugh. “Maybe I should put up a ward first, hm?”
“No, it’s, uh…” Quentin blindly reached between his own legs, covering Eliot’s hand with his own. “I can—I’ll be so…”
Flying, falling. Quentin had cotton candy fuzz and nothing more where his brain should have gone. And suddenly he was standing. And Eliot was standing there next to him. And the two of them said nothing as they helped one another rid their bodies of the rest of their clothes. Turning down the bed, they slipped under the covers. And Eliot did a tut and powered off their magic lights. And—
“On your side, darling.” Eliot gave Quentin the gentlest nudge under the covers. “Go on. You know how I want you.”
Quentin didn’t hesitate. He shut his eyes. Turned onto his side with a blaze of desire burning a trail clean down the center of him. Their bodies slotting together like cupped hands beneath the covers in the dark. Quentin’s back nestled against Eliot’s lovely warm bare chest.
“Hey,” Eliot said, voice hardly a whisper, one hand fluttering over Quentin’s naked torso. His mouth on Quentin’s neck. His cock pressed leaking and rigid against the dip of Quentin’s lower back. “There you are…”
“Here…” Quentin sucked a breath and slowly let it out. In their warm little cocoon beneath the covers, Eliot’s hand ghosted over his dick. “Here I am.”
Eliot muttered a spell against the side of Quentin’s neck. And in an instant his hand was wrapping around the hard shaft of Quentin’s dick. Fist tight and determined and slicked to the point of dripping with magic lube. Fuck. Quentin squeezed his eyes shut, turned his head and pressed his face down into his pillow.
“That’s it, baby.” Eliot’s clever hand stroked Quentin from base to tip and back again. Making stars bloom in the dark beyond his eyes. “Just let go. Just—just let me…” Silently laughing. Shuddering, breathing. Eliot’s warm mouth on Quentin’s bare shoulder. The drag of his teeth teasing like the promise of a dream. “This is all for you.”
Quentin pushed the tiniest sob into his pillow. And Eliot drew him closer, like he was trying to meld himself with Quentin. Make their bodies one body. Press pure, unfiltered moonlight from the sweat-damp planes of their skin. His teeth nipping at Quentin’s bare shoulder. The curve that ran like a one way street up and up to his neck. Biting down, sucking gently. Not quite hard enough to leave a bruise, just enough that Quentin could feel it.
Eliot’s hand never once ceased its rhythm. And Quentin sobbed again. A little louder this time. He didn’t really mean to do it. It was just that—fuck. It was just that every nerve in his body was standing on end. It was just that he was burning so brightly it felt like he held the sun inside him. It was just—
Eliot hushed Quentin gently. Shhh. Hand working up and down, up and down like a piston. Mouth to Quentin’s ear as he whispered—“Might just have to stop if you can’t control yourself.” Quentin could feel the press of his smile, could see the crescent of it spreading in the dark beyond his eyes. “You don’t want me to have to do that now, do you?”
Quentin sucked a deep breath, immediately started shaking his head. Long hair rustling against the fabric of his pillow. Jesus. Pleasure striking sparks all down the length of his back. His spine a jumping live wire making cinders out of his brain. If Eliot stopped the world would end. In that moment, Quentin was certain of it. Floating in their bed like it was a deep, warm bottomless ocean. If Eliot stopped he was going to die.
“Good boy,” Eliot purred so quietly Quentin thought for a moment he’d imagined the words. His mouth immediately finding Quentin’s neck and sucking a kiss, then another. A happy little line of them running down down to Quentin’s shoulder. “So. Fucking. Good.”
Eliot bit down and sucked until stars burst in the night behind Quentin’s eyes. Clever hips rocking and his hard cock gliding against the small of Quentin’s back as he stroked. The air all around them filled with the rustle of sheets and the wild, gusting pitch of their breathing. Muffled whimpers, sloppy kisses from Eliot’s mouth planted all over Quentin’s shoulder and up along the back of his neck. And then—
It was over. Everything went still inside of Quentin in the split second before he started to come. No heartbeat, no thoughts, no breathing. Every ounce of tension fleeing him easily as expelling breath. And then—god. The pleasure hit so hard it almost hurt. Blowing through Quentin’s nerve ends like a goddamn hurricane. And he had to bite at the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out. Sounds bubbling and dying in the dark of his throat as Eliot stroked him to glorious completion.
