Chapter Text
#
Quentin was born marked.
His parents didn’t know how to feel about it, neither of them having soulmarks themselves. They never really expected their child to have one. As time passed however, it sometimes made them feel better than someone out there would be connected to their child in a way that they wouldn't ever get close to managed.
#
Quentin never gave his soulmarks much thought. They were just there, he couldn’t remember ever being without them so it never felt like a big deal the way it was for someone who had witnessed them appear.
Julia had always been much more into them than he ever was. She found the entire thing fascinating, wondering about the how and the why of them being possible in the first place, craving answers she couldn’t find. Both of them had more than one soulmark. It wasn’t that rare – people having two or three marks – but it wasn’t exactly common either.
They knew already that they had each other’s soulmark. Julia’s mark on Quentin was along his ribs, on his right side her handwriting clear. His mark on Julia was on her collarbone, slightly slanted. They had spoken each other’s words as kids, and felt the connection settle the first time they touched. Both of them felt the soulbond steady itself as they grew.
Finding each other had been like finding something he didn’t know he could have in the first place, yet suddenly feeling like it had been necessary. Quentin and Julia had been close to inseparable after that first meeting. Everything had seemed so easy then.
Everyone expected their relationship to become romantic – even Quentin expected it somehow – yet it never really happened. He had been confused about it in high school, like most people who knew about them carrying each other marks. He was pretty sure Julia was too. They felt plenty toward each other – Quentin was half in love with her for most of his high school years – but somehow it never really quite went past being half in love.
They did love each other but they weren’t fully in love with each other, not in the way people expected them to be. Some parts of Quentin almost resented Julia for that. It was hardly her fault – he knew that of course - but he wasn’t quite logical about it. At his worst, when his brain would just freeze and break for a while, he was even angry with her for doing ok. But never quite as angry as he was at himself though, especially when he stupidly felt betrayed when she started to date James in college.
James wasn’t Julia’s other soulmark - which was good, because even though Quentin grew to like him well enough, he was pretty sure he didn’t like him that much. He had always hoped he would like Julia’s other soulmark. When they were kids, they had been so sure they would both like the other soulmark, because they would be important too, even if Quentin and Julia had found each other first. It seemed naïve now, that they thought they would have any control over it.
Neither of them had met their other soulmark, not in high school nor in college, and he knew Julia was starting to wonder. Some people never met their soulmarks, others just missed each other – Julia and Quentin had been lucky to find each other so soon, people kept telling them that. Quentin didn’t quite manage the stare that Julia had polished in the recent years to make people regret even opening their mouth in the first place, but he was certainly rolling his eyes at them in his mind more often than not. As if Julia and him were being greedy by hoping to meet the second one.
And yet, Quentin doubted more and more than it would work out for him. The words of his other soulmark were the epitome of pointless, as much as Julia wanted it not to be. It was only his name, with a question mark at the end, on the side of his neck, under his left ear, in an almost elegant handwriting. He hadn’t let his hair grew just to cover it, but he didn’t mind the side effect. Quentin had already heard those first words often enough, without ever feeling anything like a bond, but a part of him worried that maybe he’d missed it.
“No. You would have known if it was them.” Julia insisted. “You know you would have Q, the way we knew.”
“I didn’t touch all the people whose first words was my name Jules.”
“I knew even before we touched.” She said, and she sounded so sure. “I know our words weren’t as casual, but I knew Q. And I’m sure you would too. You did back then.”
#
Quentin never knew how to explain to her that this was what he worried about.
That maybe his brain or the meds, or both, were fucking things up. The whole feeling part of the soulmark bond, because yes he had known back then too, with Julia, but he barely remembered how that felt some days. He never found the courage to bring that subject on the table though. He kept on pretending he was doing ok, and Julia kept on acting like she believed him.
#
“Quentin Coldwater?” the guy asked, making a face as he said the words, as if the name was leaving a weird aftertaste in his mouth.
