Archive of Our Own ^beta

The night Quentin Coldwater died, a brand new star appeared in the sky over Brakebills. A little brighter than Venus, it stayed fixed in the same position for weeks on end. Eliot hardly would have noticed such a thing if it hadn’t been for the way that it hummed. Or at least, that’s how it felt. A humming in his bones. An old, familiar presence. Margo thought that he’d gone mad with grief. Alice was the only one who could understand.

He and Alice were the sole occupants of the Physical Kids’ Cottage now, the last two people left on campus. Margo had fucked off to Fillory weeks ago, and Eliot had refused to join her; Penny had taken Julia and Kady on a tour of the multiverse; Fogg had ordered an early Summer break just because he could. Losing Quentin, it seemed, had been the final straw for everyone.

One night, about a month into their ordeal, Eliot burst into Alice’s room with a bottle clutched in each of his hands. “Lady’s choice,” he said, kicking the door shut at his back. “What are we drowning our livers in tonight?”

They’d been shitfaced drunk for days. God—for weeks. Alice pulled a face and flopped down on her bed. “I’m tired of alcohol. Don’t you have anything stronger?”

“I do,” he said, setting the bottles down on the nightstand. “But I draw the line at turning you into a junkie.”

Alice groaned. Eliot pulled out his cigarette case.

“Sit up,” he said, plucking out a pre-rolled joint. “Come on. I suppose weed isn’t technically a drug.”

They sat in the middle of Alice’s bed passing the joint in silence. It was nice, a moment of extraordinary calm. There was even an entire thirty seconds where Eliot was pretty sure he hadn’t been thinking about Quentin, except for the part where he was. He’d been thinking about Quentin’s stupid radiant smile the whole time, and the way his eyes would go all crinkly in the corners. How if you stared at it for long enough, it was like looking directly into the sun.

“You still feel it?” Alice asked, passing Eliot the roach. “The—you know. The… feeling.”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, taking the final hit and levitating the dregs over into the ashtray. “I still feel it.”

Alice immediately reached for one of the bottles—the bourbon—and cracked it open. The look in her eyes said that she was incredibly stoned. She took a swig, and Eliot watched as a little dripped from her mouth and rolled down her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand and passed the bottle to Eliot.

It was a good bourbon. He’d bought the bottle two days earlier because the distillery had widow in its name, and sometimes he liked to get wasted ironically. Under normal circumstances, Eliot would have treated it with a bit more respect. He would have sipped it slowly and savored it in a glass. He certainly wouldn’t have shot it back like a First Year who’d just discovered Jell-O shots. But right now, he didn’t have the energy to give a shit. He just wanted to be numb. Eliot took a long swig and nestled the bottle down between his legs. Alice lit a cigarette. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her smoke one of those before.

“He was in love with you, you know,” she said, a wisp of smoke curling out of her mouth.

“No,” Eliot said, his stomach clenching like it was ready to fight. “I don’t know that.”

“You’re so full of shit.” She laughed, leaning back against the headboard. “The way he fought for you... he didn’t care about anything else. He just wanted you back. You should’ve seen him, Eliot...”

Eliot thought for a second he was going to be sick. He took a long pull from the bottle and passed it back to Alice. “I’m sorry,” he said very quietly. “It wasn’t supposed to—it just… happened.”

Alice hummed, double fisting the bourbon and the cigarette with her eyes closed. She took a swig, and then Eliot took the bottle back before it went shattering to the floor. He set it on the nightstand and lit a cigarette of his own.

“You think he’s in the star,” she slurred, head lolling against her shoulder, her finger jabbing half-heartedly toward the ceiling. “Up there.”

“Yeah,” Eliot said. “Maybe I do.”

—

They say grief comes in stages: a riptide of denial, a hurricane of anger. Bargaining, depression, acceptance. They can come in any order, but Eliot hadn’t felt a single one. All he could feel was the humming, and the longing. And something deep in every chamber of his heart that told him Quentin wasn’t gone.

He and Alice were lounging in front of the fireplace, drinking hastily made glasses of absinthe. Eliot said, “I wanna go to the star. Or whatever the fuck we’re calling it now.”

“To Quentin,” Alice slurred.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, what are we waiting for?”

A minute or two dripped by. Alice said, “It’s probably not even in space.”

“I can fly,” Eliot said absently. “But not very far.”

Alice let a broken laugh fall from her mouth. “Bet you could if you had wings.”

It took a moment for Eliot to process her words. “Could you—Alice, do you know how to make wings?”

She shot back the last dregs of her absinthe and shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m smart as shit, so... probably.”

—

The next day, Eliot hid all the drugs and booze. Out of sight, not exactly out of mind. He was overcome with regret the moment he cast the enchantment to keep the secret stash location locked for a full seventy-two hours.

He and Alice drank hangover potion for breakfast, then sat out on the lawn watching the star twinkle in the clear morning sky.

“This sounded far less insane when we were shitfaced,” Eliot said. “But I think going up there is the only way to be sure that it’s, you know… twinkle twinkle little Quentin.”

The star pulsed, Eliot felt it in his whole body. Alice looked at him for a long moment before pulling herself to her feet.

“Come on,” she said. “I think I have an idea.”

Alice went to the library and sent Eliot off with a simple task: acquire living clay and a fuckton of feathers. Fogg still hadn’t gotten any better at hiding his stash, so the living clay was easy. Eliot portaled into the city and hit up a craft store for the feathers, came back a short time later with so many rainbow colored chandelles it looked like Pride exploded in his shopping bags.

He transported his supplies to the empty classroom where Alice had asked him to wait, sitting at a desk in the back of the room chain smoking and lamenting that he’d locked his bottomless flask away with all the other goodies. The hangover potion had done wonders for the shakes, but being sober was still so fucking boring.

Eliot was on his feet the moment Alice walked through the door.

She tossed a notebook down on one of the desks, her face a hard mask of determination. “Okay, so… good news is, I can do it. Bad news is, it’s probably gonna hurt.”

Eliot swallowed. “On a scale of kinky to kill me, how much hurt are we talking?”

“Um,” she hesitated, knitting her brows together. “I’m gonna have to graft living clay onto your shoulder blades and root the wings to your essence, so… the latter?”

Eliot’s eyebrows shot up to the ceiling. “My essence?”

“Your soul.”

“Right,” Eliot said, utterly resigning himself to whatever this was going to be. If it meant getting him to Quentin, well. What was a little soul-sucking pain in comparison? “I suppose that means I’ll have a craft store strapped to my back in perpetuity.”

“No,” Alice said. “But taking them off is also… going to hurt. A lot. Even more than putting them on.”

“Just like that tattoo Bambi almost convinced me to get on my ass First Year.” Eliot collapsed down into a chair. “So, um, when I go up I’m gonna need a protection bubble. Warming spells, oxygen…”

“You’re getting way ahead of yourself,” Alice said. “I still have to calculate the distance. We can worry about that after. First... help me move these desks.”

They pushed all the desks and chairs into the corners of the room and got to work sculpting the clay into skeletal supports for about a million colorful craft feathers. The vainest part of Eliot’s brain hoped that when this whole thing was through, the spell at least had the decency to make his plumage a little more elegant than the tacky feathers he’d hastily purchased. Blaming his woefully sober brain for the oversight, Eliot began arranging the feathers on the clay while Alice pulled supplies out of cabinets and off of shelves around the classroom.

When the last feather was set in place, Eliot stood back and admired his work. The entire structure looked not unlike the dance floor aftermath of a particularly successful Encanto Oculto. Tacky. Terrible. Eliot supposed it didn’t matter, as long as it got him to Quentin.

Alice lit a chime candle and started dripping blobs of wax on the makeshift wings, chanting under her breath as she went. When she was finished, she instructed Eliot to take off his shirt and lie down in the center, where they’d left two spots of clay exposed, spaced exactly to fit his shoulders. He wasn’t thrilled about pain in a non-sexual context, but he figured he’d probably been through worse. Being possessed by a petulant baby god. Being axed in the gut by his best friend. Waking up in the infirmary and being told that Quentin was gone. Turned to dust in a blink. And he’d never even gotten to say—

“Wanna get drunk first?” Alice asked.

“No.” God. Yes. He very much wanted to get blasted out of his mind. But whatever. He didn’t have it in him to get up from the floor now. Eliot shut his eyes and let her get to work.

He tried to send his mind somewhere pleasant: the way a really good blow job felt after a string of disappointing lays; the first time Quentin had kissed him at the mosaic; the sound of Margo’s laughter; Quentin’s eyes, Quentin’s mouth, Quentin’s hands.

None of it really worked.

The good news was, it didn’t matter for long. Once Alice started casting, his mind whited out with pain almost at once. He wasn’t sure if he’d passed out exactly, but he couldn’t seem to grasp a single coherent thought for the duration of the spell, and he couldn’t open his eyes. The hurt was so absolute, it might not have even been happening at all. It was like it was happening to someone else. His body fizzled into numbness, into the pitch, blinding dark. He stayed there for what felt like a very long time. It could have been a minute or an hour.

And then suddenly it was over. Eliot opened his eyes to the sensation that he was spread out over a bed of red-hot coals. A searing pain rippled from his neck down to the base of his spine. Alice was kneeling beside him, touching his arm gently, her delicate features twisted with worry.

“Did it work?” was all Eliot could think to mumble.

“I think, um…” Alice nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think it did. How does it feel?”

“Like I was gang banged by several forest fires.” Eliot somehow managed to laugh. There was a vibrant flash of color in his periphery. “How do they look?”

“They’re incredible,” she said, her eyes scanning his wingspan slowly. “I can’t believe—I mean, I thought it might work, but—”

“You thought it might work?” Eliot groaned, trying his damndest to pull himself up from the floor, but it was like there was a twenty-ton anchor tied to his back. He flopped there helplessly and sighed. “How the fuck am I supposed to fly if I can’t even stand?”

“Just… give it a minute,” she said. “Your body is probably in shock.”

It hadn’t occurred to Eliot until that moment that he could turn his head and look at what they’d created. Somehow, the wings seemed even bigger than the framework they’d crafted for the magic to build upon. And the colors—god. They were nothing like what Eliot had been dreading. They were brighter now, yet somehow more delicate. Shockingly blue at the tips, bleeding into shades of gold and green and red near his shoulders. He thought, absently, that he rather looked like the scarlet macaw that one of his cousins had kept for a pet back home in Indiana.

Eliot tried to move his wings, but he couldn’t even manage to ruffle a single feather, couldn’t feel them at all honestly. Like they weren’t yet a part of him. There was only the pain. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”

“No,” Alice said. “I don’t think it is.”

It took another half hour before Eliot had the good sense to use his telekinesis to lift his wings so he could at least sit up. Ten minutes after that, he cast a buoyancy spell and levitated himself into a standing position. It was only through the miracle of enchanting himself up the ass and sideways that he didn’t crumble right back to the floor.

“Failure to rise,” Eliot said with a sigh. “Always a humiliating experience. I don’t suppose viagra for wings is a thing.”

Alice reached back and ran a hand along the upper section of one wing. “Do you feel that?”

“Sort of? I don’t know. Not really. Maybe this was a bad idea.”

