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“So,” Sylvia hums, swinging her legs off the edge of one of the library tables, “what have you discovered from the alternate universe records, so far?”
“I fucking hate Quentin,” is the instant reply Penny gives.
“I asked what you discovered, dumbass, you’d already been complaining about that before we read any of the alternate fictional non-fiction.”
This is true, but Penny is wiser now. He hates Quentin even more, because after reading book after book where Eliot is sappily in love with the nerd, someone’s got to compensate in the opposite direction.
“If I have to read one more sentence about his shitty hands—“
“What, you wanna switch whose editions you’re reading? Quentin’s are less, well, poetic. Too busy blabbering about Fillory and his friends to focus much on the fact that he’s got it bad for Eliot.”
When deciding to count relationships in all the alternate timelines, Penny had stuck Sylvia with Quentin’s first few editions, because he assumed Eliot would be a more—exciting read. Racier.
Skimming through hundreds of pages stuffed with lovesick thoughts, and distractions clearly disguised as drunken bad decisions, is not what Penny was aiming for.
“Fine,” he snaps, and shoves Eliot Waugh: Edition 7 at her.
Edition 7
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” Margo huffs. “You think I want to stay here and have monogamous lovemaking, rather than being high and drunk and alternating between twenty people and three celebrities in Ibiza with you?”
Eliot rolls his eyes. “Clearly you do, Bambi. Or you’d be packing right now. Instead, you’re—are you shopping on Amazon? For a birthday present? Her birthday isn’t for another two months!”
“It’s our fucking anniversary, Eliot.”
“Your five month 'anniversary?'”
Margo points, vicious. “You shut your mouth right now, or I’ll stuff something in it.”
“Leave it to the men in Ibiza,” Eliot sighs, and sweeps from the room, up the stairs. “Whipped!” He singsongs back down the stairs, when he knows there’s enough distance to guarantee his safety. “Todd? Oh, Toooooddd, it’s your lucky—fuck.“
Quentin’s at the end of the hall, looking dazed and lost and delectable, so nothing different. He’s half asleep, he’s in sweatpants with his hair piled up in a bun, and he’s glaring gently at Eliot, as intimidating as a hummingbird in a garden. Eliot can practically hear the bad decisions crashing into his brain.
“It’s four in the morning,” Quentin says.
“Don’t pretend like you’re not usually up at this hour,” Eliot replies lightly, and Quentin sighs.
“Yeah,” he agrees, resigned. “Why… are you and Margo yelling again?”
“My brand of perfection doesn’t come with volume control.”
“Agh,” Quentin replies intelligently, and rubs at his face. He’s so cute. Eliot wants to destroy him.
“Have you ever been to Ibiza?”
Quentin freezes.
“Ibiza like… Ibiza Castle and the Corsair Monument, or Ibiza like the stories you and Margo tell? The Seagull Margarita Incident? The Eight Boys No Cup Dilemma? The DTF MILF VIP event?”
“Yes,” Eliot manages, with no shame, “that Ibiza. The second.”
Quentin pauses. His fingers are clenched on his T shirt, which is clearly marked as being from a Fillory fan event. His socks have a spell for floating written out on them. There’s ink on his elbow.
“I haven’t been to either.”
I know, Eliot thinks.
“How would you like to? I have an extra ticket. And plenty of extra…” Wink. “Supplies.”
“Oh,” Quentin says. Then, “you’re not worried I’m going to, uh, cockblock you?”
Eliot laughs. “I’d like to see you try. You have,” he checks his watch, “twenty hours to pack and prepare yourself. Mentally.”
It’s only when Eliot is fussing over his own suitcase, between three separate Speedos and a mess of tropical shirts, that he truly considers that he won’t be the only one getting sun and a special dose of fun.
He’d assumed Quentin would be the sad one in the corner, but there aren’t exactly corners on beaches to hide in. Someone’s going to notice him—some pretty redhead or muscular surfer or some rich heir who likes sugaring and Fillory.