In any other circumstances, Quentin would have felt slightly insulted – though, ok, he could understand the reaction – but right now he didn’t feel anything past the strangest awe. Everything was humming with something that he couldn’t pinpoint. He frantically hoped it wasn’t the meds, stuttering something that could have pass for agreement. The guy got down on the grass – and wow he was tall – before giving him a long once over. Quentin was too stunned to bring himself to care about eventual bad first impressions. He hardly ever made good first impressions anyway.
Then, when he finally managed to put words together in a somewhat meaningful manner, he asked where he was. That seemed like the sane thing to do and Quentin really hoped he was still sane. The guy almost stopped in his track before answering casually. Quentin felt even more overwhelmed, buzzing with a new energy he hadn’t felt in years and the quiet hope than he wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating all this.
He followed Eliot around the place – that was his name, Eliot, he had to remember that. They reached a door Eliot opened before pushing Quentin inside what looked like and exam room.
“Late!” someone said loudly, and Quentin couldn’t quite process anything past the feel of Eliot’s hand pushing him toward a table with a chair still empty.
He walked toward the table, confused and sat down unable to quiet the throbbing in his mind.
#
Quentin felt a wave of relief when he saw Julia, hugging her tightly because it seemed so perfectly right for her to be here too. “She sees it too”, he told himself, “this is really happening, it’s not just in your mind!” and it made things a little bit quieter in his head. Everything around him still felt like it was pulsing with a new energy, humming, shifting into something new but Julia was there, and he wasn’t dreaming. Magic was real.
There were asked curtly to both go where they were directed and they went their separate way, leaving Quentin unable not to feel like they should have had more time.
#
Something about walking around Brakebills with Eliot and Margo felt so utterly like belonging that Quentin was left almost breathless by it all.
#
After the disaster of that spell Alice had them cast went down without him getting expelled, Quentin almost thought that things were finally going to be better.
As it tuned out, he was once again very wrong.
Julia incepted the fuck out of him and as much as Quentin pretended to be at least semi ok afterward he truly wasn’t. Or he had been, for like five seconds right after waking up, Eliot’s hand on his head, touching him lightly. It all came crashing back seconds later and brandy couldn’t help with that. No one here knew what Julia was to him, about their soulmarks, and how deep this cut truly was. Quentin wanted to throw up, or cry, or both.
“She was a mess,” Kady told him, and it struck him as weird because why would Kady care? Still, she seemed sincere. He liked Kady. “She came to help fix it. She didn’t know how bad that spell could be. I’m not saying she isn’t a bitch, but she regretted it you know? I felt like you should know that much.”
It didn’t help much but he appreciated it nonetheless.
Quentin almost wished that he could hate Julia, while at the same time he really didn’t want to hate her. Couldn’t really even when he wanted to, even as angry as he was. He had been awful with her – they had both been awful to each other. He had left her behind, belittled her love for magic because he was angry with her for leaving it behind, for moving on, for managing in the world while he could barely keep himself afloat. He had being petty and condescending. Still, he couldn’t get over what she had done either, over the mental hospital, over what his subconscious had chose as his punishment. He felt so angry he didn’t know what to do about it.
“You’re both the spider and the web.” Jane had said. She had never been so right.
He put bandages over Julia’s mark that night, knowing it wouldn’t help, or heal it, just hiding the damage. Both Julia’s mark and the skin around were bruised – it didn’t take a genius to know why. He willed himself not to cry, unable to even try to go to sleep. The idea of sleeping again felt positively nauseating.
Quentin stared at the ceiling without seeing it for most of the night.
#
Julia’s mark stayed painful and the bruises refused to heal. Strangely enough, he didn’t feel as disturbed as he expected. Despite occasional white noise and the migraines, the comforting pulse of a bond was still there, allowing him to rest.
