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“Are you leaving?” Quentin asked. Eliot hasn’t moved but apparently he’s good at mind reading too.
“I kinda need to,” Eliot said, reaching for his vest and tie. “My friend needs me--”
“Of course,” Quentin turned and busied himself with the books on the nearest shelf.
“This was fun,” Eliot said, looping the tie around his neck one handed. Quentin wouldn’t look at him.
If he were a magician, this is where I’d ask if they could do this again. If he knew he was a magician, Eliot amended. I’d get his number. He’d come to this party at the cottage with me, and we could have a few drinks and then go upstairs.
But he’s not. For whatever reason, he wasn’t good enough to pass. Eliot wrestles with the knowledge that the kid who sat next to him in phosphoromancy couldn’t magic his way out of a paper bag. There’s a good reason, he told himself.
Quentin stood in the bedroom doorway. “I’m gonna hit the shower, the door will lock behind you.”
Eliot tied his shoes and they considered each other. A silent standoff and daring each other to speak. But Eliot didn’t want to speak first and Quentin doesn’t seem to want to speak at all.
He finished dressing while Quentin went into the bathroom and started the shower. Eliot stood alone in the living room, noticing dust on the shelves and on the tv screen. He moved into the center of the room, to the bookcase. Quentin had more than one set of the “Fillory and Further” books. Eliot found it kind of cute, in the same way Margo keeps a copy of the first book hidden in a drawer in her room, and she reads it when she’s sad or when her father calls.
He plucked the first book out of the shelf and thumbs through it, catching sight of the illustrations of Jane Chatwin and her idiot brother, what was his name again? Martin, yeah. Eliot put the book back where it belongs.
He thought about leaving his number anyway. Maybe they could hook up a few more times before winter break. But Brakebills makes things so complicated.
He thought about playing cards with Quentin. His joy at showing Eliot card tricks. The memory patch flashing bright and obnoxious, the well of magic in this boy. He couldn’t let that go.
So he found a scrap of paper on Quentin’s messy desk and scrawled a short message on it. Then he slipped it between the pages of the first Fillory book. Maybe he’ll find it in a week, maybe a month, maybe two years from now. Who knows where they will be. But as Eliot shut the door behind him, he didn’t regret any of it.
Eliot doesn’t usually go to muggle coffee shops. But Margo is off with Alice again, and there’s nothing he hates more than being a third wheel. Plus Julia lets her wards slip when she’s banging Penny and the last thing he needs to be reminded of is how he’s not getting laid.
So he threw on one of his nicer coats and a scarf for good measure, and went out in the nippy fall weather to find something or maybe even someone to do. It didn’t take him long to get bored and slip into the first non-Starbucks he found. He ordered an Americano, took a seat on a faux leather couch and pretended to read a USA Today.
Then something grabs his attention. There’s a man sitting at a table across the room from him. He’s setting up a laptop and shuffling around in his seat. He’s cute, with floppy hair and a bit of a flustered expression. But that’s not the only reason Eliot is staring.
He’s familiar.
Eliot has welcomed a couple prospective students to Brakebills. With names like Justin Brown and Sarah Morgan. They all blur together. But a name like Quentin Coldwater, well you remember a name like that.
He thought about Quentin for a few days after the test. He told Margo about him, and then they never saw him again. Eliot was disappointed, especially when the first year was devoid of fuckable boys. But then he moved on, there was plenty of Brakebills chaos to keep him busy.
But here he is. Quentin Coldwater. He looks like every college student in every other coffeehouse. Nothing remarkable about him.
And unfortunately, nothing will ever be remarkable about him. He failed the test, obviously. Eliot gets up to throw away his drink, and to reintroduce himself to Quentin.
“Medium iced latte for Quentin,” calls a bored barista. Eliot watches Quentin jump up from the table and head to grab his drink.
Eliot takes his chance, using a combination of telekinesis and perfect timing to smash right into Quentin as he picks up his drink off the bar and turns to leave. As he planned, the drink explodes down Quentin’s blue t-shirt and soaks them both.