“No, they’re just—” Alice sighed, poking at a feather. “It’s like a new limb, right? Muscles have to be exercised or they’ll atrophy. It’s just going to take some time to build up your strength.”

“Great.” Eliot threw his hands up. “So in the time it takes for me to get these things working, we could have come up with a plan that didn’t involve turning me into Toucan fucking Sam.”

Alice frowned at that. “You’re the one who wanted to do this, Eliot.”

“Yeah, Alice, and you’re the one who said it would work.”

Somehow, she frowned even harder, punctuating it with a roll of her eyes. “I said I could give you wings, I didn’t know—I’ve never done this before, okay? Blaming me because you can’t get it up is—” She took a deep breath and pushed it out. “This isn’t going to get us anywhere.”

“You know what, you’re—” Eliot wanted to be angry, but he didn’t have the energy. And honestly, she was right. Being a dick wasn’t going to get them any closer to Quentin. “I’m sorry, okay? Just… tell me what you think I should do and I’ll do it.”

The tense line of Alice’s body slowly started to relax. “Well, it’s going to take me a while to calculate the distance. And work out the other spells we’ll need to keep you safe. And then figure out what the hell we’re going to do if Quentin’s actually… you know. Up there. So while I do that, maybe just try to get them to… do something. Exercise. You know.”

Eliot tried to not shudder at the word. At least this exercise wouldn’t involve actually having to visit a gym. He hoped. God. “Of course,” he said with a sigh.

Navigating out of the classroom with his brand new twenty-foot wingspan was a challenge all its own. Without any control over his feathery appendages, he had to magic them as close to his body as possible to fit through the doorway. Eliot levitated himself out onto the lawn and stood in the sea of green all alone for a very long time. The star flickered overhead, it seemed, in time with his own pulse. Like his heart had up and jumped out of his body and pinned itself to the sky.

Eliot cracked his knuckles and stretched his arms high above his head, then all the way down to the ground. He rolled his shoulders, gently, one at a time, then very carefully removed the magical enchantments he had bearing the brunt of the weight.

He immediately went down to his knees.

Goddammit.

Eliot flopped onto his belly, his wings spreading out over his back like a blanket, or a burial shroud. He pressed his body into the cool grass and shut his eyes, letting himself lie perfectly still until his pulse began to settle. It was calm down in the grass, and quiet. Everything was still. The scent of the slightly damp earth reminded him of life at the mosaic, which was a comfort as well as a torment.

Eliot breathed. He just breathed, and focused on the weight on his back, and the cold, wet grass under his skin. Just move your goddamn wings, he told himself. Move them, Waugh. They’re a part of you. You are the wings. Be the fucking wings. He repeated this over and over, a mantra and a prayer, until he could hardly stand the sound of his own voice rattling inside his head.

It started with a flutter, the tip of one wing and then the other. Suddenly, Eliot could feel them there, just a little. The whisper of a presence, like a phantom limb. There was no hope of actually lifting them yet, but he figured it was a start. He magicked himself up to his feet and used his telekinesis to outstretch each wing. Slowly, very slowly, with the magic keeping him upright and still, Eliot gave them a single triumphant flap.

He choked down the urge to celebrate, knowing if he let his magic slip for even a second he’d be eating dirt all over again. Alice had been right, he was going to have to work up his strength. So he kept on casting and flapping. It was tedious fucking work. He wanted a drink so badly he’d settle for almost anything: Mad Dog, backwash, rotgut. He turned his eyes to the sky and focused on the gently pulsing star.

You sacrifice for people you love.

After more than an hour of this hell, Alice joined him on the lawn and tossed him his shirt.

“How the hell am I even supposed to get dressed with these things?” he asked before remembering: Right. Magician. He sliced open the shirt with a couple tuts and then mended it back together around the wings.

“So,” Alice said, watching him tuck in his shirt. “I was right. The star isn’t in space. It’s in the stratosphere.”

“How far away is that?”

“It starts about six miles up, but I think Quentin—” She swallowed, took a breath. Eliot watched her with his chest aching. “I think the star is more like fifteen.”

“I don’t know how I’m ever supposed to fly fifteen miles with these limp dicks on my back.” Eliot sighed. Suddenly, he felt very, very foolish. “Did you figure out what we’re going to do if he’s really up there?”

Alice gave him a hard look. “We’re going to build a golem.”

Eliot could feel his magic starting to slip. He had to cast again quickly to keep from going sideways. “Why can’t we just do that now?”

“Because if we’re not absolutely certain it’s him, I could end up ripping his soul out of somewhere that really wants to keep it. And I don’t know what that would do. He might never get to rest.”

A cold sting pierced Eliot’s heart. “What if I get up there and I’m still not sure?”

“I don’t know,” Alice said. “We’ll worry about that when we get there.”

—

It took an entire week of near-constant training for Eliot to build up his strength enough to support his wings without the assistance of magic, another week after that before he could use them to get off the ground without cheating and casting a levitation spell. It was sort of incredible, he had to admit, how each day he could feel them becoming a part of his body a little more. After three whole weeks of dawn-to-dusk flapping, Eliot’s wings felt strong—there were certainly more muscles on his shoulders now than there had ever been anywhere on his body ever—and he could fly all the way up to the roof of the student commons and down again as easily as taking a leisurely stroll.

He and Alice stayed mostly sober, though they did slip up one night and get drunk on Chianti at dinner. After, they sat outside under the light of the moon, oversharing stories of good times with their favorite little nerd king.

“Are you okay with, you know…” Eliot said after a lull, watching the maybe-Quentin star twinkling high above. “Me and him.”

“No,” Alice said, in a tone that was soft and hard all at once. “But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it. He was his own person—is his own—you know what I mean.”

Eliot told her about the mosaic then, in broad and broken strokes. It was hard to get the words out, but he helped her to understand enough. When he had no more words left to give, she cried quietly on his shoulder. Eliot was crying too, powerless to fight it. After that, they decided to call it a night.

The next day, Eliot flew high enough for the buildings on the campus below to look like little wooden toys, and he lost sight of Alice completely. “I think I’m ready,” he said when he landed, drunk on adrenaline and maybe a little lightheaded from the altitude.

Alice’s brows knitted together. “You’re sure?”

“As sure as I’m ever going to be,” he said. “Watch this.”

Eliot took flight again. Moving his wings now felt almost easier than moving his arms, the great expanse of them like twin sails propelling him steadily upward. It was exhilarating beyond belief, nothing like levitating at all. Better than the rush of really good cocaine or mediocre sex. His feathers caught the wind in a practiced dance, the air on his skin like a lover’s caress. When he’d reached a hundred feet or so, Eliot swooped into an elaborate barrel roll and began to dive back down in one swift movement. The weeks on end of feathery jazzercise had paid off. He didn’t think he’d ever felt more powerful.

Eliot did a somersault before landing just because he could.

They made plans for him to go up the very next day. Naturally, this meant they woke to a torrential downpour that didn’t let up for a full seventy-two hours. They spent the time mostly moping and feeling miserable. Eliot took a lot of naps, on his belly on his bedroom floor, with just about every last comforter and pillow in the Cottage piled underneath him. He pointedly refused to refer to what he had created as a nest.

The morning the clouds finally gave way to blue sky, Eliot made a light breakfast for himself and Alice before they headed outside. Navigating the kitchen with two enormous feathery limbs on his back wasn’t the simplest task, but he’d gotten better at tucking them in, to the point that they almost resembled a colorful cape cascading from his shoulders. The most obnoxious part was how they dragged behind him like a train. There wasn’t really much he could do about that. He was constantly having to clean the tips of his feathers, which he absolutely would not acknowledge as preening no matter how Alice insisted that was exactly what he was doing.

They ate their breakfast, they went out onto the lawn. The star seemed to be shining a little brighter today. Eliot had to physically stop himself from taking flight before they could even cast the protection spells he needed to survive the trip. Thankfully for him, Alice seemed just as anxious to get this whole thing over and done with. Casting together, they formed the protective bubble around him quickly, doubling up on everything just to be absolutely sure. If it held, Eliot’s wings would still be able to cut through the air with ease, but the temperature, pressure, and oxygen saturation around his body would remain relatively unchanged from what they were on the ground.

“Just remember to—” Alice started, but Eliot quickly cut her off.

“I know,” he said firmly. “Not to be a dick but… whatever you’re going to say, I know.”

Her face twisted with emotion for a flash, but she quickly got it under control. “Okay. But don’t be an idiot once you get up there. Only get as close as you have to… to be sure.”

He gave her a smirk, even as the sting of terror started rising in his throat. “I’ll spare you the gauche Icarus metaphor.” He laughed, Alice didn’t. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

Eliot took a deep breath, and on an exhale he spread his wings and let them catch the wind. He pushed himself up and up, clipping past the tallest trees on campus in a blink and then just… losing himself to the rush. He didn’t even register how high he had gone until he could no longer discern the sky from the ground. Nothing else mattered but this. The star grew a little larger with each furious wingbeat, and as he climbed up through the clouds that old familiar tugging in his bones grew to a full-blown chatter.

Nearer and nearer he flew. The star appeared nearly as large as the sun in his vision. Eliot lost all sense of himself, of time. He flew so close that he could hardly see the sky beyond the boundaries of the burning. There was only the magnificent, drumming light of the star. A brand new sun. A blinding, brilliant orb of pure fucking magic. That’s what it was. His magic and his soul. Eliot didn’t have to wonder now. There could be no doubt. He was being drawn to it like—forgive him the cliché—like a moth to a flame. It was Quentin Coldwater, burning as he lived, pure and fucking true.

Eliot could feel every part of him—his love, his kindness, his gentle beating heart. Every last aching bit of him strobing in the dazzling light. Eliot was aware, faintly, that his orb of protection was beginning to fizzle, one layer after the next shedding like a skin. The pressure built, his lungs began to burn. All at once, the tips of his feathers began to smolder and smoke. He couldn’t stop himself. Just a single touch, that’s all he wanted. To feel Quentin one more time on his skin.

Eliot reached out a hand. One more beat of his wings and he would be there. One more, only one. Only—

Eliot was falling, spinning out, losing all control. He was faintly aware that he was on fire, but he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t feel his wings. He could hardly feel anything at all. Not his body, not his breath. Only the air closing around him like a fist. Above, Quentin winked his goodnight, and the brilliant blue curve of the sky faded to blinding dark.

—

Eliot woke to the sun in his eyes. Alice was sitting cross-legged in the grass beside him, a grave expression painting her face.

“You got too close,” she said, her voice breaking a little. “Eliot, what the hell?”

He could only just barely hear her over the ringing in his ears. “How am I not splattered all over campus right now,” he mumbled, letting out a tremendous groan as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. He had to cast to lift his wings. That probably wasn’t a great sign.

“I cast a shield spell and broke your fall,” she said. “What happened? I thought you were going to be careful.”

Still dazed, Eliot shook his head. There was a throbbing pain emanating from his wings, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. “I don’t know, I… Alice, he…”

Alice touched his shoulder with a delicate hand. “Is it him?”

Eliot swallowed and met her eyes. “Yes,” he said. “Alice, it’s him.”