#
It took Quentin an embarrassingly long time to realize that what he was feeling, steady, warm and strong was another bond. And by “an embarrassingly long time” Quentin truly meant that it had taken some gruff magician from South Brakebills to more or less spell it out for him.
Truth was, he had been trying to forget. About Julia. About what happened, about their bond, about all the anger he carried with him. About his father, about his own flaws. Who left their soulmark behind, in pain and loss, the like he did? Assholes that was who. Then again, who would incept their soulmark to the point of potentially trapping them in a nightmarish world of their own making forever?
Maybe this all just proved how well he and Julia fitted together.
He should have realized, looking back on it, that the occasional white noise and migraines came from Julia, from their soulbond being hurt. He hadn’t even recognized the new soulbond happening, hadn’t even registered it, which was exactly what he had always feared.
“Two active soulbonds can make things harder with magic.” Mayakovsky said. “It is not only you that you carry within yourself you see – magic knows that. Neither of your soulbonds seem stable right now. ”
Quentin had no idea what face he made when he understood what Mayakovsky was talking about, but it had probably been a pretty desperate one because the magicians he had brought him in his office before ordering Quentin to show him both marks. He asked Quentin to take off the bandages as soon as he saw them.
“This is no good. Like a wound on both your souls. The bond is open still, not rejected, but it’s not right, leaking. Magic is attracted by it and repulsed by it, their energy and your energy is all screwed up. The other one on your neck is healthier, that’s why you didn’t feel the damaged one wholly, but it’s a young bond, still unsettled, can’t make up for this mess entirely.”
“You make it sound like soulmarks and magic are a linked thing.” Quentin said weakly. "Like magic is a living thing."
Mayakovsky laughed, but it sounded bitter. “Of course magic is a living thing. It even has it’s own will sometimes, regardless of how much we like to pretend we control it. Soulmarks are a part of that too, whether magicians realize it or not. You being a magician can affect your soulbonds, your soulbonds in turn can affect your magic, and you being a magician. This is not something you get to choose.”
Quentin scowled.
“Why do magicians even have those at all, the soulmarks, if they only fuck up our magic?”
The man gave him a long look.
“Not all of them have them. The soulmarks are what they are. They can make your magic weaker and they make it stronger. The bonds are always double-edged swords – like magic itself. It can make you less as much as it can make more than you ever could be your own. You’re the only ones who can choose which way it will be for you.”
#
It was pathetically easy to figure it out after that.
It barely took minutes for Quentin to get it.
Eliot.
Of course it was Eliot. Quentin couldn’t believe he’d miss it in the first place - except he could, because there had been so much that day, Fillory book six, Brakebills and magic – of course he had missed it. Exactly how he always thought he would. Julia would have been so mad – or laughed at him - he wasn’t sure anymore.
Quentin was so fucked.
#
He wondered if the bond was to blame for the low-key crush he had on Eliot probably since day one, but it felt like an easy excuse. He replayed their first meeting again and again, vaguely embarrassed by the mess of first words Eliot must have been carrying somewhere on his body. He wondered how Eliot could have been so calm about it or how much of it had been just rolling with it because he didn’t know what else could to do. Wondered how disappointing it must have been to get Quentin as his soulmark.
Quentin had never given much thought to his second mark - had probably unconsciously already given up on ever meeting whoever he was bonded to.
He hadn't expected Eliot.
#
Then there was Alice, and the foxes, and this was probably one more way the universe fucked with them a little bit more for the Hell of it. Margo had been so right about that.
#
Alice kept avoiding him – which was understandable as much as Quentin wished she wouldn’t. He liked her, genuinely liked her and for the first time he thought he understood how Julia felt when she had to explain over and over again why she was in a relationship with James despite him being unmarked. Alice was unmarked too, like James – except she was the only one in her family. She had told him during the trials – he had in turn sort of told her about Julia – and it had never seemed like a big deal to Quentin before he met her, to be unmarked.
