Chapter Text
Eliot wanted to go sit on the couch for this conversation, but Quentin absolutely refused to allow him out of the bed with that wound still so fresh, so they wedged some pillows under Eliot’s back to let them both sit up against the headboard, talking quietly, until finally Eliot got to the crucial part of the story. “And I realized that my most traumatic … most repressed memory … Q … it was that talk we had in the throne room…”
Now Quentin felt like he was the one who’d gotten an axe to the gut. “Oh fuck, El! I’m so sorry! I never should have … I just thought … I know I was wrong … um … obviously wrong … but I thought…”
Eliot made a ridiculously imperial kind of hand gesture, always a king. Wait … did Quentin actually see that movement? He must have imagined it. “Shut the fuck up, Q! It wasn’t a traumatic memory because of what you said. It was traumatic because of what I said.”
Quentin, brought up short, stopped talking in the middle of his stammering apology. “Um … what?”
“You were so brave, Q. So brave to say what you did, to put your heart out there and ask me to give us a chance … and I’ve never been brave like that. I didn’t even know how, until you showed me.” Eliot paused as if working up his courage. “But I was so afraid, Q, so afraid that I’d fuck it up, and I’d lose everything, lose your friendship, lose you in my life, because I’m so fucked up and I don’t know how to do relationships…”
Quentin interrupted him. “You did a fucking relationship for 50 years, El!”
“I know!” Eliot shouted. “I know! But that was in Fillory! You didn’t have any other choices then!”
“I had Arielle,” Quentin replied.
“And we made that work. She was sweet and loving and we made it work … but … Q … it was a Fillory thing. You were stuck with me and that stupid mosaic, so you stayed with me even though you wanted … her.” He twisted his hands together in his lap, below the wound. “It would never work here. You could never have me and … someone else … at the same time.” He paused, and Quentin bit his tongue, not wanting to interrupt when Eliot seemed to be saying something so deeply emotional. Eliot glanced at him, Quentin could actually see that even if only hazily, then looked away. “To be honest, Q, I … I didn’t really want it with Arielle. And I wouldn’t want it here.” He took a deep breath and flinched again at the pain in his stomach wound. “If I’m brutally, completely honest, Q, I would have wanted you all to myself. I know it’s stupid: the famously and illustriously debauched Eliot Waugh wanting fucking monogamy after he’s sucked off half the guys at Brakebills, but…”
“It’s not stupid, El,” Quentin interrupted him. He was definitely seeing light and shadow now, even if only vaguely. He kept his eyes where he thought Eliot’s might be until finally that averted face turned to look at him. “It could have been just us … even in Fillory … if I knew you wanted that.”
“But then we wouldn’t have had those years with Arielle, and we wouldn’t have had Teddy,” Eliot pointed out.
Quentin smiled at him. “Yeah. And those were good. I’m glad we had them in our life. But … I don’t … I don’t need more than you … you know. Um … I mean … if you still wanted…”
Eliot stopped his words with a kiss this time, instead of some stupid regal gesture. Their lips met gently until Eliot murmured, “Ow,” against Quentin’s lips.
“You fucking moron! What are you doing leaning over like that?”
“Kissing you, you idiot,” Eliot replied testily. But Quentin pushed him back onto the pile of pillows and got him situated so that his wound wasn’t being twisted anymore. He was definitely seeing the paleness of the pillows now, but he was afraid to say anything to get Eliot’s hopes up. And, anyway, they were kind of in the middle of something here.
Quentin smirked at him. “You’re just going to have to let me drive.” Eliot probably rolled his eyes, but any smart remark he might have been planning to say was lost in the kiss Quentin pressed to his mouth with warm, eager lips. Quentin pulled away for a moment, though Eliot’s lips tried to follow. “I’ve been wanting to do that since Fillory,” he confessed with pink high on his cheeks. “Even when you were possessed by the monster, I knew my Eliot was still in there, and I wanted to get him back, and I wanted to kiss him … you … the real Eliot … I wanted to kiss you.”
“Then why did you stop just now?” Eliot asked, obviously frustrated at his own immobility. And then Quentin stopped stopping.
