Chapter Text
Quentin was doing well. Really; he was. He started seeing a therapist regularly who got him on a medication that actually seemed to be the right balance for him. He made an effort to make plans with Julia or whoever happened to be around, though he could go a week or two without seeing anyone and be pretty content to just read books and watch Netflix in his free time. At least once a month, he went to this little art house movie theater by himself because he liked going to the movies. He always ordered popcorn with extra butter.
On that particular day, he had gone to see an early afternoon screening of Spirited Away and happened to arrive at the concession stand just as the popcorn machine had finished a fresh batch. That was lucky, he thought. He could finally appreciate a little luck whenever he found himself having it, because for so long, he had been too absorbed in his own suffering to even notice it.
As he clutched the salty-smelling, toasty package to his chest, he settled into a comfortable seat right in the center of the theater and enjoyed the peace of sitting in the dark for two hours in a place where no one would try to talk to him.
When the film was over, he folded up the top of the half-finished bag of popcorn and walked down the block to his building.
These days, he made a habit of silently pointing out the good things he noticed around him. The cute dog on a leash that he passed by. The fluffy pink clouds that sometimes showed up before a sunset. The fresh, crisp winter air and its contrast with the soft, warm scarf against his neck. The storefront windows in his neighborhood filled with fairy lights and festive decorations that were less over-the-top than some of the more tourist-heavy areas of the city.
He turned a corner and did a quick double-take when he saw a tall figure with a familiar head of dark, curly hair across the street. Q’s heart immediately began to race and he staggered to the side, leaning up against a cool stone facade.
Was Eliot back?
Then, the person turned to check a nearby street sign and Quentin relaxed. It wasn’t him.
He couldn’t move from that spot for a minute or so; pedestrians passed by him so quickly that it was almost dizzying. Quentin wanted to see Eliot again so badly that the idea of it actually happening shook him to his core. Upon further reflection, he was reminded why he left the penthouse in the first place.
After a series of deep breaths, Q accepted the fact that his heart was still pounding against his chest, then he carefully started walking again. Now, more than ever, he was grateful to have a place where he could be alone.
By the time he had climbed the stairs to his one-bedroom apartment, Quentin was happy to come home to his quiet space and maybe even get a head start on some of his mending work for the next morning.
He pulled one of his dining chairs over to his small desk in the corner, then flicked a tut at his lamp to turn it on. There were a few last-minute projects he needed to complete in time for the holidays because they were pieces he was fixing up to be given as gifts. In the silence, he could hear the tiny clicks and squeaks as pieces fused together and found their places under the flow of his magic.
Quentin had never lived alone before he moved here. From his parents’ house in New Jersey to various dorm rooms and apartments he shared with friends and classmates, he’d always had someone around. Having uninterrupted time to read and work suited him well enough, though he no longer had people nearby to encourage him to eat or put on pants.
At this point in his life, however, he kind of felt like he needed to lose that safety net. He loved his friends and the penthouse was incredible, but the longer he lived there, the more he realized that being there was not good for him. It was really difficult to say that out loud, but eventually, he hit a breaking point and told Julia.
“Jules, I don’t think I can live here anymore,” Q said, anxiously running a hand through his hair as he made eye contact with the floor between them. It was the most he could manage right now, and frankly, even that was a lot for Quentin to handle. This was a conversation he had been dreading.
She looked up at him like he was a small, broken thing that needed to be held and protected. It was a look she had perfected by the time they were teenagers. “I promise you’re not in the way; Kady and Twenty-Three are just stressed out right now,” Julia assured him. She let her hand hover in the air between them for a moment, as if she wasn’t sure whether she should use it to comfort him.
“No, it’s - it’s not just that,” Quentin shook his head. He looked around, eyes falling on the grandfather clock with the twin ram heads. “I think I need to be... not here. If I’m ever going to move on,” he admitted. He had been thinking it for months; every time someone turned a corner too quietly and terrified the shit out of him, or every time the door of the clock creaked open so Josh could climb through to make a grocery run, Quentin fantasized about leaving.
“You mean… move on from Eliot,” Julia clarified, though from the tone of her voice, Quentin could tell that she already knew exactly what he meant. She just wanted him to say it.
With a shaky inhale of breath, Quentin nodded his head in the affirmative. When he bravely ventured a look up at her after a moment of quiet, he found her silently searching his face for answers.