But magicians more often than not carried soulmarks on their skin. He knew that now, yet hadn’t realized how things were for Magicians with no marks, especially in a family full of marked magicians.
She’d seen his marks, obviously, but she hadn’t asked about them, and Quentin hadn’t offered any explanations either. It hadn’t seemed important back in Brakebills South.
It seemed pretty damn important now.
#
Quentin wanted to talk to Eliot as soon as they were back.
Except he also wanted to find a way to fix things with Alice and Eliot had this guy with him – Matt or something. It was making it impossible for Quentin to just go to Eliot and say something like “I think I have your mark and hopefully you have mine too because Mayakovsky never mentioned that it was one-sided and could we please talk about it?” despite the fact that part of him really wanted to just go and do that.
#
Looking back on it, Quentin felt like he should have just gone for it. It couldn’t have turned out worse than what had happened. Penny was saved by the skin of his teeth, Eliza was very dead and so was Mike. Saying Eliot was a mess was being overly nice. Quentin wasn’t feeling particularly nice.
“You should probably try something.” Alice told him.
Things weren’t perfect between them but he was glad they had managed to settle into whatever they were now. He wasn’t clear on what was supposed to be going on, but at least they managed to talk. That was a progress. He wished he could say as much about Eliot and him.
Of course Alice had figured out that the mark on his neck was Eliot’s, because she was brilliant and didn’t need someone to spell it out for her. Unlike Quentin.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m probably the last person that can help considering I’m kind of the reason his “maybe boyfriend except maybe not there yet or whatever” is dead now.”
“You’re also the one with his mark on your skin Q. It’s unlikely that not even acknowledging that is helping either of you right now.”
“I know that!” and he truly did truly. But every time he would try to just go for it, he couldn’t help finding reasons not to go through with it. Eliot being either too drunk or too high – or a combination of both – didn’t help boost his confidence.
Quentin wished he could talk to Julia more than ever now. Her mark didn’t hurt as much as it did before, slowly healing, but things were still a far cry from what they used to be between them. He knew they weren’t ok yet – they would be in the future, he knew that, just not yet. Still, the urge to call and just say, “I found my other soulmark Jules! Except that guess what? I missed it completely when it happened and now I don’t know what to do and I wish we could talk about it.”
“I don’t mind you know.” Alice tried, tone gentle if a bit stiff.
“Great.” Quentin said without meaning it because he still had no idea how he felt about any of it, his emotions blurry, confused and weirdly separated from himself.
“I’m not trying to say it’s easy – I know it’s not – my family… believe me I know. It’s just that I… I think it could be ok you know. If you two talked.”
Quentin looked away. He couldn't process all that right now.
"I don't think either of us is really good at talking."
#
Neither Alice nor he talked about Christopher Plover’s house. (Making out and cuddling felt easier.)
#
Penny went and disappeared with the button, ignoring Quentin’s warning like the arrogant dumbass he enjoyed being. As much as Quentin wished he wasn’t worried he absolutely was.
#
He couldn’t understand why someone like Eliot was bound to him, just like he never understood how Julia ended up with him as one of her soulmarks either. It seemed unfair to both of them – they were both brilliant and Quentin was just… just what he was. Then again, as Eliot liked to remind them, nothing in life was fair, and soulmarks probably weren’t an exception.
#
Penny always seemed to find Quentin’s mind.
As annoying as Quentin kept saying he found him, he was relieved when Penny finally appeared in his dream. He was pretty damn glad Penny wasn’t dead.
He didn’t know why Penny seemed to have Quentin’s mind as some kind of weird lighthouse to go to, but he was sort of cool with it now. After all, Penny had taken a magical blade meant for Quentin - it put their whole "being assholes to each other" into perspective. Penny seemed pretty resigned with ending up in Quentin's mind more often than not, despite how much he complained about, well, everything about Quentin.
So, maybe they even liked each other. A bit.
Not that it made Penny any less of an asshole as soon as he was back with them in Brakebills, but Quentin never expected anything less.