She pulled her hand away, her brows knitting tightly together. “How can you be sure?”

“I have never been more sure of anything in my life,” he said. “Not even that time I bet Margo I could seduce our Dead Languages Professor for test answers.”

Eliot didn’t have to ask if Alice believed him. He could see in her eyes that she did. “Why are your feathers all singed but not the rest of you?” she asked after he’d levitated himself to his feet.

“Must have been the magic. I don’t know.” He shrugged, brushing the grass from his pants, then casting a quick spell on his wings to keep them upright. “Doesn’t matter. Golem time?”

“You sure you don’t want to rest first? Your wings look… really really bad, Eliot.”

“I’m fine,” Eliot assured her. They were far too close to their endgame for Eliot to pause for a fucking nap. “We can deal with the hot wings later.”

“Okay then,” she said, giving him a weary look before turning on her heels. “Golem time.”

They went to the classroom where they’d stashed the remainder of Fogg’s living clay, levitating in a folding table they’d gotten from a storage closet in the hall. Once the table was set up, Eliot got to work forming the clay into the general shape of a person.

“So how is this going to work exactly?” he asked, slapping a little more clay on the table and shaping it into a foot. “Golems generally don’t, you know, work as vessels for actual human souls.”

“Well, this one’s going to,” Alice said with confidence. She was setting things along one edge of the table. Jars of shimmering liquids, a brass bowl, a few of Quentin’s belongings. His books, a stack of clothes, a hair brush. “I trusted you to do your part, now I need you to trust me to do mine.”

Eliot let that sit a moment and went back to work. The act of shaping what would in theory become Quentin’s new body felt like some sacred thing. The creation of life through love. What his weird Catholic aunt would have referred to as a sacrament. He poured every ounce of his devotion into the smooth lines of the hands, the sharp cut of the jaw, the gentle dip of the waist. When he was finished, he stepped out of Alice’s way, giving her his trust absolutely. If anyone could modify a golem spell on the fly, it was Alice fucking Quinn.

He stood off in a corner and worried his thumbnail between his teeth. He cast another spell around his wings to keep them buoyant. The way they felt now, it was like a rotten tooth. A constant, throbbing ache. He imagined, when the time came, having them severed would probably come as a relief.

Alice mixed the shimmering liquids in the bowl and said an incantation too quietly for Eliot to hear, then began anointing the clay body from head-to-foot. When she was finished, she covered the body with a long white sheet, and Eliot almost wanted to laugh. And now, for my next trick, I’ll make my dead boyfriend reappear.

When Alice began reciting the second half of the spell, Eliot could feel the room coming alive with magic. The floor trembled under his feet and the windows rattled in their frames. The lights overhead started to flicker. It all happened very quickly. Outside, there was a tremendous flash that seemed to consume the whole of the sky. For a moment, it almost felt like the end of the world.

Almost. Except for how it didn’t. Because Quentin Coldwater was coming back to life. Eliot could feel it like an electric current surging in his body. The pain in his wings had dissipated into nothing. Everything else was secondary to this. Quentin was coming back. He was coming. Quentin was—

The sheet on the table started to move.

A hush fell over the room. Eliot held his breath. Bringing Quentin back had existed as this abstract concept in his mind for weeks on end, but he hadn’t—god. He hadn’t actually expected this to work. Not the first time around, maybe not at all. Sure, he’d had giant fucking bird’s wings grafted to his shoulders, flown into the sun, caught on fire, and fallen fifteen miles straight down to Earth, nearly dying in the process, but still. Usually they had to fight a little harder for even a partial win.

The movement under the sheet stilled, and then at once it bolted upright. Eliot’s heart skipped wildly under his ribs as the sheet fell away, revealing their creation.

Quentin Coldwater in the flesh sat there with his eyes wide open, the white sheet pooling around his hips, his gaze unfixed and darting around the room. His hair stood up at wild angles. Eliot felt his legs crossing the distance, though he was only vaguely aware of being the one to do it. It almost felt like floating, like moving through a vivid dream in agonizing slow motion. Alice said something then, but to Eliot’s ears it sounded like she was speaking underwater.

When Eliot reached the table, he opened his mouth, heard something that sounded like, “Q,” falling out very softly. He took a breath, struggling to center himself back in his own body. “Hey. Can you speak?”

Quentin cocked his head to one side, eyes scanning the length of Eliot’s body. He looked so small and so confused. Eliot had to fight the urge to pull him into his arms. “Um…” he said after a long moment of silence. “Eliot…” He took a breath, and then another. The sound of his voice was the most beautiful music. “Why do you look like Zazu?”

It took Eliot a few seconds to process the words. Everything was happening so fast, and he could hardly think at all over the rush of his own pulse. The sound he made was halfway between a laugh and a sob. Something strangled and terrible that made him feel alive. And then the laughter just… wouldn’t stop. Eliot laughed until his belly ached, until the enchantment on his wings slipped and he had to cast another. Eliot laughed until he cried, the dam of every emotion he’d been suppressing for weeks on end finally giving way.

He scooped Quentin up into his arms, searing pain shooting down his spine be damned. He was so warm, so solid, so alive, Eliot didn’t think he’d ever be willing to let go. They held onto one another for a small eternity. The scent of Quentin’s body was brand new, yet entirely the same. Exactly as Eliot remembered, the deepest sense-memory of every life they’d shared together.

Alice slipped her arms around them, and Eliot could feel her crying on his shoulder, her warm tears soaking his shirt clean-through. They stayed like that for a very long time, trembling and breathing, unable to locate even a single word between them. It was like some ridiculous dream. Like something Eliot would have dreamed up in childhood. Some whirlwind escape from his hellish existence. The best feeling he could ever imagine. His birthday and Christmas and the first time a boy he really liked kissed him and meant it all rolled into one.

Eventually, with great effort, they untangled from each other. Eliot wiped at his eyes. The pain in his wings had somehow intensified, but he did his best to ignore it. Pain didn’t matter now. Quentin was alive. And not just strung up like a twinkle light somewhere they couldn’t reach. In an actual body that Eliot could feel and touch. His fingers itched at the thought.

Quentin looked between their soggy faces with confusion, parting his lips as if to speak, but saying nothing as they helped him into a pair of faded jeans and one of his soft old sweaters that Eliot hadn’t seen him wear in years.

“Are you okay?” Eliot asked when they were through. “Do you need… anything? Um… you probably have a lot of questions.”

Quentin shrugged, looking down at his own body, then back to Eliot. “I… think I’d just like to sit down.”

They walked him to the Cottage and warded the door shut behind them ten times over.

Eliot helped Quentin lower himself down on one of the couches. He and Alice shared a look, and then she turned to Quentin, worrying her hands together.

“Are you hungry?” she asked. “Or… do you want something to drink?”

Quentin gave her a soft, tired smile. “Some water would be nice, thank you.”

Alice set off in the direction of the kitchen. Eliot’s pulse picked up the moment they were alone. He lowered his body down in the open space next to Quentin, doing his best to keep his aching, mangled feathers out of the way. For a long stretch of seconds, he could hardly remember how to act. How was he even supposed to speak to Quentin now? After all this time, after so much pain, after—

“So you wanna tell me about the wings?” Quentin said, and just like that Eliot could feel himself opening to the warmth of his company. His body remembered before his brain, which lagged behind for a beat or two. But then like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into position, Eliot’s mind started to relax.

Eliot offered a little laugh. “I, um—it was a spell. How much do you remember about… where you were? Before we, um…”

Quentin’s face fell. He looked down at his hands where they were resting in his lap. “I don’t—um, nothing? We were in the mirror world and then… everything was just dark. Did I, um… Eliot, did I die?”

Shit. So much for relaxing. Eliot chose his words very carefully then. “You—not exactly?”

The look Quentin gave him was one of quiet devastation. “I don’t understand.”

“Sorry,” Eliot said, taking a breath. Where was the manual on explaining to your newly rebuilt best friend slash life partner that he’d been turned into a celestial body post-mortem when you needed it? “Um, it’s hard to explain. You were… up there.” Eliot pointed, and Quentin’s eyes tracked upward slowly.

“On the ceiling?”

“In the sky.” Eliot had to laugh, because it sounded fucking ridiculous. Even to magicians who had summoned and murdered their fair share of actual gods. “That’s why I needed the wings. To, uh, get up there. And... make sure it was actually you.”

Quentin’s brows knitted tightly together. “I… still don’t understand.”

“You were a star.” Another laugh. Their lives were fucking insane. “Well, sort of. That’s what it looked like. When you—” Eliot paused, swallowing down a sting of something terrible. “When what happened in the Mirror World… happened. That’s where you went. Up there. I don’t know how, or why…”

“Oh.” A terrible wave of realization crashed over Quentin’s face. “Am I—”

Quentin shut his mouth the moment Alice walked into the room with his water. She pressed a glass into his hands. He smiled and thanked her and drank it.

She sat down in an armchair across from them looking exhausted. “How are you feeling?” she asked, the weight of the question hanging like a fog over their heads.

“I don’t know,” Quentin said. “Tired. Uh, confused. How did I go from being a—a star... in the sky... to back in my own body?”

Eliot swallowed, staring down at Quentin’s hands, resisting the urge to touch. “We, um…” He looked to Alice and shook his head. “We…”

“We built you a new body,” she offered.

“Like, um…” Quentin’s gaze swept the expanse of his own body, studying his hands, his arms, his legs, his feet. “Like I’m a golem?”

“No,” Eliot said firmly. “No, you’re—you’re you, Q. Alice modified the spell so that, um…”

Alice pushed forward in her chair, reaching across the distance. “It’s okay, Quentin. This body is just like your old one, only—”

“I think I’d like to go lie down, if that’s okay,” Quentin cut in, suddenly on his feet.

Eliot jumped up after him, the singed tips of his feathers burning as they dragged across the sofa. “Hey, I got you,” he said, offering an arm, but Quentin recoiled at once.

“I’m fine,” Quentin said, his voice delicate, on the verge of shattering. “Thanks, I’m… I’m just really tired.”

Eliot wanted to follow, but something in Alice’s face stopped him in his tracks. He watched Quentin climb the stairs miserably. The moment he was out of sight, the pain in Eliot’s wings came surging in full force, like his whole body had been plugged into a searing-hot generator. He had no hope of sitting now, not in his current state, so he stood there wishing for the floor to swallow him whole instead.

“We need to take care of those things. Come on,” Alice said, rising to her feet. “Just… let him rest for now. He’s overwhelmed. It’s a lot to take in.”

She was already making for the door. Eliot had to bite his tongue. Quentin being overwhelmed wasn’t exactly a minor detail, considering his history. Considering what Alice had told him about those final, fateful seconds spent together in the Mirror World before Quentin had turned to confetti.

“He didn’t even try to run,” she’d said the morning after, when Eliot was finally out of the infirmary. “It was like he wanted to—”

Eliot turned his eyes back to the staircase as he followed her to the door, his pain humming an electric tune from the tip of every feather. He knew he needed to tread very delicately here, but he couldn’t shake the dread gnawing in his stomach. “Do you think it’s a good idea to leave him alone?”