He’d wanted to tear Quentin apart, just a little bit. Eliot should’ve known that his destructive tendencies only ever get directed at himself.
Ibiza is blazing under the sun, and Eliot is hot all over. Quentin has on swim trunks, massive sunglasses, and a tiny smile, so there’s no question as to why.
“Is this sunscreen?” Quentin asks, when Eliot tosses a bottle at him. “Or tequila?”
“Neither,” Eliot says. “Don’t drink it. I’ll need it later tonight.”
“Uhm,” Quentin coughs.
“Q,” Eliot says seriously, gripping him by the shoulders, “do you want to go to the cabana, or the bonfire?”
“I don’t really know what either one of those entails.”
“One of them is cake by the ocean, and the other is cake not by the ocean.”
“I…” Quentin tucks a strand of hair behind one ear. “Pick ocean?” His eyes light up a little. “Is it chocolate cake?”
“Sure,” Eliot lies comfortingly.
Bonfire it is.
Ibiza is Eliot and Margo’s favorite place. Or at least it was, before Margo selfishly started sucking face with Alice and Alice alone, and Eliot made the idiotic decision to come here with the beautiful fool he has a crush on.
It’s just—it’s been over a year of wanting Quentin, Quentin, Quentin. It has been six months since he stuck his trembling hands into his fashionable vest pockets to hide, and casually asked if Quentin, maybe, wanted to go on a date.
“I’m,” Quentin had spluttered, blushing. “A—date date? With you? When?” Then the devastating: “But why would you ever want to--?”
There had been muttering and fumbling and no date, so it was pretty clear where they stood.
So what if Eliot is in love with someone who doesn’t love him back? Eliot always wants things he’s not allowed to have: city life, designer clothes, a boyfriend, a brain without depression.
At least he’ll always have Ibiza. Thank god for Ibiza.
He’s done a line of—something magical—and followed that up with a whole barrel full of wine. But he can’t taste the wine anymore, because he’s kissed—Eliot stops and counts on his fingers—maybe twenty people? Maybe thirty? Lots of them are drinking from the punchbowl, which is cerulean blue with a layer of electricity over the top of it. Whatever’s in there is delicious, he knows, even though he hasn’t had any yet.
Eliot’s about to go get his first of many Solo cups when there’s a light touch on his elbow.
It’s Quentin, hair down, face flushed with alcohol. There’s sand scattered on his swim trunks and on the tops of his toes.
“Hi,” he says.
“Q,” Eliot says warmly, and wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Baby, are you having fun? Did Miss Polka-Dot Bikini treat you right? You were hardly gone a—hiccup—half hour.”
Quentin shakes his head and has the gall to look confused, like Eliot didn’t hand him a willing make-out buddy on a golden platter. That girl was into him, which is understandable, because—
Eliot cuts off that thought, because nobody likes a sad drunk. It’s a party. It’s Ibiza.
“You’re here to hook up,” Quentin says, “right?”
“That is the mildest form of what I’m looking for,” Eliot agrees. It’s not like Quentin didn’t know. He’s heard the stories. Hell, Margo’s probably shown him photos. Eliot vaguely hopes Quentin hasn’t seen video.
“It could be anyone,” Quentin says. Eliot doesn’t know where he’s going with it, but his voice is lulling and his Adam’s apple is moving, so Eliot is paying attention. The wine practically sloshes around his skull, when he nods. “It could be,” Quentin says, start-stop, and Eliot doesn’t get to hear the rest, because someone is kissing him. They taste like cerulean and magic, and they look just like Quentin.
It is Quentin, Eliot realizes, hazily.
“You told me to be social,” is all Quentin says when they part, panting. “So.”
“I told you anyone here would probably be willing to do anything with you.” A couple hundred gorgeous young Magicians, from all around the world, and Quentin wants to make out with his friend from home? “I know what this is,” Eliot accuses, and Quentin flinches hard, drink spilling in his hand. “You don’t want to come out of your shell.” There’s a long silence.
“Sure,” Quentin finally says.