Eliot springs into action and begins wiping him down with tiny brown napkins while Quentin apologizes.
“It was my fault,” Eliot says, pressing a napkin against his own dripping shoulder. “Let me buy you another...”He picks up the empty cup. “Latte?”
“Yeah,” he says, dumping a handful of soaked napkins into a trash can. “But no, you don’t have to--”
“Another iced latte for,” Eliot makes a show of reading the scribble on the cup. “Quentin.”
Quentin smiles, which makes Eliot’s whole body sing. “I’ll pay for it.”
“No, I insist,” Eliot says. “Or let me pay for the dry cleaning.”
He knows that these clothes have never seen a dry cleaner.
“On the house,” the barista says, sliding another drink across the bar to Quentin.
Eliot balls up the wet napkins and tosses them in a nearby trash can. Quentin takes the drink.
“See, it’s fine.” He sits back down at his table, but Eliot follows.
“I’ll tip the barista for you then,” Eliot says. “If you tip, they let you use the fast wifi.”
Eliot pulls out a five dollar bill from his pocket and drops into the tip jar. The barista rolls her eyes at him and hands him a card with the password. Eliot returns to Quentin’s side. He has a laptop set up, along with a heavy looking backpack and a stack of messy papers on the table beside him.
He smiles up at Eliot for a moment before returning his attention to the computer screen, but Eliot won’t let him go back to work.
“Do you go to school near here?” he asks, fingertips drumming on the table.
“Yale,” Quentin pauses. “Got a paper due tomorrow. My neighbor changed his wifi password.”
Eliot laughs at that. “What’s the paper on?”
Quentin rattles off a rather convoluted topic and Eliot only half listens. He hasn’t written a paper since high school. He only got through his undergrad year by making friends with the sluttiest TAs.
“Where do you go?” Quentin asks, breaking Eliot out of his thoughts.
“I’m not a student,” Eliot lies.
“I’m sorry,” Quentin reaches for his coffee.
“I have that look about me,” Eliot shrugs and offers his hand. “I’m Eliot.”
Quentin raises an eyebrow, and for a moment, Eliot thinks maybe he recognizes him. He hopes. He wonders.
“Quentin,” he says instead and shakes.
Eliot gets that same feeling he got when they met the first time, the feeling that this boy could either start a revolution or fall flat on his face. That’s probably why he’s not at Brakebills.
“Care for a study break?” he asks, showing Quentin the pack of cigarettes in his pocket and motioning to the door. He also knows how to spot someone on day 3 of quitting cold turkey and that’s Quentin in a nutshell.
Quentin hesitates before he nods and shoves his papers and laptop into the bag, then hefts it up and over a shoulder. They move to an outdoor table and drink their coffees while smoking some of Eliot’s private collection of cigarettes.
He learns that Quentin is trying to quit for the fourth time this year, but he is also this nervy and awkward even after a smoke. He learns that Quentin doesn’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend. He accidentally says something about a girl named Julia, and Eliot has a brief flash to that girl who hangs around with Kady and Penny all the time.
Eliot notices all the things he caught a glimpse of that day in the sun. The flecks of gold in his eyes, his nervous little speech patterns, the way he rambles when he’s excited, and in purely shallow traits, his neck looks like it was made for someone like Eliot to mark.
After two cigarettes and a large quantity of coffee, Eliot is twitchy, buzzed and energetic. He can’t decide if he wants to race around the neighborhood or have some crazy athletic sex.
He’s been flirting with Quentin for long enough. It’s time for action. Quentin has been talking about his records for a few minutes. He’s proud of his record player, a recent thrift store find. He cleaned it up and fixed it. Eliot can’t stop staring at his hands as he waves them about as he describes the process.
“I’d love to hear it,” Eliot says. He bats his eyelashes for good measure. “How close are you to finishing that paper?”