Alice was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t know,” she said finally, her expression hard to read. “But if he wants to be alone—” She took a breath, visibly shaken by the weight of Eliot’s question. “I can’t think about that right now, okay? But I can help you get those broken wings off your back, so. Are you coming or not?”

“Yes,” Eliot said mechanically, crossing back to the bar and snatching up a shitty bottle of vodka at random before following Alice outside.

—

Eliot got very, very drunk in the infirmary.

He sat on the edge of one of the beds with his shirt off, watching Alice gather the things she needed for the spell. Eliot pointedly didn’t think of it as an operation, even if that’s definitely what this was going to be. The wings were a part of him now, connected like a limb in every sense, just like his arms or legs. He shuddered as Alice set up a neat little row of magical instruments on a tray next to the bed, then took another long swig of the shitty vodka before floating the bottle away and flopping onto his belly.

He hadn’t asked her how the spell—the NOT-operation—was going to be performed. He didn’t need the details. He just needed to shut his eyes and give his body over to the numb. He lay there for a long time listening to the sound of Alice mumbling to herself under her breath. He thought, absently, that he was going to miss his wings. They’d been pretty damn spectacular when they were functional, even if they’d required him to get creative when it came to jacking off over the course of three whole weeks not being able to lie on his back. And they were a total pain in the kitchen and the shower.

He’d never even gotten to peacock for Margo. He was a little bit bummed about that.

“This is… not going to be pleasant,” Alice said after a while. “Maybe we should wait until Lipson’s back.”

“You’ve already got me in bed, baby,” Eliot slurred. “No one likes a wing-tease.”

If Alice had any response to that, Eliot didn’t hear it.

The thing about having a limb severed was, alcohol didn’t really help. Or at least Eliot didn’t think it did. Although, honestly, it’s not like he would know. He still couldn’t be sure he’d passed out having the wings put on, but he was absolutely certain he did having them removed. So. Maybe the alcohol did help after all.

Whatever. There’d been a single, blinding second of soul-rending pain, and then Eliot had been swallowed up in dark. He woke several hours later to darkness beyond the windows, and a thin blanket thrown over his body on the narrow hospital bed. There was an illumination spell burning gently above him. On the tray where Alice had lined up her devices of magical torture, there now sat a jar of sober-the-fuck-up potion and a bottle of water.

Eliot was definitely still drunk. He sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed, anticipating an ache that never showed. He reached back and felt his shoulders: skin and muscle and bone. There were no scars that his fingers could discern. Strange. He’d assumed having body parts chopped off would have at least left a mark. Whatever Alice had done, she’d done it like a fucking pro.

He drank the sober-up potion and chased it with the water, then located his shirt and mended the wing-holes in the back before putting it on. He stumbled back to the Cottage under the cold spotlight of the moon. The campus was eerily quiet, its blacked-out buildings standing watch like monuments in a long-forgotten cemetery. The Cottage stood out in stark relief in the blankness, its warm and glowing windows like a lover welcoming him back home.

Eliot was still a little dazed when he went inside. The potion was still kicking in. He found Alice in the common room, reading with her feet propped up on the sectional. “Where is he?” The words fell out of Eliot’s mouth before she’d even had time to look up from her book.

“He was in the shower last I checked,” she said, marking her page with an enchantment and setting the book down in her lap. “Don’t look at me like that. He wanted to do it alone.”

Eliot resisted the urge to roll his eyes. There would be plenty of time for being bitchy after things were settled. “Did you—I mean, is he—he really shouldn’t be—”

“I hid all the razors if that’s what you’re asking.” Alice’s face was sallow, her expression brimming with contempt, and the whole thing made Eliot’s stomach ache. “You’re welcome, by the way. Getting those things off your back wasn’t easy.”

“Thank you,” Eliot said with a sigh, softening a little. He truly did appreciate the fuck out of Alice Quinn. “I promise to make you whatever gummy bear-topped monstrosity of an ice cream sundae you request to show my gratitude at a later date.”

Alice gave him a nod and went back to her reading.

Eliot fully intended on giving Quentin his privacy, at least for a little while, but when he passed by the bathroom in the upstairs hall and found the door cracked open, he wasn’t able to resist checking in. Eliot nudged the door open. Quentin didn’t budge from where he stood at the sink, dripping wet and naked, leaning forward so that his face was nearly pressed flush against the mirror.

“Hey.” Eliot stepped forward, touching Quentin’s elbow, making him flinch and pull away. “Q, what are you doing?”

The look in Quentin’s eyes was nothing short of feral. “What happened to me?” His voice quavered, high and thready and miserable. “Eliot, what—this isn’t my body. What happened to my body?”

Very slowly, Eliot snatched a towel from the rack on the wall and wrapped it around Quentin’s shoulders, soothing him gently along the slope of his back. “Why don’t you come lie down, hm? I know it’s hard right now, but—”

“No!” Quentin wrenched out of his grasp, like an animal escaping a trap. He still had that wild look in his eyes. “No, Eliot, this is… this is wrong. I’m—I’m not supposed to be—” He turned back to the sink, gripping the edge like he was going to be sick. The towel slipped from his shoulders and down to the floor, pooling around his feet. “This isn’t my body it’s fucking clay.”

Eliot’s drive to comfort Quentin had always been some overwhelming thing. He had to bunch his hands into fists at his sides to keep from reaching out again. “Q, we didn’t have a choice, okay?” Quentin didn’t look at him. He kept his eyes fixed down into the sink. “It was this or—or leave you in the fucking stratosphere.”

Slowly, Quentin raised his eyes, turned his head. His expression was enough to crumble Eliot’s knees to dust. “It’s not my body,” he said. “It’s not. It—it doesn’t feel like me.”

“Q.” Eliot took a step forward, Quentin stumbled back. “Alice did the spell work herself, okay? You know she wouldn’t—look at you.” He forced a little laugh. “You look exactly the same. Right down to that ridiculous way you cut your hair.”

Eliot gave him a smile, Quentin didn’t reciprocate.

He softened his posture, approaching Quentin as cautiously as he would a wounded animal. Quentin side-stepped and pushed right past him, snatching up his clothes from where they were piled behind the door, dressing as quickly as his shaking hands would allow. Every word Eliot tried to speak lodged itself uselessly in his throat. He watched as Quentin pulled his sweater on over his head, tears welling in his eyes.

“Maybe,” Quentin said, turning back as he stepped out into the hall. “Maybe you should have just left me there.”

Eliot stepped out after him, but Quentin was already crossing over the threshold to his room. He shut the door in Eliot’s face without another word, the lock clicking firmly behind him like a warning. Eliot could only stand there for a long moment after, feeling stunned and hollow.

He could have picked the lock with a simple flick of his wrist, but even the thought of doing so felt like some irredeemable violation of his trust.

Eliot dragged his weary body downstairs instead. He missed his broken wings. At least that was a pain that made sense, like the pad of a finger held too long to a flame. This… Eliot had no fucking clue where to put any of it. Saving Quentin was supposed to have been the hardest part.

“He’s not okay,” Eliot said, flopping down next to Alice on the sectional. “What the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

Alice was silent for a long moment before tossing her book down on the rug with a huff. “I don’t know,” she said, sounding on the verge of tears. “Do you think I’m down here brushing up on Second Year magic theory because I think it’s interesting? I don’t—” She took a breath. Eliot could feel her emotions threatening to spill over and swallow her whole. “I’m gonna go out of my mind if I think about how helpless I feel right now, okay?”

“He’s alive,” Eliot said softly, more for himself than for Alice honestly. “We have to be able to figure out what comes next. How to… keep him from falling down into that fucking pit seducing him into bed as we speak.”

They sat in silence for a long moment. Alice worked her bottom lip between her teeth, a swell of tears glistening in her eyes but refusing to fall. “You know him better than I do,” she said after a while, her gaze fixed somewhere distant.

“That’s not true,” Eliot said, lying through his goddamn teeth for no good reason. Alice knew about the mosaic. Even in the vaguest terms, she was smart enough to understand what those memories meant. “It’s not a competition.”

“I never said that it was.” Emotion pinched her voice off tightly. “But you have to know what he needs.”

The weight of her words washing over him were like an avalanche. Months, years, fucking decades of memories hadn’t prepared Eliot for something like this. If this were simply Quentin’s old friend depression beckoning him under the covers, or his anxious brain begging for a redirect—sure. Eliot could handle that. If this were a particularly hard week under the driving sun or a rainy summer pushing them to the brink of madness or a string of restless nights with Teddy squeezed in between them in their narrow bed. If this were irrational anger or bottomless sorrow or indescribable loneliness after an entire year of their bodies humming alongside one another untouched. If if if—

“He doesn’t think his body belongs to him.” Eliot slumped down in his seat, eying the bar across the room. The sober up potion had fully kicked in, and he was thinking a reversal might be in order. “Maybe we shouldn’t have told him about the whole being made in a Play-Doh factory thing.”

“He has a right to know,” Alice said. Eliot knew she was right, he just didn’t know what difference it was supposed to make. “Someone’s just going to have to talk him through it.”

Eliot sighed hard. “He doesn’t wanna talk, Alice.”

“Maybe not,” Alice said with a little quirk of her brow. “But when he’s ready… it should probably be you.”

“I don’t see why—”

“You’re the one that he wants.” The words quivered out of her chest, cutting Eliot straight to the quick. “I don’t wanna argue about it. We both know that it’s true, okay, so just… figure something out. For Quentin.”

Eliot’s skin felt paper-thin under the press of Alice’s gaze. Like she could see right down to the center. To the brilliant, secret core of Eliot’s most sacred memories. Like they were spilling out of him like a sickness. He got up and poured himself two fingers of Chivas Regal, sipped it with his back turned, puffing on a cigarette until he could no longer take the tension.

He shot back the rest of his drink and tossed the cigarette down into the empty glass. “I’ll be upstairs,” he said, not sparing a glance back at Alice as he made a beeline for the staircase.

Eliot slumped down in the hall outside of Quentin’s bedroom door, his knees drawn up to his chest. It was as good a plan as any. Eventually, Quentin would have to leave the room to take a piss, or get a glass of water. Probably. Though his mind kept racing back to the time Quentin told him that once, as a teenager, he’d stayed in bed for so long holding it in that he’d given himself a bladder infection.

Eliot pulled out his watch and looked at the time. It was 10pm almost on the nose. He decided to give it eight hours max, and then he was going in, betrayal of trust be damned.

He tried sleeping curled up outside of the door like a forgotten pet. It didn’t work. After a while he grew restless and uncomfortable and bored. He pulled a joint out of his cigarette case and lit it with his finger, blowing smoke rings up to the ceiling in the shape of hearts and stars and misshapen erections. An hour passed a little easier after that. He tried sleeping again, and this time it actually took.

Eliot dreamed he was flying, or maybe he was falling. When he woke several hours later, he couldn’t be sure of the difference. There was a horrible ache in his neck when he opened his eyes, and the distinct sensation that someone’s foot was making contact with his shoulder again and again.

Eliot rolled over with a groan. Quentin blinked down at him from where he stood looming in the doorway. His eyes were rimmed in red, hair falling wildly across his brow.

“Seriously?”

Eliot groaned again, every bone in his body snap-crackle-popping as he struggled to his feet. “Hey,” he said into a yawn. “How are you feeling?”