“What happened between you two, Q?” she asked, point-blank. He couldn’t say he wasn’t expecting her to ask at some point.
“When he left?” Quentin asked, clearly remembering the way he had gone to her afterward, nearly inconsolable.
“No… before the Monster. I mean, I could tell you’d always liked him, but once he was possessed —” Julia trailed off, clearly hoping he would pick up where she left off.
“I was… a bit reckless there, wasn’t I?” he admitted.
Surprisingly, given the seriousness of the context, Julia smiled. “You know, the night you dared an un-killable Godlike monster to strangle you, it had occurred to me that I might have missed something important,” she kept her tone light, teasing him.
Quentin gave a dramatic sigh, revealing that she had him figured out. He slumped down into a nearby chair and lazily waved his hand to encourage her to sit down for this.
She did, completely failing to hide her excitement as she waited to find out.
He took a deep breath, then let it out. “During the key quest, we sort of — got married,” Quentin said with a squeak.
“WHAT?!” Julia shrieked with a delighted grin on her face. “You DIDN’T!” she added, punctuating her accusation with a smack to his thigh.
Now, Quentin was smiling. Even considering how this story ended, getting a chance to tell it to someone else felt really good. Up until now, he had only shared his experience at the mosaic with his father.
“We… lived this whole life together, just trying to find the time key. We raised a son. We had grandkids, Jules,” Quentin told her proudly, briefly ignoring the damper Eliot had put on the entire debacle when he turned him down.
He went on to elaborate about the mosaic and Fillory of the past, but Julia continued to press him for details about Eliot and their relationship, like they were back in middle school and he’d just had his first kiss. Even the minor detail that Jane Chatwin had shown up in the end and asked for the key, cementing Quentin’s second appearance in Fillory and Further canon, didn’t seem to matter to her in the moment.
“So all that time, it was you and Eliot. Together for real,” she said, practically gushing.
Quentin nodded. “I mean, it wasn’t perfect. It took a while to get there and we argued sometimes. We were still us, and we’re both a bit… complicated when it comes to letting ourselves be happy,” he said. “But we had each other and for a really long time, that seemed like enough.”
The tone in the room shifted as Quentin was reminded of exactly what started this conversation in the first place.
“What happened?” Julia asked him, very quietly and carefully this time.
Quentin looked down at a loose thread on his pants and dragged his fingernail over it. “I wrote Margo a letter before I died of old age. She dug up the time key from Jane’s grave and stopped us from ever going into the clock that day,” he said.
“So wait… all of that; it just never happened?” Julia asked, clearly trying to do the math in her head.
Now, he was beginning to feel that dread he was expecting from having to rehash this particular part. Knowing he was too far into it to back out now, Quentin just went ahead and said it. “Here’s the thing. We both remember it — I don’t know how, but somewhere in this mess of timelines, those versions of us existed. And somehow, they’re still a part of us,” Quentin told her.
He could see Julia starting to realize where this story was heading. That look of pity took over again as she waited for him to tell her.
“Anyway, I uh,” Quentin swallowed. “I apparently did the wrong thing without thinking and basically begged him to be with me here, because how the fuck do you gain the knowledge that you spent fifty years in love with someone and shared an incredible life with them and not want that again in some form?”
Julia bit her lip. Apparently, she didn’t need to hear the rest. “I think you’re probably right — about getting a place of your own. And we’ll be here if you ever need company,” she said, her face the picture of absolute sincerity. “Will you let me tag along, help you look at places?”
He gave her one of those stretched, closed-mouth smiles that never quite reached his eyes. “Course,” Quentin said. And since he noticed that she didn’t seem terribly confident in his ability to take care of himself, he added, “I’ll be alright.”
She nodded, finally reaching out to squeeze his hand. “I know you will.”
So he moved into a cute little spot a few blocks over from the penthouse. Julia had wanted him to find an apartment in the same building, but his mending jobs weren’t quite consistent enough for him to be able to afford that. Or, they might have been, but he agreed to be paid in weird magical artifacts or cool old books too often for that to be sustainable.
As soon as he was no longer surrounded by location-coded memories of monsters and ex-life partners, two entities who happened to share the same devastatingly handsome body, things became less chaotic for Quentin. He still visited his friends when they invited him over for dinner or needed his help with whatever project they were working on, but it helped to know that he could always go home to a place that had only ever been his.
