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Get invested, Hades had said. Read. Penny is pretty certain this stack of books isn’t what he’d meant.
But what was he supposed to do, when confronted with an overstuffed shelf, hidden away in a back corner, labeled Fictional Alternate Non-Fiction.
“The fuck kind of things do the nerds have in here,” he complains. He snags a green spine, yanking it off the shelf. Quentin Coldwater: Edition 1. “He hasn’t even lived enough life to fill this. Pretty sure he lived under a damn table till he was twenty.” Penny doesn’t need to read Quentin tearfully losing his virginity to a high school date, or philosophizing over Fillory for chapters and chapters. Back the book goes.
Until he sees his own name, up on a higher shelf. Edition 26. He’d already learned he probably wouldn’t enjoy reading his own book—had already been circling it, in its section. Why this edition of his book is defined as Fictional Alternate Non-Fiction, though. That’s something worth reading about.
“Asshole,” Sylvia greets fondly, appearing the way she does, and looking unapologetic about it the way she also does. “You found one of my favorite sections.”
“What is this bullshit?” With careful hands, he pulls Edition 26 off the shelf, goes to open it. “No librarian is going to come over here and impart wisdom on me, about how I shouldn’t read about myself?”
Sylvia snorts. “It’s not you, you dong. It’s alternate yous. Some of them are even nice. That’s how you know it’s fictional.” Too busy snapping open the cover to retort, Penny scoffs at her.
“Less talking. More explaining.”
“How am I supposed to explain if you don’t want to hear me talk?”
“Just. Explain,” he grits.
“They reshelved your book 39 times, dingus, and they’re information hoarders. You think they just tossed every other version? No way. Most of the time, your head got lopped off or you teleported 20,000 leagues under the sea before you even learned any sensitive information, so there’s no harm in your books being out here.”
“I died by drowning?”
“One time you died because of a magical chicken, Penny. Don’t act like you’re some great hero.”
“Do you mean Quentin? Tell me that ‘magical chicken’ means Quentin.” All he gets is an eye roll. “Damn. At least I died well this time.”
“Uh huh. Not going to lie, reading through alternate yous was pretty entertaining. You get real sentimental and mushy when you love someone.”
“Hey. What happened to them not being me?” He pauses, scans over a few words on the random page he’s opened to. Julia went to visit Penny in the hospital—“how many times did I fall in love, exactly?”
One eyebrow raise. “In every edition available. So like… thirty?”
“Shit,” Penny says.
“Maybe we should count,” Sylvia says. “What else are we going to do on our breaks?”
Here are three things Penny did not want to know:
- According to the library’s public records, alternate Penny fell in love at least 32 times. 12 times: Julia. 6 times Kady, 6 times Alice. 3 times Margo. 2 times Julia, followed by Kady. Once Kady, followed by Alice. One very memorable edition, it was Kady and Julia at the same time. And one time—one time.
“Fucking Quentin?”
“And they were roommates,” Sylvia says with no sympathy.
“What does that effing mean?”
“You’re so out of touch.” She pauses. “By the way, he didn’t like you back.”
“I pined for fucking Quentin?”
- Death was brutal in 30 out of the 32 available books. Situation 31 can be traced to some kind of Magician drug overdose, and situation 32 was sex.
That one isn’t so bad. - Penny isn’t the only one with a ridiculous romantic history. Sylvia takes vicious joy out of tallying everything up, especially when Penny is willing to show her pictures of the related parties. Margo has the most varied and exciting romantic plotlines, which are too convoluted to even fit on a single chart. Josh, the times he makes it back from Fillory/The Neitherlands, has a couple of interesting runs. For a repressed genius wallflower, Alice gets around a good amount.
Eliot, to Penny’s horror, doesn’t. And it’s all because of…
“Edition 36, page 34, he’s in love with Quentin again.” Penny wants to ask how many times that is, but he already kind of knows the answer. Cross-legged in a library armchair, Sylvia makes another stabbing tally with a pen. “That’s 29 out of 32. Out of the other three, one time Quentin didn’t go to Brakebills.”
“I thought they still fucked in that one.” Why is Penny saying this. Why does Penny know this.
“No, you’re thinking of the one where he didn’t go to Brakebills and became a hedge but Eliot met him out in NYC and—“
“Yeah, whatever.”
“The other two times, they died before they really interacted. Is this why you hate him? Did you get kicked out of the room too many times? Do you have an overwhelming fear of socks on doors now?”
“Nah, they’re,” Penny hears the words falling from his lips before the impact hits him, “not together.”
Sylvia lifts the book, waving it slightly, narrows her eyes at him. “You’re telling me they fall in love 90% of the time, and 100% of the times when they’re around one another, and they’re, what, friends in this timeline? I’d believe you more if you told me one of them was dead.”
“Look, I haven’t been with Kady in every timeline, but if someone told me I should be dating Julia instead I’d—I’d tell them to fuck right off. Things change. Clearly. Or I wouldn’t have a head.”