#
“She is doing good.” Kady told him in private, hand around her left wrist, while the other were busy with the material she had giving them for the battle magic timesaver. “We’re… she’s great even, we’re working on something that could be amazing. The mark is healing well.”
For some reasons, Quentin wasn’t surprised she knew, not that he was comfortable talking about it with her. Judgment free zone he guess, or something close enough. He wanted to ask her why she had disappeared – he never believed for one moment that she didn’t care.
“I know.” He told her, without mentioning that his was healing well too. He figured she probably knew.
“I still think it’s a shitty idea – the battle magic thing. What I’m giving you guys, it’s a shortcut, a tricky one. Magic doesn’t like shortcut. It will probably feel like crap for all of you – the few people I saw use that were messes afterwards.”
“We don’t really have a long list of options.”
“You’re sure you don’t wanna wait for Julia? If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, maybe you should at least tell her.”
“Would you want to talk to Penny right now?” he asked her, not meanly just pointedly enough.
She winced, and understandably let it go.
#
Bottling emotions was all fun and games until you had to swallow back everything in one shot leaving you like an exposed nerve, everything naked to the core, overwhelmed with the urge to claw out of your own skin and mind.
#
Quentin felt like a muddled mix of contrary emotions. He felt alternately raw, bruised, exhausted, sad, angry yet warm, relaxed and utterly careless. And he had to kiss Eliot. He had to because he had been wondering how it would feel to be kissing Eliot even before he knew they were soulmarked, tiny thoughts, easy to dismiss. The boys kissing Eliot always looked so pleased…
So Quentin did, put his hands on Eliot's vest vaguely annoyed at having to be on his tiptoes to reach, clumsily putting his lips on Eliot's in a quite pathetic approximation of a kiss. Miraculously enough, Eliot kissed him back.
Quentin realized afterward that the hands holding his face had been shaking.
#
He woke with Eliot's arm around his hips and didn’t avoid the utterly cliché straight guy freak-out. He tried to calm himself down for a bit but it caught up with him in the end and he ran out of the room like a coward while Eliot slept.
#
Alice took one look at him and frowned so obviously his poker face? Not a good one.
“Q? Are you okay?”
He mumbled something that was probably trying to mean yes but likely didn’t quite sound like yes at all because Alice frowned deepened.
"What happened?"
"Nothing?" he squeaked before mentally slapping himself because it sounded like a question.
Alice paused, giving him a long hard look.
"Did you... did something happened with Eliot?"
"Why would anything happen?" he tried and was amazed at how unbelievable he sounded to his own ears.
Which is why he wasn't surprised Alice made an educated guess that turned to be out rather spot-on.
"Did you sleep with Eliot then freaked out and left?" she asked. She was pulled together, though more tense than usual. He knew she said she was ok with it - whatever it was supposed to be - but neither of them really was all that confortable with, well it just yet.
"Could we not talk about it? At least not right now if never isn’t an option?"
Alice looked like she was going to protest before stopping herself and shaking her head softly. Quentin was pretty sure she was relieved to avoid that talk for a bit longer too. She tapped the couch next to her and he sat down before putting his head in his hands. The feeling of having fucked up kept growing more potent.
“I just hope you realize,” Alice finally said with an apologetic glance in his direction that he caught from the corner of his eyes, “that Margo is going hunt you down.”
Quentin froze before swearing profusely.
#
“Quentin, did you have sex with Eliot before running out in the morning like a gutless scaredy cat with your tail between your legs?” Margo venomously attacked with when she managed to catch him.
He knew he wouldn’t avoid her for long, but he had been hoping for longer than that. Quentin had never wished for invisibility as much as he wished for it right now – not even when the Beast had appeared from the mirror. From her terrifyingly false sweet tone alone he knew he was as good as a dead man on a suspended sentence.