He can see the wheels turning. Quentin seems to be weighing all the options in his head, and there are so many excuses already to be found that all he has to do is reach for one, and yet.
“It’s almost done, I have until Midnight tomorrow,” he says. “Come over and I’ll play it for you.”
Eliot pats himself on the back.
It’s about a fifteen minute walk to Quentin’s place. They’re both fidgety and Eliot blames the nerves on all the stimulus. They take the elevator to Quentin’s floor. It’s a 12 story building and he lives on the 11th. Three other people get on with them, and he and Quentin are left on either side of the elevator. Eliot watches the floors.
2nd Floor
He catches Quentin looking at him in the reflection of the elevator walls.
3rd Floor
A woman in exercise clothes gets out and Eliot takes a step to the left, getting closer to Quentin.
4th Floor
Eliot steps a little closer.
5th Floor
Another person, this time an elderly man with a silver cane, gets out, going so slowly that Quentin has to hold the door open.
6th Floor
Eliot is almost all the way across.
7th Floor
The final person, a woman carrying a large tote bag and green smoothie, gets out. It’s now just Quentin and Eliot.
8th Floor
Eliot is now next to Quentin and he can see his face in the reflection of the walls. As the elevator jerks to a start, Quentin stumbles into him. “I’m um…”
“Sorry?” Eliot isn’t sorry at all.
9th Floor
Quentin pushes Eliot into the corner and kisses him. Eliot grabs for purchase in Quentin’s hair, his shoulders and finally his waist. He’s slouching against the wall and it puts him at a more convenient height for kissing Quentin. He opens his mouth.
10th Floor
Quentin’s tongue is in his mouth and his hands are braced up against Eliot’s chest and it’s uncomfortable, and hot, and sexy all at once. Eliot’s never had sex in an elevator but this seems like a good time to try.
11th Floor
The door slides open and it takes them a moment to realize. Even after they break the kiss, they stare at the open door like they don’t quite understand the interruption. Quentin grabs Eliot by the wrist and drags him out and down the hall.
They stop a few doors to the left, and Quentin drops his giant backpack at their feet and starts digging in the pockets of his sweatshirt for his keys. Eliot stands beside him, trying his best not to shove him up against the door and drop to his knees right there. This kind of boy makes him weak. The kind that reel him in nice and close before they strike. The kind he wouldn’t suspect. His favorite type of boy.
Quentin lives in a small one bedroom apartment. It’s in the nice end of the bad part of town, and he can tell just by looking that this is not the kind of place Quentin can afford unless he has a trust fund or a sugar daddy. It’s littered with papers and books, the kind of clutter Eliot finds sexy, not distracting. It smells the slightest bit stale, not necessarily dirty, but like the windows have been shut for months and the whole place has been wound tight, keeping all the inside out.
Eliot doesn’t have much time to take a good look at his apartment before Quentin is on him, trying to kiss him again. He’s just short enough that he can’t quite reach on his own, and Eliot smiles and leans down for him. Quentin’s kisses are much more aggressive than Eliot thought he could be capable of. They’re better than they have any right to be. Five minutes ago if he’d tearfully admitted to being a virgin, Eliot would have bought it completely. But these kisses say otherwise.
Quentin is already pulling Eliot’s tie and vest off, and tugging at his own baggy beige sweater. Eliot has to fight himself not to help and not to use magic, which would have come in handy about now. Instead, he manspreads on Quentin’s lumpy couch, pushing aside an old issue of Wired.
“I don’t usually do this,” Quentin says, once he’s got his sweater out of the way, and he's untucking a plain white tee. Eliot has heard this line many times, especially from guys like him, but this time he actually believes it.
“We go at your speed,” Eliot says. He stretches his arms grandiosely across the back of the couch. He knows how to take up space. Quentin swallows and takes a step forward, then pitches himself into Eliot’s lap, once again showing confidence Eliot finds confusing and extremely arousing. Eliot is a little dumbfounded as Quentin grinds on him. He’d psyched himself up for a night of coaxing, and slow seduction. Not that Quentin wouldn't be worth it, just that Eliot’s nightly agenda has been amended.