Some time later, Margo ganged up on Quentin with Eliot and convinced them to all move out to the couch so they could watch tv. Quentin must have fallen asleep on the sofa, but as he woke he felt Eliot’s head in his lap, that wavy hair twined in his fingers, and it made him feel safe. He blinked his eyes open, and thought he must be hallucinating. On the television, a small man wearing a red suit was … dancing … in front of red curtains … and then he started talking in some strange language. Quentin heard Margo, somewhere far to his left, perhaps on the other end of the sofa, and he remembered what she had said about having difficulty adjusting to Eliot’s return. It made him sad. She marveled, “Somebody was taking some serious shit when they came up with this fucking show.”
“What the hell is that?” Quentin asked, still half asleep.
And suddenly the entire room was in motion. Two voices at once, Margo and Eliot. “Can you see the tv?” That one was Margo. And the other one was pretty obvious, because Eliot had sat up and grabbed Quentin by the shoulders, moving to crouch in front of him with no regard to his wound whatsoever. “Can you see me, Q?” And yes, Quentin could could see Eliot’s face in the dim lighting, his eyes wide and hair an unruly disaster.
“Your hair is so messy,” Quentin mumbled, and then he reached out to run his hands through it again.
Eliot laughed on a sob. “My mind hasn’t been devoted to elegant grooming lately. I’ve been a bit distracted.” He framed Quentin’s face with his hands. “God! You can really see me?”
“Well, it’s kind of dark in here,” Quentin admitted. “Is that my eyes?”
Margo ran to the lamp, exclaiming, “No! We turned down the lights to watch this weird tv show.” And suddenly the room was brightly lit, and Quentin squinted against the brilliance.
And then Eliot’s face was there in front of him, Margo hovering in the background. A moment later, Jules appeared beside Margo, but Quentin barely saw her. “Hey guys,” he smiled, but he never looked away from Eliot’s face smiling back at him. Eliot’s eyes—really Eliot’s eyes, with the real Eliot behind them—for the first time in so long.
“I think these two boys would appreciate a bit of time alone,” Margo said dryly. “We can go to this divine little shoe store I know in Florence.”
“But Q…” Jules began to say.
“Maybe stay in Italy a day or two,” Margo suggested. “Maybe a week.”
She laughed when Jules glanced at Quentin and Eliot and replied, “Oh.”
“Love you, Jules,” Quentin said distractedly, “but I’d kind of like to talk to Eliot.”
“Among other things,” Margo teased.
“Goodbye Margo,” Eliot said without his eyes leaving Quentin’s.
“Have fun, kids,” Margo cooed, and Quentin saw her wiggle her fingers in a goodbye gesture before she and Julia vanished.
Quentin helped Eliot back to the bed so they could lie side by side without causing Eliot too much pain. “It’s you,” Quentin breathed. “I mean, I knew it was you … but I’ve missed your eyes so much. I didn’t want to say it, but I was so afraid I’d never get to see them again.”
Eliot shifted against the pillows and Quentin worried that he might be uncomfortable, but Eliot waved his hands away when he moved to adjust them. “I’m glad you got your sight back, Q. I mean, obviously, for the obvious reasons, but also because there’s something important I wanted to talk to you about, and I felt like I owed it to you to look you in the eyes while I said it.”
Quentin could feel his lips turning down at the corners as he wondered what the fuck could be more serious and important than what they’d already discussed. “But … um … we already talked about the whole thing. I … didn’t we work it out?”
Eliot gave him a reassuring smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. His eyes looked sad. “Don’t,” Quentin said. “We’re good now, right? Anything else, you don’t have to tell me. I’m happy, El. Can’t we just be happy for a while?” He knew he was begging, but he didn’t care.
Eliot looked pained, but not from his stomach. From his heart. Quentin closed his eyes, because he didn’t want to have to look at Eliot when he said this, whatever it was. But Eliot wouldn’t be stopped. “I don’t know if you were really listening to me, Q. You have this tendency to get lost in your own brain sometimes, as we both know. But I told you that … our conversation in the throne room, when you asked me to give us a chance and I … I rejected you … that was my most traumatic, most repressed memory. You heard me say that, I’m fairly certain.”