On the magical drama front, the questers hadn’t been involved with anything apocalyptic in nature once they tossed the monsters into the Seam and neutralized Everett on their way out of the mirror realm. After he and a newly in control Eliot were discharged from the hospital at Brakebills, danger levels were solidly low for the first time since he was swept up in that rogue breeze and emerged on a lawn in Upstate New York.
It took a few weeks for them to realize it, of course. They had all been through far too much to just assume that they would be safe now. The Earth contingent cautiously went about their business, assisting Kady with leading the hedges and helping Julia get her magic back. And then one day, Quentin just realized that it had been ages since any external magical forces had disrupted their lives.
For once, it seemed like the universe had decided to leave them alone. They had certainly earned the break.
And look! Quentin could even get through a few paragraphs of narration after mentioning Eliot without letting him completely hijack the story again. Q was making progress, even if it seemed slow-going at times.
Some days, Quentin could distract himself quite well if he kept busy enough and stayed focused on various tasks and activities. And well, others were harder. Getting out of the penthouse certainly helped, but you can’t just prevent yourself from ever encountering something that reminded you of the man who was once the single most important person in your life. Quentin had already seen that movie, and he wasn’t interested in finding out whether the premise of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind had roots in real-life magic.
The truth was, he missed Eliot and resented Eliot and maybe even loved Eliot, all at the same time. That day in the park had given him a sliver of hope for a grand, romantic ending that he just never got. The longer he went without it, the closer he came to accepting that Eliot was probably not the person he was meant to be with in this timeline. And if Quentin was ever going to move on with his life, he needed to accept that.
You could probably say that it started when Quentin woke up in a hospital bed after tossing the Monsters into the Seam.
Q became aware of his surroundings slowly. Things were quiet; the Brakebills medical wing lacked the usual humming and beeping of your typical non-magic hospital. And when he opened his eyes, he noticed that it was night time. The lamps around him were dim, the windows were dark, and the room was nearly deserted.
That is, it was deserted except for the next bed over. There, tucked under a clean white sheet and sleeping peacefully, was Eliot. Quentin’s heart leapt up into his throat as soon as he saw him. Flashes of memory came back to him; the swinging of an axe, the smoke-like transfer of the Monster into a round bottle, and just so much blood before a heartsick, worried Q was yanked away to the mirror realm.
“El - ” Quentin started and then coughed as the name caught in the back of his throat. He gave a shake to make sure that his own arms and legs were working, then he was up and out of the bed and rushing to Eliot’s side seconds later. An empty chair had been left there and deserted, which was lucky because he wasn’t too sure if he could have stayed standing for very long.
Limbs shaking with nerves and disuse, Q reached out and took Eliot’s hand gently. It was big and soft and warm and it felt so good to hold. Quentin knew these hands like they were his own; he had learned them for forty-one timelines and watched them grow old. He even remembered, with devastating clarity, exactly how they felt against his skin. The two men couldn’t recall much of their time at the mosaic in Fillory of the past, but that, Quentin remembered.
For a few frantic moments, nothing happened. Quentin became increasingly aware of how fast his heart was pounding in his chest, but he was alive and awake and so grateful that Eliot, the real Eliot, was finally here next to him after nine absolutely awful months of being possessed by the Monster.
And then, Eliot’s hand twitched. Quentin looked up to see that Eliot was looking back at him with wet eyes, letting a gorgeous smile take over his whole face. It was an expression that was beautifully, unmistakably Eliot. Quentin knew now, without a doubt, that the Monster was finally gone.
“You’re okay?” Eliot asked as those big hazel eyes darted all over Quentin’s face, searching him for any sign of illness or injury.
With a quick nod, Q said, “Yeah, I — I think so.” He didn’t fully remember how he got into that hospital bed or why, but he was able to successfully move into the chair by Eliot’s bedside, and he wasn’t in any pain.
“Thank fucking God,” Eliot let out a sigh of utter relief as he squeezed Quentin’s hand tightly.