Sylvia opens Eliot Waugh, Edition 36 up again, lets the pages waterfall down.
“Maybe you should tell them,” she says. “If you can.”
“Maybe you should mind your own business,” Penny says, because honestly, he’s not sure what he’d even begin to say.
Here are many, many things that Penny would rather not have known, but couldn’t help but read.
Edition 1:
Jane Chatwin does not recognize Quentin’s importance, at this point. He is mostly left alone, just another student recruit, studying frantically in the library by day and partying with the Physical kids when he stumbles back in at 2 a.m. Eliot likes to take off his shoulder bag for him, already loose with alcohol and abuzz with energy. It gets thrown in a corner, to be retrieved the next day when Quentin crawls out of bed. Eliot Waugh is king of every party. Indubitably. But what’s also indisputable is that, at around the magical hour of 3:30, Eliot curls up in his plush sofa throne with his favorite first year and they chat. Every time Quentin rubs his eyes and acts like he might get up, Julia circles by and passes him more alcohol.
“I was working on the Plisetsky variation of the Markoff theory,” beer is sloshing from his goblet—god, Eliot and Margo’s parties are overdramatic, what happened to the good old Solo cup—“when I realized that maybe we’d been approaching it all wrong. We work so hard to prevent the fire from circling, when actually if we let it,” Eliot is stroking his knee, “just,” still stroking his knee, “go where it naturally desires—uhm. Eliot—“
By page 152, Quentin is crawling out of a bed that’s not his own in the mornings, and Eliot Waugh is in love.
Edition 2:
You and your first year boys, Margo had said, but in the second go-round, Martin Chatwin was wary. He knew what had happened, but The Beast didn’t appear until later. Much later.
Quentin isn’t a first year, not anymore, and Eliot’s working on one of the final projects of the semester.
“Gotta be honest here,” Quentin says, slouched back in his chair, one knee crossed over the other, watching. “Kind of thought you and Margo cheated on most assignments.”
“Bitch,” Margo says. “Those assignments are not copied off someone. They are handwritten originals. By someone other than me, sometimes. Is it my fault that Todd insists on doing my homework?”
“We’re too busy learning about the real stuff to bother with,” Eliot wrinkles his nose, “what was that elective they wanted us to take last year?”
“Something with snake language,” Margo sniffs. Parseltongue, Quentin mouths at Eliot. Eliot pretends not to understand. “Disgusting. Mostly worthless. But the TA for that class was yummy, do you remember him, Eliot?”
“He said his name once, but my name much more. And louder. So I remember him, but sadly, his identity is lost to the sands of time.” Quentin slides down further in his chair, tucks his ever-longer hair behind his ear. “Love, don’t look so sad. I’ll finish up the project in another week or so and I’ll be back to being reckless and dashing. Don’t fret on my behalf.”
“What is it, anyway?” Is the abrupt question. “This is a lot of candles.”
“Alice’s mom has a friend who knows some weird form of magic, and seeing as how Alice’s parents get along fabulously with Margo and me, he’s offered to show me the ropes. Literally. Apparently some of the spells involve ropes. Blindfolds too? Unsure. Luckily Margo and I already had most of the supplies.”
“Alice,” Quentin says uncertainly.
“Blonde girl,” Eliot explains. “Very smart. Hides behind her hair and her books. She got put a grade ahead of you.”
“Gloomy,” Margo groans.
“Just sad,” Eliot corrects quietly, and maybe only for Quentin to hear. “She’s been here forever, and barely talks to us. Maybe one of us can figure her out, but for now—I’ll need a second person to go talk to this guy with me. Maybe do some of his type of magic, he said two people was usually better.”
“Wonder why,” Quentin muses, perking up.
“No clue. Bambi!”
“Got my own project, dickwad. Get your first year to help you.”
“Not a first year anymore,” Quentin sighs, long-suffering. Margo pinches his cheek and sashays out. Eliot always follows a Margo-touch with one of his own, like it grants him permission, and Quentin waits for it. His reward is the ruffling of his hair, a peck to his forehead.
“Come on, first year. Let’s go do my project with Joe.”
Penny knows enough about sex magic to know he doesn’t want to read the rest of Edition 2.
Edition 4:
In Edition 4, Quentin only attended Brakebills for long enough to get whisked by a rogue traveler into Fillory.
Or, more accurately, long enough to get whisked into Loria. Penny had eagerly waited for Quentin to be eaten alive. Instead, a risky healing spell cast by a panicked Quentin saves the ailing Lorian queen.
“Henceforth,” King Idri says, “child of earth, you are a son to me.” He binds it with blood, and ancient Lorian magic, stronger than blood.
Prince Ess teaches him swordfighting, Idri teaches him politics, and it’s not Fillory, but gods, it’s almost better. It’s the magical land that Jane Chatwin never explored, a land teeming with magic that’s untouched by its own populace.