For a long time after, Quentin was nothing more than a limp pile of flesh curled in on itself under the covers. His whole body buzzing on some strange, otherworldly frequency. He felt more like a wavelength than a person. Only barely registering the sensation of Eliot’s hands running over his torso. Of Eliot’s mouth on his neck. Of the feeling of the mattress underneath him and blankets that covered his skin. Then—
“God,” Eliot said there behind him. The sound of his voice distant, like it was coming from one of Fillory’s moons. “You really needed that one, hm?”
The rumble of Eliot’s silent laugh was like a towline drawing Quentin from the dark. Everything suddenly bright as the sunrise over their garden on a warm, clear morning. Quentin let his eyes flutter open. The dark all around him silver blue with moonlight leaking in through their bedroom window.
Quentin hummed, so warm and content it was like floating in a bath. The ocean on a summer day. Something more like being curled in a womb than lying in bed with his lover. Eliot’s hand down between Quentin’s legs cupping his sticky, soft cock like it was the most precious thing in existence. “Let me…” He turned his face to his shoulder in the dark. Eliot’s face so close the ends of their noses just touched. “Let me do you now?”
Eliot nuzzled Quentin gently, pressed the softest kiss to the tip of his nose. “Later, hm? Right now…” He pressed closer. He was still rock hard and leaking. Quentin could feel it pressed to the small of his back like a promise of what was to come. “This is just so good, don’t you think?”
Quentin sighed with his whole body then. Turned his head and shut his eyes. Settling down deep into that warm, safe feeling. “Yeah,” he said, or thought he did. Voice so slurred and drowsy it might not have been there at all. Outside their tiny window, Fillorian crickets were singing. “The best.”
—
Before
Midtown Manhattan
It was late. The night so full and dark it felt like the sun would never come back again. All the lights in the penthouse were out save for the flickering of the too-modern-looking fireplace. The glow of it artificial as cheap fabric falling over Quentin’s skin. He gazed down at the cups of his hands in the dim light, craving something real and true and solid to burn, burn…
On the coffee table there in front of him, Margo’s axes lay like two shadows reflecting their own image back at one another over and over. The stacks of books that had once occupied that space now lying like discarded trash on the floor. Quentin considered very seriously tossing them all into that pathetic excuse for a fireplace. Sucking all the ambient magic from the air with his withering hands and setting them ablaze.
Instead—he slumped limp and useless on the sectional sofa. Watching the axe blades shine in the light being thrown from the anemic flames. After a while, he stood up and went to the kitchen and opened a beer and chugged it down standing in front of the open refrigerator door. When he was finished, he closed the fridge very softly. Went back to the living room, back to the sofa. Back to gazing at the blades and his hands and thinking of how it might feel to pick one of those axes up and use it to butcher Eliot like an animal.
He heard her coming before he saw her there. And then suddenly Margo was sitting down on the sofa right beside him. Their eyes meeting in the flickering dim. She held something slim and pale between her fingers as she opened her mouth and said—
“I don’t know about you, Coldwater, but I need to be less sober asap.”
She popped the joint in her mouth, lighting the end with the tip of her finger. Quentin wanted to say something about wasting the magic, but it didn’t seem worth the trouble. She took a long, deep hit, plucked the joint from her mouth…
“To Eliot,” she said on the exhale, passing the joint to Quentin.
Quentin took it. Pressed the tapered tip to his mouth. “To El,” he said, so quietly he doubted Margo could hear it. Taking a hit. Pulling smoke warm as memories deep inside him. Exhaling slowly, slowly as the smoke came tumbling out.
He passed the joint back to Margo. The four walls all around him seemed to be endlessly spinning.
“So, you know, uh…” Quentin started and stopped. Feeling all scooped out in the middle. Like he wasn’t even a person. Like he had nothing left to lose. In a way—it was wildly freeing. He could say anything, start a fire, break the world. There would be no consequences at all. “You know you’re not the only one who cares about him, right?”
Their eyes met in the dim. Margo took a drag on the joint and pinched her brows together. “What the fuck kind of question is that?” she said on the exhale. Voice so thick Quentin felt it running over his skin like molasses. “Of course I know.”
“I’m just saying—” What the fuck was he saying? He could feel himself instantly shrinking beneath the weight of Margo’s attention. “You know, I just…”
He watched her smoke. Took the joint when she offered it back to him. Took a hit and watched the end of it flare like a tiny red sun between his fingers.
“You know.”
He said the words on the exhale. And it was only when he passed the joint back to Margo and she said, “Yeah, I know,” that Quentin realized he’d been asking a question.
You know that I’m in love with him, right?
“Aren’t we all?” Margo asked another handful of seconds later. Blowing out a thin plume of smoke and passing the joint to Quentin.