“I… uh, well…” he tried, wanting to deny the whine in his voice. “I mean it does sound like a major asshole move when you say it like that.”
He was actively trying to avoid her eyes, but she didn’t let him, grabbing his chin and turning his face toward hers.
"You better fix this Quentin" she said soberly, cold quiet ire in her eyes still, "or soulmark be damned I will make you regret it."
Quentin knew better than to think she was kidding about that.
#
“You really gotta get your shit together.” Penny told him sternly, which somehow was really not what Quentin expected out of his mouth. He guess he expected something along the lines of “could you please stop your dick from making us waste precious time by making things super awkward for everyone” but then, Penny decided to surprise him.
“What?” he mumbled intelligently and Penny’s eyes rose to the sky clearly hoping for a divine intervention. Or he was just being an asshole, whatever, Quentin didn’t know anymore at this point. Mostly he just tried to roll with Penny being Penny.
“You have this thing, where you see yourself a certain way, and then act like an ass when you get that you’re not the way you thought you were.”
Quentin frowned, genuinely confused, and this time Penny just looked annoyed.
“For fuck sakes,” he groaned, “you’re not straight, and before you freak about it no you’re not gay either. I get it, it’s blowing your mind but now could you please try getting over it faster and fix this mess so we could maybe have a fighting chance to survive while you and Eliot aren’t falling apart miserably?”
“Oh my god,” Quentin whispered faintly, “this is not happening. We are not having this conversation.”
Penny snorted.
“Believe me, I really wish we weren’t.”
#
After the surreal chat with Penny, Quentin knew he had to do something. If he didn’t, well Margo had been quite clear on how much she could (and would) make his life even more painfully shitty than it already was and Penny would probably try to team up with Alice for the next intervention, which Quentin was pretty sure he never wanted to see happen.
So he grabbed as much courage as he could find in himself and went to talk to Eliot.
#
They did manage to talk, eventually, just not before Eliot pushed him back on the bed after Quentin’s first sad attempt at an apology. Emotions washed over too fast on Eliot’s face for him to grasp, only getting something fierce and a little bit wild right before getting dragged in a harsh kiss. And yeah, ok, Quentin would admit that Penny had a valid point: he probably wasn’t as straight as he thought he was. From the nearly automatic reaction he had from Eliot’s hand on the back of his neck and the feel of his mouth against his own, he clearly wasn’t straight at all.
Everything was sharper this time, less clouded, more intense. “You want out it’s right now Q.” Eliot breathed against his mouth and something like panic started beating in his chest but he kissed Eliot back, because doing anything else was unthinkable. They crashed against each other, and Quentin was sure he felt things move around them. He felt the bed itself stir, the buttons of his pants flew away, Eliot making a pleased noise in the back of his throat and oh. Telekinesis, Quentin realized with a jolt, getting from half hard to rock hard so fast it left him dizzy, the grin appearing on Eliot’s face telling him he hadn’t missed the reaction and was going to milk it for all it was worth. And so he did, getting both of them naked and pining Quentin to the bed without even touching him.
Quentin would have been embarrassed about coming so fast if somehow his refractory period wasn’t surprisingly short. Eliot, delighted, took it as a challenge, making him come twice before getting him hard a third time, despite Quentin telling him it wasn’t gonna happen just by slowly working him open. Eliot was deliberately smug when he proved him wrong, but Quentin was too busy losing his mind to call him out on it.
Eliot’s arm swiftly snaked behind his shoulders, hand moving from his neck to the back of his head, long fingers tightening in the mess of his hair before pulling until Quentin’s head went back in the exact way he wished for, the arch of his throat on display. It wasn’t exactly a surprise but more like a revelation when Eliot’s mouth went down on Quentin’s soulmark biting hard enough on his neck to draw some blood. Quentin came so hard he blacked out a little, barely feeling Eliot coming a few second later, moaning words Quentin couldn’t understand against his neck.