Q was suddenly up on his feet again, needing to be closer to Eliot, but then it occurred to him that his friend was recovering from a pretty gnarly stomach wound. He settled on leaning over so he could gently press a kiss onto El’s forehead as he breathed in deeply through his nose. He even smelled like Eliot again; someone must have brought over his products and washed his hair. Quentin found himself desperately hoping that Eliot never had the chance to look in a mirror before he was cleaned up and back in his own clothes. They’d have to burn those graphic t-shirts.
After petting the side of Eliot’s head and making sure he wasn’t going to just disappear, Quentin leaned back into his seat, not letting go of Eliot’s hand for even a second. “It’s really you?” Q said as he blinked back the tears filling his eyes.
“Yep. Definitely me,” Eliot replied confidently. His voice was a little hoarse, but even the way he spoke was so different from the Monster that the rich, rumbly sound made Quentin want to run through a field of flowers. “It’s been a while, huh?” El asked, on the edge of a laugh with his bright eyes gazing back at Quentin.
Quentin had thought so many times about what he would say to Eliot if he ever got him back, but now that the moment was here, he was all choked up. “El, I - fuck, I missed you. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” he admitted, swallowing the lump that had formed in the back of his throat.
“Hey,” Eliot said softly, soothing the back of Quentin’s hand with his thumb. “I’m here now.”
That seemed to open a bit of a floodgate and suddenly, all of the emotion Q had held in for months was rushing to the surface. He gasped for air, taken aback by the sheer power of it. “I’m... God, sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Quentin said, hot tears spilling over as he struggled to look around at anything but Eliot.
“From what I’ve been told, you kept it together the entire time. For me. So honestly, this is probably a good thing,” Eliot said, tugging on Quentin’s arm to try and pull him closer.
Q went, sliding the chair along with him and kind of awkwardly burying his face in Eliot’s shoulder. “This is... there isn’t a whole lot of space, but I could maybe push my bed over -” he half-sobbed, trying to figure out a comfortable way to cuddle up to Eliot. There wasn’t really room on the bed for two and Quentin definitely didn’t want to hurt him while he healed from an axe wound.
Then, Eliot seemed to change his mind and tensed up. In response, Q backed off immediately. “Fuck, are you okay? I didn’t hurt you, did I?” Quentin asked.
“No, I’m fine. I just... I talked to Alice, before you woke up. We probably shouldn’t... get too cozy, that’s all,” Eliot said, his voice getting quieter as what could only be described as an apology appeared on his face.
“Oh,” Quentin said, settling back into his seat. “Right.” He and Alice had gotten back together, just before they fought the monsters. It felt like years had passed since then; current Q was no longer the desperate person operating in survival mode who had surged forward to kiss her in the kitchen of the penthouse. Quentin honestly wasn’t sure why he had done that, in hindsight.
Eliot was probably right, though. If Alice walked in and found Quentin curled up in a bed with Eliot again, well. It hadn’t gone over well the first time.
They sat in silence for a minute.
“Hey, um, so — how are you feeling? You were... not doing great the last time I saw you,” Quentin said, fishing for any topic but that one. A traumatic, life-threatening injury seemed like a much better option in comparison. “I... actually don’t know how long I’ve been here, to be honest.”
“I am... gloriously medicated,” Eliot replied, relaxing back into his pillow again. He seemed just as grateful for the change of subject, if not more. “And you’ve been here for maybe 36 hours. You were knocked out by a spell during a fight in the mirror realm and Penny carried you back here. I overheard them saying you should be fine as long as you woke up, so naturally I panicked and spent the last few days deciding what I would bring to burn at your funeral.”
Quentin laughed. “Well, apparently I’ll live then,” he said, falling so easily back into the way they managed to joke around while the world came crashing down around them. “Did they say how long it would take before you could go home?”
“I don’t really think they know, to be honest; ambient magic was real low throughout most of the surgery, but then you folks did your thing and they were able to speed up the healing process once magic came back,” Eliot said. “I guess we’ll see.”
At this point, Quentin had mostly stopped crying but they were back to maintaining that heated space between them. It had always been that way, like they were magnets; if Quentin and Eliot weren’t actually touching, they could physically feel the distance.
Eliot visibly swallowed, gazing over at Q with a thoughtful look, then he said, “There’s something I need to ask you. I’m not sure I could forgive myself if I didn’t.”
With a kind nod, Quentin replied, “Anything.”