“That’s not, uh—that’s not how I mean it.” Quentin hit the joint so hard he nearly choked. Trying to hold back his cough on the exhale and passing it back to Margo. His heart was beating so quickly it was like there was an animal trapped in his throat.
His eyes found Margo’s again. She said nothing. Just took the joint and took a hit and held it in and exhaled slowly, slowly…
“He, uh—” Quentin took the joint when she passed it to him. Watching a wisp of smoke slip from the end like it was trying to find its way home. “He never told you?”
“Told me what exactly?”
Quentin’s heart struck his ribcage like a fist. Thump thump thump. He hit the joint and passed it to Margo. Not looking at her as he did it. Not daring to. Not even for a second. “Uh—” Whatever courage Quentin had almost found had gone away from him now. He could hardly bear to think about it, let alone speak the words out loud. “Forget it. I—I’m stoned. I don’t know what I’m…” He exhaled hard. Set his eyes on the fireplace and its sad little flickering flames. “Doesn’t matter. There isn’t really anything to tell.”
Margo was silent there next to him for a long handful of seconds. The smell of weed smoke and the gentle push-pull sounds of their breath the only signs of life in the room. She passed him the joint, which they’d already smoked down to a sad little nub of itself. And Quentin took it between his thumb and forefinger. Put the end to his mouth and sucked until the paper burned so low he could feel the heat on the tips of his fingers.
Holding the smoke inside his lungs until he was dizzy. Quentin exhaled and tossed the roach into the ashtray that sat precariously on one far end of the coffee table. Sat back, breathed in, sighed hard. Feeling stoned but still so impossibly heavy with the weight of the dread underneath it.
“Do you, uh…” Quentin turned his whole body in Margo’s direction. Eyes sweeping over her face, the shine of her hair tumbling like black water over her shoulders in the semi-dark. She was close enough to reach out and touch. And some part of him deeply, desperately wanted to. Like she was the only remaining piece of Eliot Waugh left on Earth. “Do you promise this is going to work? The axes I mean.”
Margo said nothing for a long stretch of seconds. Looking at Quentin in the dim firelight before quickly looking into the distance. “Honestly,” she said, the sound of her voice quavering and small. “I don’t have a goddamn clue.” She let that sit for a handful of seconds. Let it bloom on the air like a fever. “I just know it fucking better.”
Slowly, slowly—Quentin turned his body away, shut his eyes, let himself sink down into the sofa. Feeling like deadweight floating out into a big great empty nothing.
—
Now
Laurel, Indiana
It’s late. Moonlit dark. Quentin is lying in Eliot’s childhood bed under the covers watching shadows make monsters of themselves on the ceiling. Feeling very much like a monster himself. Someone whose very presence is that of destruction. Some snarling thing that hides away and leaps out when you least expect it to make a ruin of everything.
He doesn’t know how much time passes as he lies there not sleeping and feeling sorry for himself. But when the bedroom door swings open and a figure appears in the doorway, Quentin is certain he’s dozed off and fallen into a dream. The figure backlit and surreal-looking in the light from the hall. The outline of their body so familiar Quentin understands at once who it is.
It’s Eliot.
Quentin blinks, heart soaring like a rocket up into his throat. And Eliot steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. And Quentin realizes all at once that this isn’t a dream. He’s awake. He’s alive. He’s in Indiana. In the future. And Eliot is stepping closer to the bed with every passing second. Eliot is coming straight toward him. He’s—
Eliot is standing next to the bed gazing down at Quentin in the dark. He’s saying nothing. Quentin’s heart is beating so loudly people in the next town over must hear it.
“Hey.” When Quentin’s voice finally breaks the silence, it feels far too large for the room. Filling it right to its edges until it seems to crowd out the dark. “El—”
The blur of moonlit movement makes Quentin’s whole body dizzy. Eliot’s still—and then suddenly he isn’t. Lunging forward and shucking the covers off and crawling into bed next to Quentin. There’s no time for thoughts, no time breathing, for feelings. Eliot’s just suddenly—fuck. Right there in the bed with him. Practically right on top of Quentin with how narrow the mattress is. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the—
“Eliot.”
Quentin breathes the name like its his only hope for salvation. Eliot. Tenderly, wordlessly—one of Eliot’s hands cradles Quentin’s face in the dark. Their bodies pressed so close it seems there isn’t a single part of them that doesn’t touch. Eliot’s face moving closer. So close the ends of their noses brush. The heat of his breath, the scent of his skin. All the blood in Quentin’s body rushes in a glorious flood between his legs all at once. Leaving him so hard and dizzy he’s certain he’d fall over if he weren’t already lying down.
