greywash

Title: "A Beginner's Guide to Palmistry"
Fandom: The Magicians
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Rating: Mature
Length: ~3,200 words

Content notes: None of my usual warnings apply to this one. I keep my warning policy in my AO3 profile and am always willing to answer private DW messages or emails asking for elaboration or clarification on my warnings for a particular story.

Author notes: For both the "Point" challenge and the "Horoscope" square on my bingo card. This is, actually, canon-compliant through 04x08 (I haven't seen 04x09 yet) but it only has spoilers through 03x05.

Summary:

"Do you seriously not remember offering to teach me astrology?" Quentin asks, a laugh tucked inside it, like a razor blade.

A Beginner's Guide to Palmistry

(now.)

"So," Quentin asks. Somewhere circa Anniversary Nineteen: "Are we just... never going to talk about it?" Eliot can't be sure, of course. Quentin'd stopped marking it in the almanac after he'd married Arielle.

"Talk about what?" Eliot asks; and Quentin rolls his eyes at him, and passes him the bread knife.

"That 'I can teach you tarot, you know' line isn't exactly subtle," Quentin says, "given that you also used it on me."

Eliot frowns, and sets the bread back down on the towel. "Look, everyone knows divination's bullshit," he says. "Even I was never desperate enough to break that one out at Brakebills. Just because it enhances my sagely reputation—"

"Oh, please, I nearly started packing the tent, when I heard you start in on that," Quentin says. "You were hitting on that kid so hard I practically got pregnant."

"Now that," Eliot says, "would be a complication we don't need. And he's not a kid, he's at least twenty."

Quentin raises an eyebrow. "Well, nice to know some things never change," he says, very dry, and then tilts his head, setting down his bit of cheese. "Do you seriously not remember offering to teach me astrology?" he asks, a laugh tucked inside it, like a razor blade; and Eliot—

—hesitates.

It's high summer. Teddy's away with the rest of the little village school, on a week-long herbalism intensive to which Quentin had leapt to agree: it's nice to have the place to themselves, at least, for a while. The questers coming through had been—not unwanted, precisely, but—Eliot'd mostly hit on their aspirant junior king to keep a hand in, honestly. Stuff with Quentin has been—changing, lately. Again. They're—still friends, of course; they've never been anything but, but—then Quentin looks at him, sometimes. And Eliot can't totally tell what he's thinking.

Like now, when Quentin leans both elbows on the table, a half-smile not-quite-hidden in his beard. "Halloween 2015," he says; and Eliot sits up straighter. "There was a house party, in Brooklyn—do you seriously not remember this?"

"Since when did I know you in 2015?" Eliot asks; and Quentin huffs a laugh, disbelieving.

"Since that Halloween party, in Brooklyn," Quentin says, in tones of great patience, "where you offered to teach me astrology."

(then.)

"No, no," his companion—Eliot—is giggling, "no, that's—Jesus, you don't even know Orion? This is going to take longer than I thought."

"I know Orion, I just don't pretend I can see it, through fog, from Brooklyn," Quentin mutters, but he's smiling, isn't he? Helpless. Warm all over, despite the cold: when he reaches for the bourbon Eliot makes a sort of clucking, disapproving noise and tucks Quentin's hand back between his (Eliot's) thighs, then tips the bottle up for him, so that Quentin can drink like a very poorly supervised, depressingly alcoholic baby. Quentin doesn't have gloves. Eliot has gloves. Very nice, black leather gloves, soft soft soft soft cashmere inside: he'd tugged one on over one of Quentin's hands earlier, then claimed that they clashed with Quentin's half-assed pre-Hank-Pym Scott Lang costume (Quentin just hadn't really had time), and then insisted that he would just have to keep Quentin warm, instead. Quentin had spent about forty-five seconds cringingly anxious over whether or not he was going to be weird about it before Eliot'd taken him by the hand and led him up to the roof and Quentin had realized that he—wasn't: both of them were just—giggling, their shoulders bumping together on the stairs, and then—then they were just—tangling their fingers together, while Eliot was arguing with the stairwell door, and they were just—tucked up in a blanket, or—multiple blankets, looking up at the stars. Quentin didn't know where they'd come from. The blankets, that is.

"I can see everything I need to see just fine," Eliot murmurs, and Quentin tilts his face up. Eliot is looking at him, very very close: so that when Quentin breathes out, he is wreathed in steam.