It took a little while. Eliot looked him over carefully and Quentin thought he could see these micro-expressions passing over Eliot’s face, like he was turning things over in his head but he didn’t want anyone to know it. Then, finally, Eliot took a breath.
“What, in God’s name, have you done with your hair?” El asked, completely seriously.
Quentin didn’t know why he felt relieved; he wasn’t even sure what he was expecting Eliot to ask, but that wasn’t it. “Brian cut it short; I’m going to grow it back though,” Q said, reaching up just under his ear where the strands hung loose.
Eliot laughed a little, giving Q a sweetly confused look before he clarified, “I’m not... who is Brian? And I actually meant the color. It’s... different,” Eliot said.
“Wait, what?” Quentin asked, trying to pull one of the longer pieces near his eyes so he could get a look at it. Still too short.
Now, Eliot was clearly enjoying himself. He looked like he couldn’t decide whether to keep up the suspense or be the one to deliver the news. “Quentin, your hair is white,” Eliot said.
“It’s... WHAT?” Quentin squeaked, scrambling around for a mirror or something reflective. Eventually he found a... well, that’s a bedpan. A clean bedpan, at least, let him know that Eliot was not pulling his leg and every hair on his head was stark white. “How the fuck... you know what, I don’t even want to know,” Q decided out loud, putting down the shiny metal pan and heading back to Eliot’s side where he leaned down to rest his face in his hands.
Eliot immediately took the opportunity to reach over and fluff Quentin’s new hair. “It’s not... bad. You’re pulling it off, babe,” El assured him as he tried to hide his urge to keep laughing.
For the rest of their time together in the hospital, Quentin managed to keep their conversations in safe territory. They got caught up on the lighter elements of Eliot’s time away and joked about the usual things, slipping back into their easy back-and-forth as if they’d never been apart.
Q’s heart felt full in a way it hadn’t in so long. Being there with Eliot reminded him why he’d missed him so much and why he’d fought so hard to get him back.
One night, Quentin awoke with his mind absolutely racing and his heart pounding after a dream had brought him back to a moment that he’d turned over in his head countless times. It had been a whole year since they’d sat beneath that wedding arch in the throne room, overwhelmed by a lifetime of memories and feelings and Eliot had told him that they wouldn’t make the same choice in this reality.
Eliot broke his heart that day and Quentin tried his best not to show it. They had each effectively gained at least fifty years of wisdom which meant that Quentin could recognize the fact that he’d been told no and he had the maturity to actually listen. Eliot had looked Quentin right in the eye and told him that he didn’t want to try again. He said they wouldn’t work here; not when they had a choice. Quentin could recall the exact wording with devastating clarity.
But if El truly believed that they wouldn’t choose each other, why had he quoted that exact conversation when he briefly broke out of the monster’s control in the park? Had Eliot chosen to repeat Quentin’s heartfelt words that day simply because he knew that they would prove it was really him, or did Eliot finally believe them?
Hearing his own words, his confessions repeated back to him... it made Quentin wonder whether Eliot had changed his mind.
He could ask him when he woke up, if he wanted to. Quentin had been brave before and after all, it was Eliot who had brought it up again. In a moment of desperation, not knowing if he’d ever have another chance to speak to Quentin, Eliot had reminded him that they had proof of concept. They had 50 years’ worth of it. That felt like it meant something.
Then, he reminded himself that Eliot had rejected him. Q wanted to respect that. And if Eliot had changed his mind, surely he would be the one to say something about it. Resolving to say nothing and wait to see if El came around, Quentin eventually went back to sleep.
Alice came to visit the next morning and Q was discharged from his hospital bed soon after that. While being around her was nice, it only served to remind Quentin that he’d made a mistake by jumping into a full-blown relationship with her again. So by the time he’d heard that Eliot was healed up and nearly ready to come home about a week later, Q told her the truth and found himself single once again.
Quentin fidgeted for the entire elevator ride up to the penthouse. Sure, lunch with Alice had not necessarily gone as planned, but he had talked to her honestly about how he was feeling and now he felt twenty pounds lighter. He could levitate, probably, if he tried hard enough.
The doors slid open with a ‘ding’ and he walked over, turning his key in the lock and letting himself inside of the spacious apartment he’d been staying in all year. He was used to a lot of people coming and going, especially since Kady had started leading the New York hedges, but it sounded especially busy today. Voices from the living room carried into the front hallway.