His head is a whirring mass of static and nothing more. Their lips brush together, and every hair on Quentin’s body stands on end at once. Like they’re all reaching for Eliot at the very same instant. Eliot. And when Eliot kisses him—god. When Eliot crashes their mouths together it’s like there’s never been anything else in the world but this. Quentin can’t remember a single moment before this one. They’ve always been pressed together. They’ve always been in this bed in the dark. His hands groping Eliot’s shirt, his hair, the nape of his neck. Anywhere Quentin can reach as Eliot kisses him, kisses him, kisses him breathless.
They break apart. Eliot’s straddling one of Quentin’s thighs as he slowly, slowly pulls back. The moonlight pouring in through the half-open curtains illuminating the sight of him gazing down at Quentin in the dark. His hair’s a mess, his shirt’s half-undone. The color of him silvered-blue like he’s wearing the skin of a god. Like Eliot has become a shining god himself. Silent and panting. Quentin feels eclipsed by him. One of his big benevolent hands reaching down to trace the rise of Quentin’s ribcage through the fabric of his shirt.
Quentin opens his mouth to speak. Very much intends for something like words to come. But there’s nothing on his tongue but a whimper. Throat squeezing tight as a fist with the force of his wanting. His back arching deep as he presses up into the heat that spills from the cupped palm of Eliot’s hand.
“Eliot,” Quentin says at last. Eliot’s name like a wish, a spell, an incantation. Eliot’s name holy as a prayer. “El. Hey…”
Eliot doesn’t speak. He touches the hem of Quentin’s shirt with both hands. And in the dim silver dark their eyes lock together. And Eliot doesn’t have to say a word for Quentin to know he’s asking permission.
Quentin nods his head. Rustle of his hair against the pillow hardly a whisper beyond the drumming of his heart. “Yes,” he says, feeling wild and breathless. Reaching forward and touching Eliot’s thigh over the fabric of his pants. “Yes…”
Swift as a switch being thrown—Eliot’s hands are moving. Shoving Quentin’s shirt all the way up to his collarbone. Holding steady for a long, aching handful of seconds. One hand slipping downward slowly and taking Quentin firmly—almost roughly—by the hip.
Yes.
Quentin’s brain is totally gone. He wishes he could think. What had he been thinking about just before Eliot opened the door? Fuck. He can’t remember. He wishes he could open his mouth and get more than a single word to come. He can’t really be awake right now. He has to be dreaming. He has to be. Only—no. God no. He’s wide awake. He can feel it. There’s no way a dream could be as good and true as this.
Eliot’s hands start moving again. Quentin shudders when the pad of one thumb brushes softly over his nipple. It feels unreal, the way Eliot’s touch moves gentle as the dark on his skin. It feels like being woken from death. Like sunlight reflecting off the moon and kissing the face of the Earth so gently.
Eliot bends forward, presses the heat of his mouth to Quentin’s torso. And Quentin gasps. Hands flying to Eliot’s hair and tangling in it like he’s finally coming back home. Fingertips grazing the downy hair at Eliot’s nape as he peppers kisses from Quentin’s navel to his nipples and all the way back down again. Silent and reverent. Like Quentin is his god and he can only use his mouth to worship. And when he moves just so Quentin can feel how hard Eliot is—fuck. The strain of his full glorious cock against the front of his pants.
“Yes,” Quentin says when Eliot’s hands find the waistband of his pants. Yes. Yes. The only word left in his withered lexicon. The only thing his writhing body can hope to understand. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing but this. Yes. And he’s pretty sure if he had a brain right now there’s something he’d be worried about. He’s pretty sure if he had a brain he’d know this is a bad idea. That Eliot belongs to someone else. That Eliot isn’t his. That—
Quentin is undressed before he even knows what hits him. T-shirt torn from his body without thought by his own two trembling hands. His pants and underwear gone in a blink courtesy of Eliot. Eliot, Eliot. God—Eliot. Towering over Quentin in the dim silvered light pouring down from the moon.
Quentin plants his feet on the bed, lets the V of his legs fall wide open. Yes. The tiny mattress creaking underneath them as Eliot starts to move. On all fours with his mouth trailing heat from Quentin’s ribcage clean down to the rise of his hip. “Yes,” Quentin says, desperately searching his mouth for some other, more purposeful word. Something, anything, anything—fuck.