Quentin didn’t answer, he just turned and went back into the pitch dark bedroom, leaving the door open in invitation.

Eliot crossed the threshold and shut the door. For a moment he could only stand there, listening to Quentin shuffling around in the dark, the gentle pull of his breathing, the rustling of the covers as he slipped his body into bed.

“Are you coming or not?”

Quentin’s voice was like a light in the dark, drawing Eliot in. He crossed the distance quickly, feeling his way onto the bed and lying very close to the edge once he was in. He could feel Quentin on the other side, though he was too far away to touch. Eliot could only just barely make out the shape of his head against his pillow in the blackness.

Eliot wanted to touch him. Eliot wanted to tell him so many things. Instead, they lay there in silence, breathing. Eventually, they slept.

Eliot woke from a dreamless sleep to early morning sun streaming in through the parted blinds. Quentin was sitting up against the headboard over the covers, still dressed in yesterday’s sweater and jeans.

“Hey,” Eliot croaked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Is everything okay?”

Stupid fucking question. Quentin let the silence linger until Eliot had pulled himself up to sit beside him.

“I feel…” Quentin said finally, considering his own hands. “Like someone stitched me into a suit that’s two sizes too small.”

Eliot offered a soft smile, longing to reach out and touch. “I, uh…” he started and stopped. For weeks he’d been so focused on the Quentin of it all, he hadn’t had the space for anything else. But his heart knew what lay hidden in the shadows. A viper poised and ready to strike. “I know the feeling.”

Quentin frowned with his entire face. “You mean because of the Monster?”

“Yeah,” Eliot said very quietly. “I mean because of the Monster.”

“I’m sorry,” Quentin said, in that soft little way of his. “I…”

Eliot took a breath, choking down the sensation that he might shatter at any second. “Jesus, Q, what do you have to be sorry for?” Their eyes met in a quiet moment of understanding. “You’re the reason I’m not still climbing the walls of my happy place looking for another fucking door.”

Quentin pulled a face; Eliot made a mental note to fill him in on that particular detail when they weren’t both actively falling apart.

“I just…” Quentin looked away, a broken bit of laughter falling out of his chest. “I’m fucking terrified, Eliot.”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, wanting to reach for Quentin’s hand so badly he could taste it. “I know that feeling too.”

“How are we, um…” Quentin laughed again, a sound of pure fucking sorrow spilling out as he swiped at his eyes. “How are we supposed to live inside bodies that don’t feel like they belong to us?”

Eliot stared at him for a long time. Finally, he could no longer resist. He reached out, brushing the back of his hand down Quentin’s cheek gently. The phantom of a touch. “I don’t know, Quentin,” he said, taking his hand away slowly. “Maybe for now it’s, um… it’s enough that we just… try.”

Quentin’s lips quirked up in a sad smile. “I don’t know what that even means, El. I…”

“I know,” Eliot said, devastated and hopeful all at once. “You think I’m some sort of expert on being alive, Coldwater?”

Quentin’s laughter this time was a bit more joyous, if only for a moment. “Fifty years says you’re a hell of a lot better at it than I am.”

Eliot huffed a laugh, shook his head. “Last I checked I didn’t live those fifty years on my own.”

“Yeah,” Quentin looked away, suddenly bashful, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. “We don’t have to talk about that. I know you don’t—”

“You know I don’t what?”

Eliot’s words came out very softly. Still, he knew he had no right. Of course Quentin would think that way. After all, hadn’t Eliot told him as much? He didn’t want it, he wouldn’t choose—

Quentin shook his head. “Just forget it. This, um… this isn’t a good time to talk about… that.”

Eliot wanted to fight against his own cowardice. This was the easy way out. But he knew that Quentin wasn’t wrong. They had to proceed delicately now. If Quentin were mortally wounded, right now would be the point Eliot was just trying to get the blood to stop.

“Um, okay, so…” Eliot took a breath. “To recap: we suck at being alive, our bodies feel like enemies, and every moment we’re awake is a pure, unabashed nightmare. Did I get that right?”

Quentin sighed. “Just about, yeah,” he said, then paused, shooting Eliot a curious look. “Hey. Didn’t you have wings the last time I saw you? Or did I just make that up?”

Eliot smiled. “You didn’t. I did. But after getting Kentucky fried they were sort of useless, so… Alice gave ‘em the axe. That might be literal. I’m not actually sure where they went.”

Quentin gave him a look that said he was trying his best to process the nonsense information that was just put into his brain. “Okay… um. So…”

“So…” Eliot sighed, moving one of his hands a little closer to Quentin’s, but not daring to touch. “Is any of this making you feel any better?”

Quentin shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “Is it okay if I don’t know?”

Eliot nodded, his mouth quirking up in a smile. “It’s okay if you don’t know,” he said. “But you’ll tell me if there’s anything I can do?”

Quentin swallowed. “Yeah, um… do you think you could just sit here with me? Just, um... just for a little while.”

Eliot let his head knock back against the headboard. “We can sit here… for as long as you need to, Q. I’m not going anywhere.”

—

The next couple days were weird. As it turned out, living with your newly-resurrected best friend slash life partner and his sorta-maybe-girlfriend on an empty magical university campus was just really fucking weird. Eliot did his best to get the three of them into some semblance of a routine: waking up before noon; eating a somewhat balanced breakfast; lunch picnics on the empty lawn when the weather permitted; no drugs until after dinner and no drugs for Quentin period. It worked and it didn’t. Quentin mostly slept.

Nearly a week into their ordeal, Alice cornered Eliot in the kitchen. “Whatever you’re doing with him,” she said. “It isn’t working.”

Eliot set down the wine glass he’d been magicking dry and quirked a brow in her direction. “Whatever I’m doing?” he said. “What is it that you think I’m doing, Alice?”

“I don’t know.” She furrowed her brows in his direction. “But it isn’t enough. He spent an hour staring at himself in the mirror this morning. He barely speaks to me at all.”

Eliot resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “I know,” he said with a long, exasperated sigh. “Do you really think I don’t know that, Alice?”

She frowned as Eliot inched his way out from where she had him wedged between her body and the counter. “Have you even tried talking to him?” she asked, and Eliot wanted to scream, or throw something, or get really fucking stoned. “All he does is… sleep all day, and—”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Eliot shut his eyes. “I don’t know what else we can do. All I do is try to talk him out of bed. He needs a therapist, Alice.”

“He already said he’s not going to—”

“I know what he said!” Eliot hadn’t meant to shout. Opening his eyes, he slowly turned to face her. “I’m sorry, look… I just—I’m trying everything I can, okay? He doesn’t feel any better no matter what I say.”

A beat of silence. They shared a look that made Eliot’s heart beat faster.

“Try something other than talking,” she said firmly.

And… okay. Eliot blinked at her slowly. “Are you, um…” He let a nervous laugh slip out of his chest. “Alice are you asking me to fuck your boyfriend?”

“If that’s what it takes,” she said, shrugging so matter-of-factly it would have thrown Eliot for a loop had it not been so utterly Alice Quinn. “And he’s not my boyfriend right now anymore than he is yours. Things are fucked. We’re just going to have to deal.”

“So, um… okay.” Eliot laughed again, because what the hell else was he supposed to do? He didn’t think he’d been waiting for Alice’s permission to make some sort of move, but maybe he didn’t know himself as well as he thought. “This is going to get ten different shades of weird really quickly if you’re here for—”

“I’ll leave,” she said plainly with a little quirk of her mouth. “I’ll go to the penthouse. You can… have your privacy. To do whatever.”

“Quentin would have to consent.”

“Of course he’d have to consent.”

“Mentally, I don’t know that he’d even be ready to get dicked down with all the issues he’s having with his body...” Eliot threw his hands up. “But what the hell. I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

Later that night, after Alice had taken her things and gone, Eliot crept into the dark cavern of Quentin’s bedroom. “Hey,” he said, perching lightly on the edge of the mattress, careful not to touch. “Are you awake?”

A little groan spilled out into the dark. “I am now,” Quentin said groggily, and Eliot had to suppress a laugh.

“Will you come downstairs with me? Just for a little while.”

A beat of silence, another groan. Finally, the rustling of the covers, and the dip of the mattress as Quentin pulled himself upright. He followed Eliot downstairs with a scowl, hair sticking up at wild angles, a blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. It reminded Eliot in some far-off way of Teddy, pouting and sick with a fever, unable to be soothed no matter how his exhausted fathers tried.

Eliot had pushed all the furniture in the common room off into the corners, mounded up a huge pile of pillows and blankets into what he could now feel comfortable thinking of as a nest. The Cottage was dimly lit by the light of a few carefully placed illumination spells alone.

“What is this?” Quentin asked, still scowling, looking a little more like their son with each passing second.

“Do you trust me?” Eliot asked, turning his hands upward in Quentin’s direction.

“What kind of question is that?”

“One that I need you to answer.”

Eliot took a step closer. Quentin sighed. “Yes,” he said. “I trust you.”

“Good,” Eliot said, reaching out a hand. “Come on then. Daddy made you a nest.”

Quentin carried his blanket and his scowl with him, sitting down across from Eliot cross-legged, looking confused and miserable. “Okay, so… what are we doing in this… nest?”

“Hm, well, Quentin, now that we’ve established trust, I have another question that might clear that up for you.” Eliot gave him a smile that Quentin didn’t return. “Okay, so… do I have your consent to touch your body?”

Quentin tensed under his blanket. “Touch my body how?”

“In the way that feels good.” Eliot realized how that sounded the moment it left his mouth. He was going to have to ease Quentin into this if they were going to get anywhere at all. “Not like—I’m not talking about sex, Quentin. I solemnly swear to not touch your dick unless you ask me to. Scout’s honor.”

Eliot held up two fingers, and for the briefest of moments Quentin actually smiled.

“Okay,” Quentin said, relaxing, releasing his grip on the blanket and letting it fall from his shoulders. He was wearing nothing but boxers underneath. Eliot pretended to not be affected by this development. “That sounds okay I guess.”

Quentin added his blanket to the nest and stretched out in the middle. Eliot kneeled at his side, flexing his fingers while Quentin got comfortable, feeling the magic flowing through him steadily as a river.

“Are you going to do a spell?” Quentin asked, looking up at Eliot all soft and vulnerable, his hair spreading around his head like a halo.

“No,” Eliot said. “Just me. Just my hands. Dr. Waugh’s touch therapy is open for business.”

“That’s not actually a thing,” Quentin said with a little smirk.

“It’s definitely a thing.” Eliot smiled back. “I’m going to take your hand, okay?”

Quentin nodded, and Eliot got to work.

Not that this was work by any stretch of the imagination. Eliot slipped his fingers against Quentin’s palm and lifted his hand, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world. He started slowly, massaging little circles into his palm and the back of his hand. Quentin sighed and shut his eyes.

“Where’s Alice?”

“She went to the penthouse for a while,” Eliot said. “Just relax. Breathe. Tell me how this feels.”

Quentin shook his head. “It feels like you’re rubbing my hand.”

Eliot smiled. “Don’t be a smart ass, Coldwater. Use your words.”