He kisses Quentin, his hand making a quick ascent up his back and finding a nice landing at the back of his neck. It’s his favorite place to hold someone, giving him access to the neck. Quentin has a nice neck and his hair begs to be pulled. He makes a little punched off sound, and Eliot experiments with tightening his fingers, putting just a hint of pressure there. Quentin goes nice and boneless and Eliot congratulates himself for being a god of sex.
Quentin is shuffling a deck of cards. His hands move faster than should be possible, and he deals with a practiced hand. They play a couple different kinds of poker, using a mismatched set of chips as their pot.
Quentin is extremely good. Like, Eliot is cheating his ass off, and Quentin is still winning almost every other hand. So good it almost reminds him of playing with…
A magician.
When Quentin slyly double draws or uses sleight of hand to slip a card into thin air, Eliot starts watching closer. Then he feels it. Magic. And it’s not coming from him.
Quentin’s won another hand. Eliot takes a minute to get another beer and to excuse himself into the bathroom. It’s small, undecorated, but it smells like bleach so he feels safe. He washes his hands and has a quick snoop in the medicine cabinet. The usual suspects, toothpaste, shaving cream, Tylenol pm, and a speed stick. On the next shelf are the more interesting contents. The prescriptions. Abilify and an almost empty bottle of Xanax, as well as an expired bottle of sleeping pills.
It’s easy to do a tut in front of muggles. They usually think one is just stretching their hands, or possibly using sign language. For whatever reason Eliot feels a little strange doing one in front of Quentin. So he does it in private, and keeps his hands posed in a square, creating a viewfinder that exposes magical wards, spells, and just plain magic. There’s nothing in Quentin’s bathroom or anywhere close until he comes upon Quentin himself. Quentin has his back to Eliot, and he’s still playing with the cards.
Eliot sees the memory patch. He knows that every person who takes the Brakebills entrance exam and fails gets their memory wiped. Fairly complicated magic but it leaves a signature. But then he sees it.
This boy is magic.
His assumptions were correct. There is no way he should not have passed the Brakebills exam.
The chinese food comes and they eat on Quentin’s messy bed. Eliot watches Quentin’s perfectly balanced chopsticks. He’s extremely good with his hands, even if everything else about him still has an air of awkwardness about it. Now that he knows, he sees the traces of a magician in everything about him. He has so many questions, but he knows asking Quentin would be fruitless. Memory patches are easy to see, but harder to unpick. He’s pretty sure he missed that day in class anyway.
They eat until all is left is the steamed rice and the fortune cookies. Quentin closes the blinds and cleans up the empty boxes. Eliot knows it’s about time to leave. It’s early enough that he can be back before everyone at the physical kids cottage is drunk on cheap wine and he can commandeer the bar from whoever dares slip in while he’s gone. He has such a good story for Margo.
Eliot had been waiting on the Brakebills sign for at least fifteen minutes. It was always a good place to catch some rays and maybe even take a little nap. Margo had called him a lounge lizard, saying he looked like he was sunning himself on a rock. To Eliot that sounded like a compliment.
He’d been fantasizing about this guy for the last couple minutes, trying to figure out what someone named Quentin Coldwater would look like. A douchey bro, a blonde twink, a tall Greek with a body cut out of marble, a skinny prep, a chubby nerd.
He was lost in thought when he heard the bushes rustle and out popped the most adorable accountant he’d ever seen.
“Quentin Coldwater?” he asked, squinting at the paper like he wasn’t sure about the name, but who else would be coming this way.
“Ah huh,” Quentin said, and Eliot took a moment to study him as he gaped at his surroundings.
Somehow Quentin was nothing he expected and everything he didn’t know he wanted.
He led Quentin to the testing room and immediately turned tail to tell Margo about the cute new first year. Eliot had a sixth sense about which ones were going to pass the test. He could just tell this kid was a magician.