“Julia warned me about this.”
“Of course she did,” Quentin replies. His eyes are wide and dark. “El. Can you just. Can you help me ease into this?”
“For god’s sake,” Eliot mutters, and pushes him down into the sand. There’s two sets of twins that invited him upstairs earlier, and somehow, the prospect of Quentin Coldwater beneath his hands is better.
One night, he tells himself, to get Quentin adjusted to the Ibiza lifestyle. By tomorrow, Quentin will be with two people, and by the day after that, four, just—exponential amounts of people, by the end of the week. Eliot will be with twice that many—no, quadruple.
Except the next night, Quentin cuddles up with him in a hammock in the cabana, and he’s wearing something that slides up his torso easily, so the night is—Quentin. Again.
During the day most of the other partygoers spend more time sleeping the night off than Eliot, who is used to partying while in school, and Quentin, who probably hasn’t slept a full eight hours since he developed anxiety. They put on sunglasses spelled to block out loud noises and harsh sunlight. Drink fishbowl margaritas with little umbrellas, sprawled out on towels near the beach. Quentin reads a spellbook he brought with him, because he is ridiculous, and fans Eliot lazily, if Eliot asks nicely enough.
By day (hookup) three, Quentin’s holding his hand while they doze the afternoon away. By day four (coincidentally, not hookup four) they’re not even bothering with the beach. God, Eliot’s happy he and Bambi only bought one hotel room.
Speaking of Bambi, she calls them on day five.
“How is the non-monogamous non-lovemaking?” Bambi asks. “Do you have a headcount?”
Eliot looks down at Quentin, who is quietly practicing a light spell with one hand, cheek pressed against Eliot’s chest.
This is not what Ibiza is for. Eliot can’t even think of a number that would sound reasonable to Bambi. It’s been five days, so—
“Sixty-two?” She goes quiet on the line. Eliot must have picked wrong. “Maybe two hundred and twelve?”
“Motherfucker. Put Quentin on.”
“Quentin isn’t—“
“Fucking put him on the phone.”
Quentin on the phone makes a lot of uhms and yeses and Margo, please. From the little Eliot can hear of Margo’s end, she sounds a lot sweeter than she did while yelling at him.
She’s deceptively calm, when he regains the phone, and Quentin shuffles off to the shower. “Quentin only has one head. Two, if you want to be generous and count that way. Want to explain to me, El, how you got two hundred and twelve?”
“Math’s never been my strongest subject.”
“Uh huh. Well here’s some simple math for you: you and Quentin and Ibiza does not equal one happy couple. Ibiza is for belly dancing and orgies and coke and making literally any bad decision that is not screwing your one-sided crush.”
All Eliot can do is swallow and say, “now that’s some tough love, Bambi.”
“That’s the only kind of love I’ve got, shit-for-brains. I don’t go to Ibiza one time! Once!” Her voice lowers, goes cold. “I’m going to say this now. You go out there tonight and you get under someone else so you can get over him. This is not you and Quentin’s goddamned honeymoon. God knows I’ll always pick up the pieces when you fall apart, El, but could you try not to?”
There’s no advice Eliot would take over Bambi’s. And he tries. He really, really tries.
Ibiza is not for resisting questionable decisions, and Eliot’s never been good at that, anyway.
“So maybe we should,” Eliot suggests, midway through a grind, “find some other people to do this with?”
Quentin looks dazed, eyes a little bloodshot, lips pink. The tiki torch next to his head is casting a strange light over his face. “Right,” he says. “That’s what we’re supposed to do here.”
They peel off each other. Eliot finds someone six foot four and gorgeous. Quentin finds someone with a strawberry daiquiri and a nice smile.
Suddenly, six-foot-four-and-gorgeous isn’t Eliot’s focus. He intercepts strawberry daiquiri with his lips, and they seem a little surprised, but go with the flow. When Eliot looks up, Quentin’s gone.
That’s what we’re supposed to do here.