Quentin made a happy little sound when Eliot pressed down with the pad of his thumb right into the center of his palm, pushing upward slowly, slowly. “It feels good.” He paused, he breathed. “I don’t know why.”

Eliot hummed. “Yes you do.”

Quentin took a breath and pushed it out. “It always feels good when you touch me,” he said, eyes flying open immediately. The blush growing on his cheeks said he hadn’t meant to say that.

“Yeah,” Eliot said, wondering if Quentin could feel his pulse racing through his hand. “It feels good when you touch me too. You know why that is, hm?”

Quentin’s body tensed again. “No,” he said with a sigh, “but I think you’re going to tell me.”

“Relax,” Eliot said, drawing out the syllables languidly on his tongue. “Don’t talk back to the doctor.”

Quentin snorted a laugh. The momentary grin that spread across his face warmed Eliot straight to the bone, the way the sun beats the Earth on the hottest day of summer.

Eliot stilled his fingers, gazing down into Quentin’s eyes. “It feels good because you’re human,” he said, very carefully. “A human with a body, and skin...”

He flipped Quentin’s hand over, cradling it in one of his own, palms upward. He took two fingers of his other hand and trailed them along the exposed flesh of Quentin’s wrist, eliciting from him a fit of laughter that hit Eliot’s heart like a narcotic.

“Not fair.” Quentin snatched his hand away, still laughing. “You know I’m ticklish there, you dick.”

“Not the only spot you’re ticklish if I’m remembering correctly.” Eliot waggled his eyebrows. “Don’t look at me like that. Doctor’s orders.”

Quentin held his hands closely to his chest, his smile fading into nothing. “Don’t do it again,” he said, sounding small, like he might shatter at any second. “Please.”

His voice made Eliot ache under his ribs. “Okay, okay,” he said with mock impatience, very gently taking Quentin by the hand again. “No more tickling. But, you know,” he laughed when the realization hit him, “I think you just helped me illustrate a very important point, Quentin.”

“Which is?”

“Your body. Your—your old body, I mean. It was ticklish in that same place.”

Quentin was actually pouting. It was so adorable Eliot thought he might cry. “And?”

“And,” Eliot drawled, gently stroking along the back of Quentin’s hand with his fingers, “If it feels the same…” Slowly, he lowered Quentin’s hand back down to rest at his side. “Then it’s yours.”

Quentin considered him quietly for a moment. “It’s like you’re begging me to argue with how flawed your logic is,” he said finally.

Eliot clucked his tongue teasingly. “Very uncooperative patient. I’m going to have to put that in your chart.”

“You know,” Quentin said, shifting a little in the nest, “everyone says I’m the nerd, but jesus fuck, El…”

Eliot grinned. “Watch it.”

He brushed a strand of hair back from Quentin’s brow, sweeping his eyes from the crown of his head down to where his feet were disappearing inside the covers. Quentin went very quiet and very still, like he was holding his breath, waiting for permission. Like Eliot’s gaze on his body made it impossible to breathe. And, fuck, if he wasn’t the epitome of every erotic fantasy Eliot had ever had from the very first moment he discovered boys way back in Indiana, he didn’t know who was. Slight yet strong, his body corded through with lean muscle. Delicate. Masculine. Eliot wanted to give him everything.

Quentin started blushing again, this time a little deeper. “What are you looking at?” he said, averting his gaze, setting his eyes somewhere distant across the room.

“Just you,” Eliot said, touching Quentin’s shoulder gently. “Is that all right?”

Eliot watched Quentin’s throat work as he swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, almost too quietly to hear. “Thought you were, um—thought you were touching me, though.”

Eliot couldn’t help but let his reaction to that show on his face. “Is it helping? When I touch you.” His hand moved from Quentin’s shoulder up to cradle the side of his neck.

“No,” Quentin said, but Eliot could see the smile wanting to tug at the corners of his mouth. “Maybe you should try a little harder.”

I could kiss you, Eliot thought. And you’d let me. I know you would. You’d let me do anything.

Eliot steadied himself, steadied his hands, trailing his open palm from Quentin’s pulse point down to the jut of his collarbone. “This body,” he said with a tremendous sigh. “Your body.”

Quentin’s skin was warm, warm, warm, and he was trembling, just a little. Eliot could feel him trying to keep his breathing slow and even.

“Your body,” Eliot repeated, trailing his hand down to Quentin’s chest. “Do you feel it?”

“I…” Quentin was itching to be a smart ass to break the tension. Eliot could feel it spilling off him like a fever. But he simply settled on: “Yes. I do.”

“Good,” Eliot said, stilling his hand in the center of Quentin’s chest. “Tell me what it feels like.”

“It feels like a hand.”

Quentin had his eyes squeezed shut. The nervous energy pulsing from his skin set Eliot’s teeth on edge.

“You’re nervous,” Eliot said very softly. “Why are you nervous, Quentin?”

“Because…” Quentin sighed, shook his head, somehow squeezed his eyes even tighter. “Because this is... weird.”

“It’s not weird,” Eliot said. “I know what your balls are going to look like when you’re eighty. This is nothing compared to that.”

Quentin snorted a laugh that Eliot felt in his whole body. “Goddammit,” he said, still laughing, still quaking with nerves. His heart was skipping like a drum under Eliot’s palm. “That’s not… really how I meant it.”

Eliot squinted down at him when Quentin finally opened his eyes. “Tell me how you meant it then.”

Quentin reached up and tucked a tuft of hair behind his ear. Even now, it was his go-to nervous gesture. Eliot loved him so much he didn’t understand how he hadn’t melted into the floor. “I just, um…” He took a breath and pushed it out. “I’m trying to not, um—god are you really gonna make me say it?”

Eliot pulled his hand away. “Does that make it easier?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Eliot offered a half-shrug. “You know, you don’t have to say it if you—”

“I’m trying not to get a boner!” Quentin yelled it to no one in particular, across the room, his face turning into the pillow cradled under his head. From what Eliot could see, his cheeks were now a burning shade of scarlet. “Oh my god. Oh my fucking—”

The laugh that slipped out of Eliot’s mouth was entirely involuntary. He couldn’t hope to stop it with all the magic in the universe. “Q, oh you poor little—”

“You don’t have to rub it in,” he said through gritted teeth, hiding his face in both his hands. “Jesus fucking fuck why did I agree to this.”

Eliot clipped his hysterics off in his throat, swallowing down another swell of laughter. Underneath, there was the roiling, hot sting of his own arousal. But this wasn’t the time for that. He ignored it entirely. “Q. Look at me.” Quentin didn’t look. Eliot placed a hand gently on his arm. “You can get a boner. Do you think I care if you get a boner?”

“Am I actually in hell right now? I’m actually in hell.” Quentin’s voice was muffled into the palms of his hands.

“Q, look at me.”

“No.”

“Q.”

“Is asking you to go away and never speak to me again an option?”

“No.”

There was a long beat of silence then. Eliot was pretty sure Quentin only took his hands away eventually because he needed to breathe. The color of his face was not unlike that of a clown caked in fifty tons of red grease paint.

“There you are,” Eliot said as tenderly as he could manage. “Q, you do still remember that other timeline where I dicked you down until we were both too old to get it up right?”

Quentin shot him an incredulous look. “I lost my body not my brain.”

Eliot held his gaze carefully, with a smile. “It’s okay if you get hard when I touch you. It’s just sort of what dicks do.”

Quentin looked down, swallowed. “I just, um—I didn’t think, you know—I just didn’t think you wanted, uh...”

“I literally told you I would touch your dick if you asked me to,” Eliot offered.

Quentin huffed a sad little laugh. “That doesn’t mean you want... me,” he said, and the look on his face was one of instant regret. “Forget it. Just… forget I said anything, okay?”

There it was again. This was certainly what Eliot deserved. A few misplaced come-ons veiled in humor weren’t going to suddenly make everything all right.

“Quentin, I flew into the sun for you,” Eliot offered, even if it wasn’t technically correct. It sounded cool as shit.

“That’s not technically correct,” Quentin said.

He was such a brat. Eliot thought he felt himself falling in love just a little deeper, somehow.

“Still,” Eliot said. “You think I’d do that for just anyone?”

Quentin answered with a little shrug, looking away again.

“Look, I know we have enough emotional baggage to fill every carousel at JFK, and this definitely isn’t the time for unpacking any of it, but—” You can fly into the sun, you can talk about your feelings, Eliot gently scolded himself. “I want… this.”

Quentin turned back to him slowly. “This?”

“You know. Us...”

“Oh.” Quentin’s voice was so small, it was like it had up and floated away. “Okay. Um…”

Jesus. “I’m sorry. I was just trying to help, and instead I…” Eliot sighed, utterly exasperated with himself. “Dredged up the sludge at the bottom of the Gulf of Repressed Emotions. So. Opposite of helping.”

“No, that—” Quentin touched Eliot’s knee, and their eyes came together again. “Do you wanna keep touching me?”

That brand new point of contact made Eliot’s heart take off like a rocket. Touching Quentin was one thing. Something that Eliot could control, an experiment in willpower perhaps. But to be touched by him? It drove Eliot’s skin to the brink of madness, even with the fabric of his pants between them. It was all he could do to control his face long enough to smile.

“Only if you want me to,” he managed to say, his voice almost steady.

Quentin nodded, offering Eliot a small smile of his own. “I want you to,” he said, shutting his eyes and taking the warmth of his hand away.

There had been very few instances of Eliot feeling virginal in the years between actually having his cherry popped in backwater Indiana and this moment kneeling on the floor next to Quentin. Sexually, he’d done just about everything humanly possible—and a few things technically not—and he wasn’t exactly shy about going for what he wanted. He understood how to make men beg and quiver and come on command. Eliot didn’t get weird or nervous about it. Sex was natural and he was a fucking blackbelt.

But when he pressed his hand to Quentin’s chest this time, fluttering the pads of his fingers over Quentin’s nipples and making him gasp—a fleeting, whisper of a touch—it was impossible to keep himself from shaking. It felt like the first time, like he didn’t understand what to do with his body. It was thrilling and terrifying and he would have felt pathetic for it were Quentin not doing some truly incredible things with his mouth, making Eliot’s mind go momentarily blank. His lips parted when Eliot pushed his hand a little lower, curving it over his ribcage. Eliot swallowed, tried to get his tongue to work.

“Feel it, baby, feel—” God. Eliot had to remind his lungs to breathe. “Feel your body. Feel me.” Eliot’s hand tracked lower. He couldn’t keep it from trembling and he knew that Quentin could feel that if nothing else. “Just… let go.”

It was like he’d commanded it. Eliot’s hand fluttered over Quentin’s belly, and already the front of his boxers were starting to tent. Quentin had his eyes screwed shut, bunching up the covers into his fists, arching up into the touch. Sure, Quentin could be a nerd sometimes—most of the time—but he was so sexy Eliot thought he might actually die.

Eliot’s hand wandered lower, lower. He skipped right past the waistband of Quentin’s boxers, skimming down over his thigh and lower still, over the curve of his knee, down to his ankle, stopping, giving it a squeeze. “Tell me what you’re feeling, Quentin,” he managed to push out, sounding almost composed. “Tell me…”

“Godfuck,” Quentin pushed out quickly, punctuating it with a laugh as Eliot began moving back up his leg. “It’s like—like… the first time I went to Fillory. The way the air felt on my skin. Like everything was turned up to a thousand.”