When Eliot Waugh becomes high king, he takes a long hard look at the visiting royal party from Loria.
“Do I know you? I know you.”
“I—this is awkward,” Quentin says, because he may have sat through ten lectures by Idri on confidence and princeliness, but there are certain things that never change.
“I knew it. We had a one night stand.”
“Do you think—do you assume that of everyone you meet who… looks familiar?”
“No,” Eliot says. “Only the ones that look like you.”
“That look like me,” Quentin repeats blankly. “I—could you just—nevermind.”
“I do know you.”
“We were in the same dorm,” Quentin groans. “You were the life of every party. I was a Fillory fanboy.”
“So to clarify—“
“We haven’t slept together!” Quentin yelps.
“But do you want to,” interrupts Margo sharply. “Because at least then Fillory’s beloved Queen wouldn’t have to marry a cocky dark ages misogynist. Or, well.” She smiles at him, a bit too sweet. “You, I suppose.”
“Perhaps,” says Prince Ess, who has fully embraced his role as an older sibling, “the Virgin Queen Margo and the Virgin Prince Quentin could undergo some title changes together—“
“God,” says Quentin despairingly.
He and Eliot’s wedding is the grandest Fillory and Loria have ever seen.
Edition 5
Alice and Quentin had fallen in love during the 40th time round partially because they were falling in love with magic at the same time.
Here is the thing: Eliot has been doing magic for a long time. His first conscious experience with magic was a horrifying clusterfuck, and he literally killed someone. He uses magic so much, needs it so desperately, and so thoroughly knows its disastrous possibilities that love is probably not the right word to use about it. Eliot has always been more familiar with words like ‘addiction’ or ‘crutch’ or ‘disguise.’
But Quentin—it’s love. Like a newborn figuring out its own body. Like a fucking teenager figuring out what it means to slot your fingers between someone else’s. He stumbles into magic with open arms, and he holds Quentin’s hand the entire time to drag him along.
“Need to borrow you,” he’ll say, once or twice a day. Margo is putting up token protests, at this point. Quentin wants to know second year books and the spell Eliot uses to knot a tie, wants to know magical flowers and poisons and where the hell Mayakovsky ended up.
Eliot can see it, that seed of doubt and hesitation that’s always there when he first grabs Eliot’s hand. “Need you for a second,” he’ll say, and tug, but his feet don’t move. Like he doesn’t expect Eliot to get up off the couch, this time, or leave the group of Psychic students he’s talking to. Honestly, it shocks Eliot that Quentin was bold enough to begin the habit at all.
Eliot doesn’t know why he worries. Eliot has never said no.
“Need you,” Quentin says, drunk and high and using magic all at once. It’s second semester, and it’s Eliot’s birthday, and someone’s cast a spell that’s left the house full of smoke and the delicate scent of rose petals. “Just for a second.” He’s tugging Eliot to his bedroom, and somehow, Eliot knows this time for what it is. Different. “Penny’s out.”
“Q,” Eliot says, “darling,” and he already knows he’s an idiot, he’s a fool. Eliot has had sex while drunk and high and also while so emotionally low he shouldn’t have been around other people, much less alone with one, making decisions he could regret. But that isn’t what he wants for Quentin. “Q, no, you don’t mean it. It’s no good right now, Q.”
“I—no good,” Quentin mutters to himself, eyes floating glassily to the ceiling. “No good.”
“C’mon, Q, let’s get you to bed.”
“It’s your birthday,” Quentin whispers, hands hovering around his head. “I—it’s your birthday. I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for. You’re talking to the king of drunken decisions, Q.”
He tucks Quentin in gently, firmly, because he’s an idiot. He tells Quentin not to worry about it, about any of it, because Quentin is an idiot too. Come tomorrow morning, he’ll be full of regret and awkwardness and overthinking and probably more apologies. It doesn’t stop Eliot from saying:
“Tomorrow.”
Just that. Quentin bunches up his covers in his fists and thinks as hard as he’s capable, at the moment.
“If it’s tomorrow,” Quentin says, like it’s some kind of theory he’s proposing, “if it’s tomorrow, and I still need you, will I be doing it right?”
“Yes,” Eliot says. “Yes.”
The next day Quentin is nursing a hangover and Eliot can’t even cast a spell to help with the headache. They curl up in Eliot’s bed, with Margo occasionally and viciously busting in with pickle juice or loud music, depending on her mood.
They should be utterly miserable. Eliot tucks one knee around both of Quentin’s, and Quentin pushes his face into the warm space between Eliot’s neck and shoulder. They should be miserable. They’re not.
Quentin Coldwater loves Brakebills, and magic, and Eliot Waugh. Eliot Waugh loves the next three months more than anything.
“Come see,” Quentin says three months exactly from that day, “Alice and I have been working on something. Something big. We need another two people—would you and Margo maybe…” He’s holding Eliot’s hand.
Penny closes Edition 5, and doesn’t read anything else for a while.