“Please,” he manages the moment Eliot nuzzles into the crease where his thigh meets the rest of him. Yes. Hands gripping the sheets and his hips canting up, chasing the fiery ghost of Eliot’s lips. “Please. Yes…”
Quentin’s not unaccustomed to begging when it comes to sex. Lying on his back in the dark wanting and waiting and soaking in every bit of love he can get. But even for Quentin—this feels like something different. Please. Something deeper and more vital than the usual sort of begging. A bone-deep certainty that if Eliot stops what he’s doing for even a second Quentin’s heart is going to collapse.
Blood gushes in Quentin’s ears to the tempo of his heart. And the moment Eliot wraps a hand around his dick he has to bite his lip to keep from crying out. Oh god oh fuck. Quentin’s whole body lights up like the end of a Roman candle. Legs spread wide open and inviting Eliot in. Please. Yes. Drawing his knees back in the direction of his chest. He’s delirious. Blinded by lust in the silvery dark. Reaching down and getting two big fistfuls of hair in the seconds just before Eliot opens his mouth and seals it around the head of Quentin’s dick.
Quentin shuts his eyes, arches his back. The moonlight seems to have a weight and shape on his skin. Yes. Please. Yes. He releases his hold on Eliot’s hair and lets the madness take him. Gripping the sheets in his fists as Eliot sinks down an inch, then two, then three. Yesyesyes. Taking Quentin halfway before pulling back again. His hand and his mouth working in perfect, torturous tandem. Yes.
Quentin’s eyes flutter open. Gazing down and trying to decipher the shape of Eliot’s body in the dark. He looks like a mirage, shimmering and distant. Ethereal and godlike, dipped in silvered-blue. Dark hair a shadowy halo bobbing on top of his head. He takes Quentin’s cock to the root and—fuck. Quentin feels it everywhere. Behind his eyes, in the tips of his fingers. He feels it from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet. A pleasure so intense it’s almost—almost—too much for Quentin to take.
He spreads his legs wider, reaches down with one hand and runs it along the top of Eliot’s head. “God yes,” he manages, another spike of pleasure hitting when Eliot takes him to the bottom again. Fingers tangling in Eliot’s curls as he closes his hand, makes a fist. Starts rocking his hips all off-kilter and frantic. The mattress whining like an animal beneath him. Bottoming out in Eliot’s throat once, twice, three, four, five, six times. And—
It’s like he’s been possessed. The way Quentin’s whole body twists on the bed as he cracks wide open and starts to come. He turns his face to his shoulder, muffling a sob down into his pillow. Hand between his legs holding Eliot flush against him until the pleasure is done. And his head is ringing like a bell and it’s over, over…
He lies there buzzing for a very long time before reality hits him. But when it finally does—jesus god. It’s all at once. And suddenly Quentin is all too aware that they aren’t alone in the house. That Eliot is a married man. That the bedroom door isn’t locked. That Eliot’s husband could very well walk in on them at any second and—
Shame, guilt, terror. They strike him in exactly that order, attacking like sly little soldiers going straight for the neck. There’s a slick of tears turning cold on his cheeks. His hand still tangled loosely in the mop of Eliot’s curls. And Eliot is still down there in the space where Quentin’s legs are parted. Peppering kisses over his soft cock and his hips, still bathed in moonlit dark.
Quentin feels the moment Eliot pulls away like a punch to the heart. Their bodies are touching one second, and then suddenly they aren’t. And Quentin chokes down the terror-guilt-shame in favor of something more like panic. It can’t be over. It can’t be. He can’t bear the thought of going back to reality now. He needs to be in the dark with Eliot for just a little bit longer. An hour. A second. He hasn’t even gotten to—
Propping himself up on an elbow, Quentin reaches into the dark with a trembling hand. “No. Hey…” His fingers catch on something. The hem of Eliot’s shirt. His dark figure rising there beside the bed as he stands. “Come back here and let me…”
Eliot says nothing. Quiet as he’s been since the moment he walked through the bedroom door. Moving away from the bed like a shadow fading into nothing at all. Leaving Quentin cold, leaving the bed feeling terribly empty. The mattress underneath him light as a ship that’s been drained of its cargo.
“El. Hey. Where are you…”
The bedroom door swings open. Eliot is exiting through it. A flash of light from the hall illuminating every part of Quentin’s naked form. Blinding as a flashbulb explosion from an ancient camera. An eye flying open before quickly falling shut. Leaving Quentin to wither in the flat, black void all around him.
The dark returns to darkness, nothing more. No silvered light spilling in through the window.
It’s like the night has stolen the sky.
It’s like the moon is gone.