Eliot’s fingers crawled slowly over Quentin’s knee. “Interesting,” he purred, pointedly ignoring his own dick growing hard between his legs. “Are we… extra sensitive in this brand new body?”

“Fuck,” Quentin breathed out slowly, tossing his head back as Eliot’s fingers crept slowly up under the leg of his boxers. “Fuck, god. I’m—yeah. Jesus, it’s like no one’s ever touched me before.”

Quentin’s skin bordered on scalding. Like a little fire. Like a star, burning, burning. Eliot dared, for a single, fleeting moment, to push up, up, up, nestling his palm right in the space where Quentin’s thigh curved into the rest of him. The space where the fire that was his body burned the hottest. A radiant blue-white flicker of a flame. So close, so close…

Quentin gasped, his hips canting up into the contact in the split second before Eliot pulled his hand away. “Eliot,” he breathed. “Eliot, jesus, Eliot—you can’t—you can’t just—”

Eliot hid how utterly ruined this entire ordeal had made him underneath a fit of laughter. “Sorry, baby,” he said. “Another ticklish spot, hm?”

“Not just that. Not just—” Quentin took a single shuddering breath. “When you said you would touch my dick were you being serious?”

Quentin’s hands immediately went to his face. Eliot sat back on his heels, running the straps of his suspenders through his hands in an utterly futile attempt at grounding himself. Eliot was gone, gone, gone…

“Shitsorryfuck,” Quentin mumbled, angling his body away. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“I was serious,” Eliot said firmly, before Quentin could spiral again. “I’m…” He slowly placed his hand on the curve of Quentin’s hip, making him flinch. “God, Q, you don’t have to hide from me.”

After a long moment of silence, Quentin tossed his hands down at his sides. His face was back to burning that ridiculous shade of scarlet. “I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t know why I’m acting like a—a pathetic virgin right now.”

“Well, I mean—” Eliot couldn’t help but laugh. “This body is brand new.”

Quentin groaned, scrunching up his face. “El…”

Eliot trailed two fingers up along the curve of Quentin’s waist, making him shiver. “Which means technically I think you’re asking me to pop your cherry right now.”

Eliot didn’t think Quentin was in the best headspace to be having a sexual encounter. Still, he knew Quentin would just sulk back to his dark bedroom and jerk himself off if Eliot didn’t do it for him. And Eliot very much wanted to do it for him.

Quentin pulled another face, but at least he wasn’t hiding anymore.

“Okay,” Eliot said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. This doesn’t have to be weird. We—we’ve fucked before, in this timeline even. And I’m basically a sexual scholar, so… just tell me what you want and I’ll do it. If you want me to eat your ass or suck you off or give you a hand job or—”

Quentin moaned out something that sounded like, “Oh my god,” and it took Eliot a second to register one of his hands pressing down between his legs, like he was absolutely desperate to take a little of the edge off already.

“Okay, so…” Eliot was still clinging tightly to his mask of control, even though his voice was quaking. “So that’s definitely working for you then.”

“Eliot, jesus—” Quentin threw his free hand over his eyes, his whole chest dappled with the same scarlet blush as his face. “God, this is so embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” Eliot said very softly, his pulse thumping like a bass line all along the column of his throat. “Can you do something for me, Quentin?”

Quentin made a sound that Eliot chose to interpret as a yes.

“Quentin…” Eliot swallowed, giving himself a moment. He was absolutely sure no one in the history of people had ever been as hot as Quentin was right then, blushing and quivering and on the verge of blowing his load all over himself. “Quentin, sweetheart. Take your hands away. Both of them. Please.”

Slowly, Quentin peeled his hands away from his body and bunched them into fists at his side. He stared up at Eliot like he couldn’t find the words, like he couldn’t even form them if he tried. Lips parted, eyes wide, his hair sticking up in wild tufts. Eliot soothed a hand along his brow.

“Fuck, Q...” Eliot croaked. “Look at you…”

“I look ridiculous,” Quentin said with a laugh and a shake of his head.

“No.” Eliot took a deep breath and slowly let it out. “You look like—fuck.” He laughed, an aching little sound. “I know you can see how hard you’ve got me right now, Q.”

Quentin whined, his eyes sliding from Eliot’s face to down between his legs. Eliot watched his throat work as he swallowed.

They breathed together for a moment. “You wanna feel it?” Eliot asked finally, with a smirk. “You wanna feel what you do to me, baby?”

Another whine, but Quentin punctuated it with a nod this time. Slowly, he raised his hand, and Eliot took it, gently pressing it to where the line of his dick was tenting the front of his pants. He couldn’t help the groan that bubbled out of his chest the moment the heat of Quentin’s palm curled around him. The hunger in Quentin’s eyes was a palpable thing, choking. Eliot thought he might drown.

Suddenly, Quentin was just… on him. Rolling over, practically draping himself in Eliot’s lap, nearly knocking him over in the process. Eliot had to brace himself with one hand pressing into the mound of blankets, the other pawing at Quentin’s hair.

“Q, Q, Q, jesus, Q—” Quentin was mouthing at the head of his dick through his pants like he’d been starved. Eliot’s whole body started quaking in response. He knew if he let himself lose control, he’d pop like a party favor in about ten seconds flat.

Eliot managed to tug him back by the hair gently. Quentin could only gaze up at him with desperation in his eyes, a question, a plea. He looked—god. He looked fucking feral, and given what Eliot was attempting to accomplish here, he wasn’t sure if that was actually a good thing.

“Baby.” Eliot stroked Quentin’s burning cheek softly. “Baby, I know—jesus. Look at you. God, you’re so fucking—can you sit back for me? Just for a minute?”

The whimper that Quentin let out would have been pathetic were it not so unbelievably hot. Eliot was pretty sure he’d already slipped into that pseudo-subspace he’d sometimes find himself in when they were together. Or rather, when they’d been together in that other life at the mosaic. There were dozens of faded, partial memories: Quentin on his knees; Quentin lying on his back, gone entirely non-verbal with his mouth hanging open, begging with his eyes and his body to just… be used. For Eliot to take control and take him out of his head for an hour or a night.

Which was great. Eliot fucking lived for those moments. But right now, he really needed Quentin to be present.

He took Quentin by the shoulders and helped him sit back on his heels. Eliot brushed his hair back, gently cradled his face. “Hey,” he said softly. “I know what you want, Q. I know… and we’ll—we’re gonna get there, okay? One day soon. But right now… I need you to be here with me. Here in your body. Do you understand?”

Quentin nodded, his dark eyes locked on Eliot’s eyes. Eliot didn’t entirely believe him, but he figured it was a start.

“Good.” He smiled, thumbing at Quentin’s bottom lip. “You know what I wanna do, Q? Hm? I wanna kiss this pretty mouth. What do you say?”

Quentin answered by whining again, turning his face upward, mouth hanging open in invitation. Eliot quirked a brow, moving hands back to his shoulders to keep him steady.

“Let me hear you say it, Q. Let me hear you—”

“Kiss me,” Quentin croaked, his voice breaking off at the end. He swallowed, tried again. “Kiss me, please. El, please. Kiss me, touch me—”

Eliot couldn’t be sure who moved first, but they were on each other in less time than it took to draw in a single breath. Quentin ended up on his back again, this time with Eliot settled in between his legs. Quentin moaned into his mouth and wrapped his legs around Eliot’s middle, drawing him in with two hands pressed firmly to his back, groping at his shirt, the straps of his suspenders.

Eliot broke the kiss and went for Quentin’s neck, his dick so hard he thought he might pass out from lack of blood to his brain. Quentin bucked his hips upward, desperate for a little friction, and for a moment Eliot couldn’t breathe.

Eliot dragged his teeth along the line of Quentin’s throat, drawing a moan from deep in his belly. “Yes,” he breathed. “Yes, fuck, bite me. Eliot, please. Bite me, I want it, I—”

Eliot pulled back just a little, gazing down into Quentin’s eyes. “Hey. Hey. Relax.” He drew out the word, punctuating it with a laugh. “You’re feeling it now, hm? Everything…”

Quentin nodded. “Yes,” he said, letting an aching groan slip out from between his lips when Eliot rolled his hips, dragging their erections together through all that pesky fabric. “Jesus, El, please—please will you fuck me?”

Eliot smirked, giving Quentin’s mouth a quick peck. “I will,” he purred, nuzzling into the side of his nose. “But not tonight.”

The self control it took to say no to sinking into Quentin Coldwater’s tight, warm, eager body right then was truly next level. Eliot probably deserved an award, a medal of valor, maybe a commemorative plaque on a bench in the quad. He sat back on his heels and Quentin reached for him with greedy hands, his legs still slung up over Eliot’s hips.

“Take your clothes off,” Quentin huffed, as bratty as it was just purely fucking horny. Eliot had to laugh.

He ran his hands down along the straps of his suspenders, snapping them playfully against his torso. “Thought you liked me in these, hm?”

“I do,” Quentin whined, then laughed. “The suspenders are—they’re fucking hot. But… I want…”

“I know,” Eliot said softly, running a hand down Quentin’s quivering belly. “I know, baby. God… you’re a fucking wet dream come to life, you know that?”

“Shut up.” Quentin averted his gaze for a moment, and Eliot could see he was itching to hide again.

“It’s true. Fuck, you’re so fucking hot.” He ghosted his hand over Quentin’s dick through his boxers. “I have an idea. How I wanna make you come. You wanna hear it, pretty boy?”

Quentin made an impatient sound. “Does it involve you putting your dick inside me?”

Eliot clucked his tongue. “Not what the doctor ordered tonight, I’m afraid. No, baby, see... I wanna edge you. Just using my hand. See how long we can make it last before you pop.”

Quentin actually laughed at that. “I’m gonna come like the second you touch my dick, so… good luck with that.”

Eliot’s fingers played along the waistband of Quentin’s boxers. “I always did like a challenge. How about you help me get these off, hm?”

Quentin only protested a little. It wasn’t long before he was lifting his hips and maneuvering his body just so to get them down. “It’s not fair that you’ve got all your clothes on,” he said, once he was settled back down. Eliot had shoved a couple pillows under his hips, getting the angle just right, his legs spread wide with Eliot settled in between them.

“Maybe I’m hoping to leave a little something to the imagination,” Eliot purred, dragging two fingers along the underside of Quentin’s thigh. “God, you’re pretty.”

Quentin spread his thighs a little wider. “And you’re a tease,” he said, tossing his head back, exposing the tempting line of his throat.

Eliot hummed. “Just you wait.”

He set his focus firmly down between the V of Quentin’s open legs, where his cock was angry and red and leaking all over his belly. All slick and pretty and perfect. He didn’t actually have a thing for fucking virgins—and found the whole concept of virginity to be boring archaic heteronormative garbage if he were being honest—but the idea that Quentin was now technically in a body that had never been touched by another human being other than himself was driving him out of his mind. This had started as an exercise in making Quentin feel present and whole in his body, and apparently was going to end with Eliot crumbling to pieces over getting to do just that.