“Good, you’re home!”
Quentin looked up after dropping his bag and coat in a pile by the door and saw Margo, dressed in full Fillorian attire, rushing over to him for a hug. “Hey!” he said, pulling her close.
“I’m not staying long, but I’m glad you’re here to say goodbye,” Margo said into his ear before she let go.
“Goodbye?” Quentin asked, not really sure what she was talking about until he looked behind her and saw Eliot, standing upright and dressed impeccably in dark purple and black.
El looked miserable, like seeing Quentin here made whatever he was about to do ten times harder. He walked over, leaning heavily on a black cane with a shiny silver ram’s head handle. Q assumed that Margo had moved out of the way, but to be honest, he hadn’t noticed until she was gone and it was just him and Eliot there in the entryway.
“You’re walking,” Q said to Eliot, trying to focus on something positive, which was increasingly difficult the longer he pondered the inevitability that he was about to receive some bad news.
Eliot nodded, coming to a halt just out of reach. “They let me out of the infirmary a few hours ago, but you weren’t here. I wasn’t sure you’d be back in time,” he said, taking a minute before he looked up into Quentin’s eyes. “Q, I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m going back to Fillory.”
There it was; that oh-so-familiar feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach that had been on a short vacation since they got rid of the monsters. “When?” Quentin whispered, unable to summon more volume than that.
“Right now, I’m afraid,” Eliot said, standing incredibly still and intensely studying Q’s reaction.
“Mmm,” Quentin hummed in response, feeling like the floor was going to drop out from under him any second now.
“It’s just that I’ve been gone a long while, and things there aren’t... terribly stable, at the moment. I need to be there for Margo,” Eliot continued, taking another step closer. “I’m really sorry to have to go so soon.”
Quentin’s mind was racing. Just seconds earlier, he had felt so free. He had been naive to think that a mutual breakup with Alice would mean that everything between him and Eliot would suddenly be easier. Maybe he should tell him. Maybe if he knew, he would stay.
Instead, Q said, “But I just got you back.” It was a quiet thing, just barely floating out of his mouth.
“And you will again someday. I don’t know how quickly time is passing there at the moment, but we have the clock here now. I’ll visit; I promise,” Eliot assured him.
Eventually, Quentin just nodded, turning his head away. “Yeah. Um, you’re right. Fillory is your home. You should go,” he said, including not even an ounce of heart in the words. They were shallow and empty; Quentin didn’t even know why he was saying them.
Eliot gave a nod, then he moved in close and wrapped his arms around Quentin, squeezing him tightly and resting his cheek on the side of Q’s head.
And then Quentin let go.
Months passed, and that led us here, to a late afternoon in December when Quentin was finishing up mending an alarm clock that had been smashed just one too many times. It belonged to a magician who had charmed it to get increasingly more invasive in the ways that it woke up its owner each time the snooze button was pressed. For that reason, it was a more complicated job than a muggle repair person could handle and it was sent over to Quentin.
He gave it one more experimental test, setting the alarm for a minute from now and then jumping nearly a foot in the air when it went off. You’d think that Quentin would be prepared, since he was the one who set the alarm in the first place, but somehow it still managed to startle him.
After writing down in his notes that the mending was a success, Quentin placed the finished clock aside and got up to fix himself dinner. He picked up his cell phone on the way to the kitchen counter and checked it, seeing that he had missed a few texts from Julia.
Julia
I’m getting takeout and watching Christmas movies tonight!Julia
Want your usual order?
While he was doing okay on his own, Quentin had to admit that takeout sounded good right about now. Still, something about the idea of heading to an apartment full of friends and other mystery guests seemed overwhelming to him.
Ever since he had moved out, Julia made a real effort to invite Quentin over whenever anything even remotely fun was happening. She knew that he had a tendency to hole up for days when he wasn’t doing especially well and encouraged him to be social on a weekly basis.
Occasionally, he would show up to find his friends deep in some kind of project. Those visits typically featured a rotating cast of characters in a story that isn’t his; Kady’s hedge friends were often there and one time, he got to meet one of Alice’s acquaintances from Library jail who just so happened to be Santa Claus. Nick turned out to be pretty cool, actually, and who better to have drinks with and spill the deepest desires of your heart to than Father Christmas?