#
Eliot was, Quentin noticed quickly enough, quite obsessed with his mark on Quentin’s neck. It was like now that Eliot knew he could, he had to keep touching it – a lot. A warm hand sneaking around Quentin’s neck and fingers brushing against the mark was becoming something of a recurring occurrence. When Eliot didn’t just grab him to put his mouth on it somewhere more private.
Quentin was glad Eliot understood his aversion for public display of affection – or whatever they could call Eliot’s thing for marking his neck. He knew well enough that Eliot didn’t have the same reservations but, for a lack of better world, Eliot was careful with him. He also couldn’t seem to get his fill and Quentin discovered that he had a bit of a thing for Eliot’s eagerness. There was something really hot for Quentin in that - in seeing how much Eliot was into it. He loved it when Eliot lost control. Not that he would admit it, and he was pretty sure Eliot had thankfully no idea but it joined his list of fantasies with other more or less admissible ones, to get Eliot to lose himself completely at least once.
#
Seeing Julia again was like coming back to your childhood home after a long time away.
As terrible as things were, it felt right to hug her again. Something felt slightly off in their healed bond, but it was like a distant bell ringing, far away from the more pressing matters. In the back of his mind, Quentin thought that the whole god curing cancer thing seemed too good to be true, especially after Quentin’s own dabble on that side, but he couldn’t focus on that. Not with Alice, Eliot, Margo and Penny in Fillory, potentially in danger. Hopefully they were all fine.
Julia and Quentin just had to find their way into Fillory, together, like they always said they would.
#
As it turned out, what seemed so amusing and quirky about people of Fillory in the books was more along the lines of vaguely weird to full-on disturbing once you were in Fillory.
On that note, Quentin and Julia perhaps shouldn’t be allowed to make bargains – ever - because now they could have the weapon sure, but someone had to get married first. And then become High King of Fillory. Which, let’s face it, Quentin would be absolutely thrilled to be the chosen one, in fact it probably had to be him right? Tomato and everything? Except it also meant getting married to the smith girl – who of course had as much of a say in this as, well, the rest of them – so yeah, arranged marriage were totally a thing for magical bargains! Exactly what they all needed!
And of course, because the universe never was done fucking them over, Quentin wasn’t the High King at all, but Eliot totally was.
“Get the fuck out.” He heard Margo mutter and yeah, that pretty much summed it up.
#
Quentin couldn’t let Eliot do that.
And ok, he may have been ready to do exactly the same if maybe Fillory had wisely decided to pick him rather than Eliot but then again he had always been ready to live and die for Fillory so what was a wedding next to that? But Eliot wasn’t like him and if Quentin was honest, the idea of Eliot marrying a woman was somewhat aberrant to him.
Of course, Eliot would choose now to be noble, precisely when Quentin wanted him to be selfish. He said so, and Eliot laughed.
“I’m not being noble Q.” the look on Quentin’s face must have been telling because Eliot corrected himself. “Well ok, maybe I am being a bit noble – what can I say, you’re a terrible influence – but this isn’t all there is. I mean, I’m not overly thrilled about getting married but, oh well, High King of Fillory sounds like something that I could maybe pull off.”
“Eliot…”
“And we both know I wasn’t doing so good on Earth – not like I’ve been hiding that all that well recently and well… there is you, of course but maybe there could be this too?”
He sounded serious, not drunk or hazy the way he did sometimes. Quentin thought that maybe, maybe Fillory and its Gods weren’t as wrong as he wanted them to be when they picked Eliot.
#
By a lucky twist of Fate – that was actually Margo and Alice finally teaming up and cross checking what they both knew about Fillory’s ways while probably cornering every person they could find until they told them every little detail about royal wedding laws – it turned out that soulmarks were a pretty big deal in Fillory.