Except when Eliot finds him, hours later, he’s curled up with a stick next to a tidepool, three shells in his palm, three empty beer bottles incorporated into a sand castle a few feet away. It should be pathetic. Eliot loves him.
Bambi, he thinks, when Quentin spots him, eyes lighting up, I really tried.
“Are those the Fillory spires?” He asks, sounding more drunk than he feels. Drunk Eliot should be hazy, disoriented. Here, sand between his toes and Quentin in front of him, everything is so clear.
Quentin smiles in the moonlight. “I knew you read the books.”
“I—watched the movies.”
“Yeah.” Quentin looks back at the tidepool. “Did you have fun?”
Eliot had drank vigorously, and cried on someone’s shoulder, and won six drinking games. “Not the kind of fun you’re asking about.”
“Then should we,” Quentin starts.
“Here?”
“Wherever you want.”
In my room, Eliot thinks, in the physical kids’ house. In our normal lives.
“Then,” Eliot says, mouth dry, “just here.”
Eliot shouldn’t have done that. Or done it again, two hours later. Or done it a third time, when they woke up the next day. Then somehow it’s their last night in Ibiza, and they don’t even go out to the parties. They run along the beach in the dark, and stop by some tiny, half-abandoned bar with neon signs and a patio, twist their ankles together under the stools.
“Sorry,” Quentin says, when he’s eight drinks deep, “I think I ruined your trip.”
“You ruined my life,” Eliot tells him, because Eliot pregamed, and is doing shots. “Now we’re going to go back to Brakebills and there will be feelings and it’s all going to go to shit.”
“No, no,” Quentin says frantically, rubbing at his shoulder. “El, no, I swear. I’m gonna—“ his eyes are so big, so earnest “—I’m gonna back off and it’s going to be just like—just like before. What happens in Ibiza can stay in Ibiza. That’s what you and Margo always said.”
“You,” Eliot sighs, “are not staying in Ibiza. And you, Q, are always my ruin. When I asked you to date couldn’t you—couldn’t you just say no and call me a fuckup to my face and not proceed to be my best friend? Like a normal person? Why’d you have to do that before the meaningless sex?” If only it’d happened at the same time, like it always had before. Not wanting to date Eliot was normal. Electing to screw him instead was normal. Treating him like he was precious and cuddling up to him at night and only sleeping with him and—and running around a seaside paradise like two lovers is not normal.
“El,” Quentin is saying then, hand tightening on his shoulder, “Eliot, besides Julia, you’re—you’re my best friend. I love you.”
“Platonically,” Eliot adds for him. Quentin looks like he’s been slapped across the face.
“What—I—we’ve had sex! With eye contact! On the beach, like we were in—in Grease or From Here to Eternity. I cried. You were there, El.”
“So,” Eliot says, suspiciously, “you have feelings for me but don’t want to date me?”
Still baffled, practically babbling, Quentin blurts, “what. No. I—I like you? I want to date you? I think we could work. You want to date me? Why?”
Eliot may not pay attention in school, but he’s not stupid.
“So when I asked you out before,” he says, “you wanted to.”
“That wasn’t hazing,” Quentin says, reveling in the knowledge of it, like it has only just now occurred to him. “You were serious. You seemed so casual.”
Casual. God, Eliot wants to rip him apart. Eliot wants to tear him into little pieces and eat him up and relish every second of it.
“We’re going back to the hotel room now,” he commands regally, unhooking their ankles. The last night of vacation is definitely the best one.
“Holy shit, El,” Margo says upon their return.
“I know,” Eliot says smugly.
“Holy shit, look at us, monogamizing all over the place. Lovemaking instead of screwing like rabbits. Honeymooning. What is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Eliot says, fondly looking over to where Quentin is painstakingly drawing something out, sprawled on the couch. “But I hope it lasts forever.”
What happens in Ibiza definitely does not stay in Ibiza.