He was fine with it. Quentin’s dick was so pretty he could die. The perfect size for his hand, more slight and delicate than his own, but still enough to be a mouthful when he took him to the root. And he always got so goddamn hard it was unbelievable, like he was always right on the edge of coming. Being so touch-starved and sensitive now certainly wasn’t helping. Eliot ran two fingers slowly up the underside, and Quentin pressed up into the contact, groaning when Eliot pulled away a second later.

Before Quentin could protest further, Eliot gave him his entire hand. He was so slick there was no need for spit or lube or a spell to get things going. Eliot stroked him once, fully from root-to-tip, twisting his wrist just-so, running the pad of his thumb over his glans in the exact way that drove Quentin out of his fucking mind. He could feel his heart beating frantically as wings, like he might just up and take off at any second. He whimpered, bucked his hips, bunching the covers into tight fists. Eliot stroked him again, and once more.

It wouldn’t have been an exaggeration to say that Quentin’s whole body was quaking then. A bone-deep, aching rumble from within. A guttural sound ripped out of his throat, something feral, something animal. “I’m gonna—fuck. Eliot, I’m gonna—”

Eliot tore his hand away. Quentin’s eyes were screwed up tight, his head thrown back, his hips still working on instinct, chasing his pleasure. His dick thwacked against his belly, and Eliot bit back a sound of his own, some needy little thing clawing at his throat. His own dick was throbbing between his legs, but he swallowed down the ache. This wasn’t about his own admittedly very urgent need to bust a fucking nut already. This was about making Quentin feel alive.

He soothed a hand along the curve of Quentin’s knee. “That’s it, baby boy. Oh, you’re so fucking good for me. Just breathe. That’s it…”

Quentin opened his eyes, his chest heaving with the force of his breath. “Do it again,” he demanded softly. “Eliot, goddammit, I…”

Eliot laughed, dragging his fingers through the pre-come pooled on Quentin’s belly, then bringing it to his lips to taste. He moaned around the stretch of his fingers, pulling them free with a slick pop. “If I do it again,” he said a moment later. “You’re not allowed to come. Not until I say.”

Another whine. “El.”

“Not. Until. I say.” Eliot’s words were firm, but he couldn’t hope to keep the softness from his voice. Quentin pulled a face, Eliot had to smirk. “Don’t be a brat, Coldwater.”

Quentin groaned. “You’re the worst.”

“We can stop if you’re not actually enjoying this, you know,” Eliot said, just to get a rise. Quentin fucking lived for these moments under Eliot’s hands. For blushing and squirming and begging to come.

“If you stop I’ll literally never speak to you again.”

Eliot let that sit a moment, sweeping his eyes over Quentin’s blushing body. Just… drinking the sight of him in like it was his only hope for salvation. He pulled Quentin forward on the pillows a little, keeping one hand firmly on his hip and finally relenting with the other, giving Quentin what his body was begging for with every breath. For a moment, Eliot felt like he might have been having an out of body experience, the exact opposite of the thing he was trying to give Quentin, but whatever. He was so slick and hard in Eliot’s hand. He whimpered with every little stroke. Eliot’s touch was almost feather-light, but for Quentin it was more than enough.

Quentin’s thighs began to quiver, and Eliot could feel him teetering on the edge. So close he was practically there. His whole body was lifting up off the blankets, almost like he was levitating. Eliot took him one step further, giving him one final stroke, feeling the moment he was about to explode before taking his hand away.

Quentin sobbed and tossed his head back in frustration, the tiniest spurt of come streaking his belly where it came to rest. He was biting at his bottom lip, one arm slung over his eyes, his whole body red and quivering, his dick so hard it looked painful.

“Good boy,” Eliot squeezed both of Quentin’s hips between his hands, moving them up along the curve of his waist. “Oh, you’re so perfect. I would do this for hours if you’d let me.”

“Oh my god,” Quentin cried, his voice small and pleading. He pulled his arm away from his eyes and set his gaze firmly on Eliot. “It’s too much, El, I can’t. I…”

“But you’re doing so good for me, beautiful boy.” Eliot’s chest swelled with so much love. Raw and utterly exposed, Eliot wanted to give him his heart. “Tell me how it feels.”

“It feels like it’s too much,” Quentin said, a little bratty, a little playful, a little desperate.

“It’s not too much though, is it?” Eliot beamed, moving his hands down to Quentin’s thighs. “I think… I wanna hear you beg me for it, baby.”

A sound of pure agony fell out of Quentin’s chest. “Please,” he said, the word simple and clipped. Like he was planning on making Eliot work for the rest.

“What’s that?” Eliot purred, slowly massaging Quentin’s balls in one hand, teasing his fingers along the strip of skin below. “Gonna need you to speak up, sweet boy.”

He teased his thumb up along the underside of Quentin’s dick, massaging quick little circles into the glans until Quentin’s hips started to work, animal noises bubbling up in his chest. “Pleasepleaseplease,” he babbled. “Please. Iwantiwant…”

“Oh, you pretty thing.” Eliot took his touch away, began the work of lowering himself down to his elbows, kissing his way along Quentin’s inner thigh. “What do you want, hm? Use your words…”

“El." Quentin reached for him, getting fingers in his hair, giving it a little tug. “Why do you want me to die?”

Eliot let a silent laugh roll through him, nuzzling into that sensitive little space where Quentin’s thigh met his groin. “This isn’t your death, Quentin,” he said very softly, punctuating the words with a press of his lips. “This is the part where you come back to life.”

Another whine. Quentin pulled his hand away, tossing it down at his side in frustration. “I just wanna fucking—jesus, El, just make me come. Please.”

Eliot nosed a path up to Quentin’s belly, pointedly pressing kisses all around the space where his dick was resting. “Well,” he said, caging Quentin in with his arms, teasing him with his breath. “Since you asked so sweetly. How about I give you a special treat?”

“Eliot.”

Eliot flicked his tongue out and licked a soft stripe from mid-shaft all the way up to the slit. Quentin reached for Eliot’s hair again, using both hands this time, greedily trying to move him down on the head of his dick. It was so fucking hot Eliot could hardly breathe. He started begging again, babbling something that might have been a curse or might have been praise. Eliot didn’t care. He was tired of this game.

He took the head of Quentin’s dick into his mouth and moaned around it, propping himself up with one hand while stroking along his shaft with the other. It was over before you could even call it anything resembling a blowjob. Quentin’s dick jumped against his tongue, spurting hotly as he sobbed, pawing at Eliot’s head, his neck, his shoulders. He came so hard and for so long, Eliot didn’t understand how he still had anything left to give. He held Quentin in his mouth until he’d started to go soft, swallowing down every sweet drop like it was some precious elixir.

Quentin lay very still when Eliot pulled away, his chest working quickly as a piston as he drew air deep into his lungs. They were quiet, Eliot gently pulled the pillows out from underneath his hips and started to undress. Quentin needed skin-on-skin. Eliot knew it in his bones. He shrugged his suspenders off, and just as he was working open the buttons of his shirt it was like a switch had been thrown. Quentin’s whole body was wracked with sobs. The dam had finally burst.

Eliot made quick work of his shirt, tossed it away, and lay down next to Quentin. He pulled him into his arms, tucking his head under his chin. “Oh, that’s my boy,” he whispered softly, soothing circles into Quentin’s back. “You’re so good for me. That’s it. Just let go, sweetheart. I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Quentin cried himself out in Eliot’s arms. No more words passed between them. They had no need of any. Eliot understood the language of his body and his heart completely.

Finally, when he had no more tears to give, Quentin rested. Quentin slept. Eliot pulled up some of the covers from their nest and wrapped their bodies up tightly together. He didn’t sleep much, but he tried. Mostly, Eliot lay awake listening to Quentin’s breath, his happy little snoring sounds, feeling the warmth of his skin, pressing kisses into his hair. Whispering softly with the language of his hands, you’re alive, you’re alive, you’re alive.

—

Quentin woke at sunrise, his mouth finding Eliot’s throat before his eyes had even opened. Eliot went pliant under the press of his tongue, letting him explore. Quentin sucked kisses from his collarbone down to the rise of his hips, a little smile tugging at his mouth as he undid the front of Eliot’s pants.

Quentin stripped him bare, and sucked him off with a ravenous hunger, making happy, needy little sounds as Eliot pulsed against the curl of his tongue.

After, Eliot got Quentin off with nothing more than two slick fingers moving inside the heat of his body.

They collapsed into a heap when they were through. Neither of them moved for a very long time.

Eventually, they pulled themselves out of their nest long enough to take a shower and brush their teeth. After, Eliot left Quentin in a warm, happy bundle on the floor while he portaled into the city for breakfast.

They spread a blanket out on the lawn and stuffed themselves with bagels smeared with too much cream cheese, making eyes at each other over paper cups of coffee. When their bellies were full, they lay on the blanket side-by-side and watched the overcast sky, holding hands, their bodies pressed together from ankle-to-shoulder.

“So,” Quentin said after a long stretch of silence. “What was it like having wings?”

Eliot looked to him and smiled. “Like having a peacock’s ass strapped to my back 24/7.”

“I don’t know.” Quentin smirked. “They looked pretty badass from what I got to see of them.”

“Yeah,” Eliot said, turning his gaze back to the sky. “I did make a fabulous bird. But going extra crispy there at the end was so not daddy’s style.”

Quentin laughed softly. It made Eliot’s chest ache and burn with unfathomable love.

Another beat of silence. “Thank you,” Quentin said finally, softly. “For, you know… saving me from… whatever the hell that was.”

Their heads turned at the same time, eyes coming together in the filtered morning light. Eliot leaned in and pecked a kiss to Quentin’s forehead, shutting his eyes as they nuzzled together.

“Tell me how you’re feeling now,” Eliot said. “If the answer is ‘like shit’ I promise you don’t have to lie to make me feel better.”

Quentin pulled back. He looked at Eliot in silence for a long moment. “I’m…” he started and stopped, smiling in a way that wasn’t entirely happy, but not miserable either. “I don’t know. But when you’re, um… when you’re touching me, I feel like a person. So I guess that’s not a terrible start.”

Eliot kissed his forehead again, then the tip of his nose. Finally, his mouth. They curled together, kissing and touching softly. When they finally parted, and were halfway to dozing all tangled up together, Eliot said, “Whatever happens, Q, I’ll be here. I just want you to know that I—I just really fucking...”

Eliot let his voice trail away. Words were just so goddamn hard, bordering on impossible. Even now, with so much love and devotion pumping in his heart.

Quentin nuzzled into his neck, let out a happy sigh. “I know,” he said, his fingers gripping the back of Eliot’s shirt. “You don’t have to say it.”

“I wanna say it.” He pressed a kiss into Quentin’s hair, so in love he thought he might burst. “I want you to know…”

“But I do know.” Quentin pulled back to look deep in Eliot’s eyes. “Don’t be an idiot, okay? We’re taking this one day at a time.”

Quentin leaned up, and kissed his forehead, and then tucked himself back under Eliot’s chin. And Eliot pulled him closer, and shut his eyes, losing himself to the gentle rhythm of Quentin’s living, beating heart.