Nick gave Quentin a look, assessing him quietly. “Quentin, what do you want?”
“What, for Christmas or in life in general?” Q laughed, sipping something Kady had handed him earlier. It wasn’t very good, but he was buzzy enough that he didn’t care.
“Hm,” Nick hummed. “Either.”
Quentin took a moment to think about it seriously, working beyond the ridiculousness of the situation. He bit at this lip and studied a scuff on the countertop, scratching it with his thumbnail. “I don’t really know if I can put it into words,” Q admitted. “It’s... more of a feeling than anything else.”
Interestingly enough, his answer only seemed to intrigue Nick more. “Is it something you’ve felt before, or a new feeling?”
Q considered the question. “I think... I have felt it? But it’s been so long that I can’t really remember what it was like. Are you... is this a normal conversation for you?”
Nick took a drink. “You’d be surprised how much people tell you when they think you can give them anything in the universe,” he said.
“Can you? I mean... I assume there are limits. You can’t just wave your hand and make someone feel happy and loved and secure, like nothing could hurt them... can you?” Quentin asked. Well, there were those pesky words he had been looking for.
“Not always how you’d think, but I have ways,” Nick told him, then he walked back to the dining room table to assist with whatever Alice was currently working on.
Overall, the more time Quentin spent at these penthouse gatherings, the further he felt himself drifting from their friend group. He recognized less and less of the attendees these days and he was never really great at relating to strangers in forced social settings.
Q stared at his phone, considering his options for a second. Tonight, he could be eating a sandwich alone in this tiny apartment while he chipped away at the pile of books on his night stand, or he could be watching heartwarming holiday films with his friends and maybe potentially have a few awkward moments with whoever else was invited.
He unlocked his phone again and tapped out a response.
Quentin
Who’s there tonight?Julia
...Julia
Kady and 23 are home too. They’re working on stuff but they might join us eventually.Julia
Come on Q, it’s Christmas Eve EVE!
Quentin chuckled. Julia really knew how to get him to agree to things.
Quentin
Ah yes, the most important of all holidays.Julia
Does that mean you’re coming?
For too long, Quentin had struggled to find the courage to say no. No to spending every day staring at a clock, waiting for a person, for a relationship that would never come. Now that he had finally said no, he reached down deep to find the ability to say yes again. At the end of the day, he knew that while having his own space to heal was important, he also needed to feel loved. And that was something he could say yes to.
Quentin
I’ll be over in a few.
Quentin still had a key to the penthouse, so he took the elevator up and let himself in. When Julia heard him arrive, she ran over and greeted him with a huge hug.
And so began Operation: Don’t Look At The Fillory Clock.
Eliot was not coming back for him. Quentin knew this. And so, he allowed himself to have a fun night with his best friend in front of the fireplace and several Christmas movies.
They drank. They laughed. The nostalgia of the holiday season resurfaced some hilariously embarrassing memories of when they were kids. They ate dinner out of takeout boxes after it was delivered by a traveler they hired off of an app one of Kady’s hedge friends developed for that exact purpose.
And it was honestly, as hesitant as Quentin was to admit it, a really good night. Kady had reluctantly joined their celebration on the couch after a while and she was now arguing with Julia over whether to go with a Home Alone sequel or start on the Hallmark movies. Penny 23 had declined the invite and went back upstairs.
Quentin even remembered to drink plenty of water so he wouldn’t get as dehydrated as he typically would following a night like this. So after an uproarious retelling of the time Quentin accidentally joined the middle school show choir because he went into the wrong room and didn’t have the heart to tell them, he slipped into the bathroom for a quick break.
When he re-emerged, ready to take on another festive rom-com and the delicious-smelling mulled wine Julia had brought in from the kitchen, Quentin was wearing a sleepy smile on his face. He took in his surroundings while hopped up on warm, fuzzy holiday emotions, allowing his drunk self to realize that he was actually kind of happy. This was all he needed right now; he had friends and good food and the comfort of belonging somewhere, even for just a day.
But as his eyes reached the corner of the penthouse that he had been avoiding all night, Quentin noticed the door to the Fillory clock opening from the inside and his heart leapt into his throat. Out stepped Margo, then Josh, and just when Quentin had begun preparing himself for the reality that the person he wanted to see most of all wasn’t coming with them, that familiar pair of impossibly long legs stepped through.