And by “pretty big deal” Quentin meant that he apparently kind of made it to King status just on the basis of being Eliot’s soulmate alone. Eliot was mostly of the hook for the whole “cannot ever be with anyone else ever” detail that Margo informed him the wedding initially implied. Which Eliot had incidentally forgotten to mention when Quentin had tried to stop him from getting married in the first place.
He would have a few words about that later.
#
“He is your other soulmark? The one whose mark is on your neck? That tall Brakebills asshole?” was the first thing out of Julia’s mouth as soon as they both were sufficiently away from the assembly around Eliot.
“Uh.” Quentin said realizing that he had completely forgotten to tell her about Eliot, about finding his other soulmark. “Yes?”
Julia paused, looking back and forth between Eliot and Quentin.
“Are you… angry with me?” he asked because he wasn’t sure even though he knew how to read her. She didn’t look angry, upset maybe, as if something else was bothering her, not only Eliot being his other soulmark. Jane’s warning in the back of his head had the bearings of a bad omen.
Julia looked surprised.
“Where you planning on telling me?” she replied.
“What? Of course I was! I wanted to call you so many times when I realized but things were all kinds of bad between us and then everything just started to happen and… I had no idea what I was doing Jules. I guess I forgot – or it was never the right time. But I was always going to tell you.”
She nodded. “I know. That’s why I’m not angry.”
“Oh… You’re ok with it then?”
“Well, I won’t tell you I’m elated about it. Can’t say he left the best impression the few times I saw him – unless the impression he was aiming for was “condescending arrogant asshole” in which case it was a full success I’ve got to say.”
“Uh…”
“Don’t worry Q, I’m pretty sure he has just as many nice things to say about me.”
And Quentin was sure she was right about that, he just wish she wasn’t.
“Also, if you think I didn’t saw you kiss him earlier, you’re dead wrong Q.” she said with a smile Quentin was too familiar with, “I just thought I could cut you some slack for now.”
She was never going to let him live that one down.
#
The thought briefly crossed his mind that there was something going on between Alice and Margo.
#
He couldn’t explain the terror, the rage, and the sensation of drowning that took over him when the bind over Julia’s memories was broken. It was as overwhelming as swallowing his own depression back had been - probably even worse, and Quentin barely stopped himself from throwing up.
Thankfully it all stopped quickly enough, and he knew that Julia, fucking brilliant Julia, had managed to stop it from completely bleeding to him thought their bond, even in her distressed state. He didn’t know what had happened to her but at the same time he felt like he knew too much. He felt sick, the bond between them solid, throbbing painfully still, artificially neutral. He had never wanted to punch a god as much as he wanted to punch Ember right now.
“Jules…” he tried, not knowing what to say.
“Don’t.” she said hoarsely. “I can’t. Not right now.”
He didn’t try to ask again.
#
Later, she told him and he wished he could kill that fox god already, long before she asked him to.
“At least,” he heard Julia whispered, not sure if she was still talking to him or to herself, “at least I saved her. At least she managed to run.”
He watched her hand clench against her thigh, where he knew her other soulmark was. He stayed silent before slowly taking her other hand in his and holding on tight.
#
“I found her you know,” She said, her head on his shoulder, “the one on my thigh.”
“I guessed.” He told her, surprised to realize as he was saying it that yes, he had a good idea who it was.
“She is so much cooler than yours.” And she wasn’t even close to smiling, but Q was glad she could still manage to taunt him a little about Eliot.
“Mine just became High King of Fillory.”
“He was taking shots with a bulldog and drunk out of his mind not too long ago.”
Quentin laughed faintly against her hair.
#
“I’m glad you have them.” Julia said softly. “I’m even glad you have him.”
“I have you too.” Quentin replied, because it felt like the only answer.
Julia didn’t quite smile, but she looked like she wanted to, maybe it was close enough. There was something hard on her face that he understood but also feared. He wished badly that Jane had given him more, wished he knew how to protect her, knowing he had already failed.
“You do.” She nodded. “And I got you too.”
Quentin held on tight. Hopefully this time they would make it.