Edition 8
Eliot has been fucked up by a lot of different recreational drugs, but this one beats all the others. One low moment he’s getting high in a bathroom because the idea of what’s coming for them, for all of them, what has already happened to some of them, is too much, and he can’t protect Quentin—
The next moment, he’s doing bbq out behind the house with Margo.
He burns his hand on the grill.
“Jesus, El,” Margo says, looking it over. “That’s gonna leave a mark. What will the candidates think when they arrive for their test next week, hmm?”
His phone says it’s 3:15pm, 2015. The year is--wrong. Eliot plays along with what is either a magical delusion or a wild trip, and he does it for what feels like months. At least, until the “first years” move into the house, and among them is—
“Quentin,” Eliot breathes. He’s practically shoving Magicians out of the way, his wine bottle abandoned on the floor.
“Oh,” Quentin says, doing something awkward and curious with his face, shifting his bag on his shoulder, “hey, I’m new, I—mmm.”
Eliot kisses him, in just the way that he knows Quentin likes.
“Baby,” Eliot whispers, and presses their foreheads together. “I was waiting for you to show up. Where the hell have you been?”
“This place really is magic,” someone says from beside them, “we’re here for five minutes and you have a hot boyfriend, Q. Care to introduce us?”
“Julia, god, geez. This is,” Quentin waves a hand vaguely, bright red. “Um, your name is…?”
Eliot’s stomach drops. “You don’t remember,” he says, and suddenly, the last few months are feeling a lot longer.
Trips don’t last this long. Illusions don’t last this long. Even Eliot can't drug himself into something this big.
“You’re mistaking me for someone else?”
Eliot backs away.
“Yes,” he finally says. Not my Quentin.
The face of the man he loves shutters, goes shy and blank. “Okay. Well. I’ve been assigned to this house, so, I hope we’ll get along?”
“Sure,” Eliot says. “We will. Of course.”
He wishes they wouldn’t. He wishes Quentin weren’t so easy to fall for.
Especially because Eliot knows what’s coming—The Beast—has watched their friends die, before. This—redo—or whatever it is? He should stay far, far away from Brakebills, from Margo, from everything he knows will die a bloody death. He should be screaming warnings from the mountaintops.
Eliot 8 will, eventually. By eight months into Quentin’s first year, he’ll go utterly mad.
The Beast, he’ll say to anyone who’ll listen. He’s coming for us. We’ll die again.
And no one will believe him.
But the months before that—oh. Oh, it’s full of love. Eliot makes full use of the time he’s got, and he keeps everything else locked away as best he can.
“How do you know?” Quentin asks. “Everything I need. Everything I like.”
“Because you’re obvious, Q,” Eliot says with a warm kiss. “Because I pay attention.” Because he’s done this before.
Even when he goes mad, Quentin doesn’t leave. Neither does Margo. They’re the best, the people he’s chosen to surround him. He doesn’t know why they deserve to be inflicted with him once, much less twice.
Why, he thinks. Ten months in, when he stumbles on a bloodbath on the Brakebills campus, yet again, he gets his answer.
In clean-cut, unblemished blue clothes, stands a curly-haired redhead.
“I’m so sorry,” she says, “Eliot. I didn’t realize this before—you hid it well so you could be with him—but you remember, don’t you?”
“Who are you?” He demands, voice shaking, and she laughs.
Jane Chatwin rewound time, and Eliot—high out of his mind, practically on another plane of existence—was the only one who remembered.
“Don’t worry,” she says gently. “I don’t think you’ll remember next time. You never have before.”
Eliot knew there were cruel gods that played with humans, but he never imagined Jane Chatwin could be one of them.
Don’t forget, Eliot thinks desperately, Quentin, Quentin, Quentin, Quentin Quentin Quentin Quentin Quentin QUENTIN QUENTIN
Edition 9
“Quentin,” Eliot says, aloud.
Margo pokes his bbq tongs with her own set. “What was that, El?”
He shakes his head, blinks. In front of him, meat is sizzling. His watch is ticking: 3:15pm. “Did I say something?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“It was nothing,” Eliot says, and flips a burger. “Nothing at all.”