"I thought you were going to tell my fortune," Quentin says. His head is resting on Eliot's shoulder, which is a nice place for a head: "In the stars," Quentin clarifies, snuggling in. "I'm a Cancer," he adds, belatedly.

"You shock me," Eliot murmurs; and then tugs off one of his gloves. "You will meet a tall dark stranger, that sort of thing?" he asks, and then touches Quentin's cheek.

Little—sparkling pinpricks, at his fingertips. Blinking up at him, Quentin nods. Feeling—buoyant. His heart a hot, fluttering little bird beneath his ribs. "Is he going to kiss me?" Quentin asks; and then—curls his fingers, in between Eliot's thighs; and Eliot takes a deep slow breath and says, "I shouldn't do it for you, you know."

Quentin blinks. "You shouldn't... kiss me, for me?"; and Eliot shifts.

"Your fortune," he corrects. "I should tell you all about the stars. So you can do it yourself—teach a man to fish. You know."

Quentin swallows. He'd think it was a rejection, but—

—but Eliot's fingertips are sliding down to his jaw, as the tense knot of want under Quentin's ribs is pulling tight—tight—tight: and then Quentin can't stand it anymore, so he presses his jaw up, their mouths together, and Eliot just—breathes out, licking into him.

It's not—it's not like it usually is, where Quentin usually falls over or elbows someone in the face or, that one time, the only time, when he had actually choked on Dev Srinivasan's dick and Dev had had to, humiliatingly, order a Lyft to take them both to urgent care; but when, clumsy and embarrassed, Quentin pulls back long enough to drag himself up to his knees, climb awkwardly up into Eliot's lap, kiss him again in a way that even Quentin knows is a little too wet and shakingly overeager, Eliot's hand just—comes up to squeeze the back of Quentin's neck, as he kisses him off the ledge, a little. His other arm warm around Quentin's waist.

Quentin pulls back, barely. Pressing his forehead to Eliot's as Eliot nuzzles their noses together: Quentin's hands pressed flat to Eliot's lapels, his pinkie just-brushing Eliot's green carnation. Eliot's hard. Quentin can feel it. "I'm not—I don't really do this," Quentin explains, "I've never—": and Eliot kisses him again, one of those vast, bottomless kisses that makes Quentin feel like his entire fucking body is on fire; and Quentin—whimpers, humiliatingly, into Eliot's mouth. Those are boyfriend kisses, a tiny, quivering part of him is thinking, this isn't—this isn't how you're supposed to— "Do you live here," Quentin asks, unsteady; and Eliot rubs their faces together and kisses him again: and Quentin just—moans, helpless, squirming against Eliot's cock hard between them as Eliot pets down his back, "do you—"

"No," Eliot murmurs, "is your apartment far?" and Quentin groans, and buries his face in Eliot's throat.

"I live in a fucking—two-bedroom in Harlem, with four roommates," he grinds out. "It was three but then Jorge's girlfriend got evicted and Will moved out onto the couch": and Eliot hums, and pets Quentin's hair back.

"I do good work, with an hour in an Uber," he says, and Quentin huffs, "but I'd rather just keep you here": and Quentin feels all his blood rushing out to his face and his dick, leaving him dizzy and shaking, kissing Eliot again so hard he feels like part of himself is crawling out of him. Dragging itself, drowningly, into Eliot.

"Take me here?" Quentin suggests; and Eliot hums.

"You already are here, baby," he says, quiet; and Quentin shakes his head, hard, against the hot, clumsy rush of desire and shame surging up in him.

"No," Quentin says, "no, I meant—." He stops. Takes a breath. "You're dressed as Oscar Wilde," he explains, "it seemed like you'd appreciate the pun": and Eliot's eyebrows lift, a little, his smile spreading, wide.

"Well, you're a dark horse," he says. "What about your girlfriend?"

Quentin blinks. "Who?"; and Eliot throws his head back and laughs.

"Ah," he says, "got it," and then leans in to kiss him; and by the time Quentin remembers standing by the bar with Julia fussing over his jacket, tucking his hair back, it seems like it's probably not important enough to bring up again.

(now.)

"I." Eliot laughs, a little. "Seriously? I taught you astrology?"