Quentin opened his eyes, confused. “Well, yeah, but you explained.”
“But don’t you get what that means, Q? Repressed? It means I didn’t have to deal with the emotional fall-out from that conversation, but you did.” This time it was Eliot who closed his eyes for a moment, his mouth turned down at the corners before he forced himself to continue. “I left you alone to deal with that pain, the pain I had caused, and I just gave myself a little vacation so I didn’t have to feel any of it. And then, to top it all off, I got myself possessed by a fucking monster that basically tortured you—okay not physically but emotionally—for months with my face, and you … holy fucking … Q, you fought for me. I rejected you, let myself forget about it, and still you fought for me, thinking that I didn’t want you.” His eyes glistened with possible tears, but Quentin knew he would never let them fall. Not Eliot. “You still fought so fucking hard, Q. I didn’t even need everyone to tell me how hard you fought, because I know you, and I knew how you felt. Even without that conversation in the throne room, just remembering our time in Fillory, I knew how you still felt, and I knew you would have killed gods and monsters to save me, that you wouldn’t let them do anything to hurt me if there was any way you could put yourself in the way instead, even though you thought I didn’t want you.” And a tear did fall now, gliding slowly down Eliot’s cheek. “Because I knew you loved me that much. And I was such a fucking coward, Q, to make you deal with that alone, before the monster, during the monster, just … I was the fucking monster, Q, doing all that to you, after that day in the throne room.”
Quentin placed his hand on the side of Eliot’s face, stopping the path of that tear, and gently turned him so that their eyes met again. “You would have done the same for me, El.”
“Did you miss the part where I repressed my fucking memories and left you in excruciating emotional pain all alone?”
“Well, ‘excruciating’ may be giving yourself more credit than you’re worth,” Quentin smirked.
“Oh, fuck you,” Eliot laughed, shoving Quentin so that he fell over, chuckling.
“I heard you, El,” Quentin said seriously, looking deeply into Eliot’s eyes.. “And you know me well, but I know you, too. And you had to run away from that, from that conversation in the throne room. The great Eliot Waugh … wanting all that with nerdy loser Quentin Coldwater?” Eliot tried to interrupt him, but Quentin shushed him. “But if it had been me possessed by that monster, El, you would have fought just as hard for me as I fought for you. I don’t doubt that for a single second. Because I do know you. And I love you. And I know you love me. I know how much you love me. And you would have fucking fought just as fucking hard as I did, whether you’d repressed the memory or not. Because I know you loved me then, too.”
Eliot turned to gaze at the ceiling, deep in thought. “Even if I had repressed the memory? You believe I would have fought for you like that?”
“I know it,” Quentin said, then leaned up on his elbow so he could reach Eliot’s lips again. He kissed him softly. “I know it, El, because even if you’d repressed the memory, you still loved me.”
Eliot shook his head in wonderment. “That’s why you’re the brave one, Q. It takes a brave man, or maybe a fool, to believe in me that much.”
“Maybe I’m both?” Quentin grinned.
“Maybe you’re both. Maybe I can be, too.”
As they were falling asleep, Eliot murmured in the bedroom where Quentin no longer saw only darkness but now a shadowy bedroom surrounding them. “If you had to find your most traumatic, most repressed memory, Q, what do you think it might be?”
Quentin thought for a long sleepy moment.
“To be honest, I think it might be letting you get away with that shit in the throne room that day,” He surprised a quiet laugh from Eliot. “I should have known better. I let my own shitty self-esteem issues get in the way of how much I trusted you. I should have trusted you enough to know that you were feeding me a line of bullshit. I know you love me now, and I knew you loved me then, and I should have called you on it. But I was too scared. So I wish I had been braver, brave enough to stand up to you.”
“You’re the bravest person I know, Q, but in that throne room we were both a couple of idiots.”
“So if we had that conversation to do over again, we’d both tell you you were full of shit,” Quentin grinned.
“Pretty much,” Eliot agreed, and they both drifted off to sleep.