"Yes, seriously," Quentin says, "or—you offered to teach me astrology, since we were up on the roof, but then you didn't, and we hooked up instead," and then flicks a tiny blob of bread at him. "I'm offended. I think I'm offended. I mean, I get that it wasn't good enough for you to text me back, like, ever, but—"

"Well, for starters, in October of 2015 I was a first-year at Brakebills," Eliot reminds him, "I didn't exactly have reliable reception": and Quentin sits back, blinking at him.

"Wait," Quentin says, after a minute. "October. The end of October, you—the Trials would've been right around then, wouldn't they," he says; and Eliot reaches for his water. Rubbing his thumb along the edge.

"Look," Eliot says, finally. "I—I feel really bad about this, if we, like, made out at a party and I forgot about it, or whatever, but—there were kind of a lot of parties back then, Q." He shrugs, then rubs at his face. "It was twenty years ago, anyway—does it really matter?"

He drops his hand. Looking up, at Quentin watching him with that—that unreadable expression.

"No," Quentin says, finally, and then laughs a little, and shakes his head. "No, of course not, El. Never mind."

(then.)

At first, Quentin can't totally tell what game Eliot's playing: the open flirting, the medium-shameless mockery, but as the weeks roll by he sort of thinks he's starting to get it: what do you do, when your embarrassing one-night stand from the fall before turns up at your secret magical grad school? He'd probably pretend he didn't remember it, either. The weird part is, Quentin doesn't remember Margo from the party, and reading between the lines of their complicated, overinvolved friendship, he has to guess that if Eliot was at that party, Margo was, too. Then, somewhere around the time he's admitting, cringingly, to Alice that he lost his virginity when he was twenty-two, on a rooftop, while dressed as Ant-Man, he has the sudden, horrifying realization that maybe it wasn't, actually, Eliot. That maybe (Quentin is thinking, as he tips the bottle back with his tied hands) the reason he doesn't remember Margo being at that party was because neither of them was there, and Quentin'd just—had a one-night stand with someone he was never going to see again, just like he'd thought, for months, after, while his phone stayed silent and Julia bullied him to tell her about the girl he'd met at that Halloween party.

So, he tells himself. Not Eliot. Not Eliot-Eliot, just a look-alike, coincidentally named: another tall handsome boy with hazel eyes and a laughing mouth and those—fucking hands; and then Eliot, actual Eliot, is just spending all this time making jokes about seducing him because he doesn't have any way to know that Quentin's a sure thing. Because he's just... trying to get into Quentin's pants. Where he has never been.

Honestly, Quentin's not sure if that makes it better, or worse.

(now.)

Eliot watches Quentin's head ducked down over his lunch, bread and cheese and apple, and then he watches Quentin's head ducked down over the Mosaic, and then he sits on the floor sketching out their planned attempts for the morning and half-watching Quentin's head ducked down over the book he'd bargained off the questers for Quentin and Eliot's help—a copy of Middlemarch, newly published in a single volume, 7s 6d—as, sitting in Arielle's old rocker beside the fire, Quentin reads to them both aloud. After a second, Eliot puts the diagrams aside and knees over to take it from him. Lets Quentin mark his place with a leaf, before Eliot sets it aside. Rubbing a thumb against the fabric against the inside of Quentin's warm knee.

"We do okay, right?" Eliot asks; and Quentin sighs, looking down at him.

"Yeah," he says. "We do okay."

Eliot nods. "I'm sorry I don't remember, Q," he says; and Quentin's mouth tugs up, a little, on the left.

"It's okay, I get it," he says. "There were a lot of parties." Eliot nods, and Quentin's smile widens. "There were a lot of desperate undersexed Ivy League boys," he adds; and Eliot laughs, a little.

"A few," he admits. Pressing up for a kiss.

It's. Nice. Kissing Quentin's always nice.

"Hey." Quentin pulls back, sighing a little. Rubbing his thumb over Eliot's cheek. "Maybe save it for he's twenty, at least, okay? I'm just. Tired."

Eliot swallows. "Yeah," he says, after a second. "Yeah, you want me to braid your hair?"

Quentin lets out a breath, and kisses him again: once, hard, closed-mouthed. "Would you?"

"Always," Eliot says, and pushes up to his feet, somewhat more creakily than he'd really like to admit, while Quentin tugs the chair out further from the wall of the cottage so that Eliot can stand behind him. Comb the knots out.

(then.)

But it was Eliot, wasn't it.

It was.

It was Eliot, because sitting up in Margo's bed peeled down to bone and muscle their mouths touch, for the first time the second time, and It was him, Quentin is thinking. Quentin is thinking: I would know him anywhere.

(now.)

"It was my first time," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot stills, for a second, and then keeps combing.

"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if I went after you in 2015, I was probably pretty sure you hadn't done much with other boys," Eliot offers; and then tugs, a little. Gentle. "I do remember being a massive cock, you know."

"No," Quentin says, "I mean—it was my first time, period. With anyone"; and Eliot swallows, hard. "Sex always went." Quentin takes a breath. "Badly, like—disastrously badly for me, before that." He hunches, a little. "I had to get stitches, after my first kiss," he admits, and then laughs.

Eliot sets the comb down. "God," he says, throat tight; and then bends nearly in half, to kiss the crown of Quentin's head. "Fuck, Q, I'm so sorry," he whispers; and then Quentin tilts his head, a little, so that, helpless, Eliot will kiss the side of his throat.

"It's okay," Quentin says, and then sighs, straightening. "Jesus, it's fine, I don't know why it matters, honestly. It was just—a hookup, right? It's fine."

"It's not weird for your first time to matter more," Eliot says, a little sharp; and Quentin's quiet, for a long, long moment; until finally, Eliot goes back to brushing his hair.

"It didn't," Quentin says, finally. "El—it didn't matter more. That's not the point." Reaching up for Eliot's wrist. "It just didn't matter any less," Quentin says, very quietly; and Eliot's heart jumps, unsteady, inside the cage of his ribs.

That whole—that whole fucking first week. That first fucking week in Antarctica when Eliot was spelled silent driving nail after nail after nail into the board laid in front of his knees and thinking—

—thinking about Quentin's big brown eyes and wet mouth and the tense, thrilled way that he'd arched into it, whenever they kissed; the way he'd cried out when Eliot first touched him and then basically hadn't been quiet again until about ten minutes after Eliot'd stopped, their bare bodies curled together in the cocoon of two heavy blankets and three layers of warming spells, steam rising up off them to the stars: You were going to tell my fortune, Quentin had whispered to him, tangling their fingers together, untangling them again; and Eliot'd taken his hand, and traced a finger along his palm, and murmured, You will meet a tall dark stranger, and he will blow your mind; and Quentin'd pressed his face down giggling against Eliot's collarbone; and Eliot'd swallowed, helpless, and said, Where's your phone?—

—and that whole first week Eliot had been itching inside his hideous fucking wool sweater and leggings, thinking about just—just going to Mayakovsky, with a fucking—notepad, or what the fuck ever, and begging, fucking begging to be sent home; while Margo—not his Bambi yet, not quite—had shot him a series of sharp, scornful looks through their facing open doors. And then—then he'd done it. Hadn't he. Hot all over, exhausted and miserable, skin crawling with shame: ten days wasn't too late yet, was it, but—it would be, soon; soon he could text and call all he wanted and no way could Quentin pick up, not if he wanted to keep any kind of dignity; but Eliot—but Eliot'd thought—but Eliot'd been—so fucking desperate at—at the chance of it, back then, at the faintest—most tentative—fucking hint of something that might actually work out: so finally Eliot'd done it. Hadn't he. The afternoon that Mayakovsky gave them their voices back, and Eliot'd finished forcing a cockroach through a hoop despite a deep sense of kinship and then after dinner gone straight to Mayakovsky's office and said, What happens if I want to drop out; and Mayakovsky'd leaned back in his chair, watching him, and then said, We take back our help and dump you back at—what is it, temp job for payroll company?; which'd made Eliot flinch; and then Mayakovsky had added, and you forget everything that happened since you come to Brakebills; and Eliot'd taken a long, slow breath—

Everything, he asked, everything?

—and Mayakovsky'd passed him the vodka.

"I think we're probably better off," Eliot says, finally, "that I don't remember. I don't exactly have a great track record of staying in touch with former hookups."

Quentin doesn't say anything, for a minute.

"And I probably would've managed to totally fuck it up," Eliot says, "if we'd already been friends, in 2015"; and Quentin takes a breath.

"Yeah," he says, "me, too," and Eliot swallows, then tugs his wrist out of Quentin's fingers so he can finish off Quentin's braid, for bed.