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Okay, first of all, it’s like— it’s stupid.
He stops at the bodega on his way home to buy eggs. When he gets home and opens the fridge, they already have eggs.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing. He has a full-scale fucking... meltdown at four in the afternoon over the fact that Eliot bought eggs already, and that Quentin knew that but forgot. It’s stupid, and he knows it’s stupid, and it’s worse now that it’s still happening even though it’s been… however fucking long it’s been. He can’t remember off the top of his head anymore, that’s how long it’s been.
Eliot’s out on the balcony, right now. He’s… meditating? Still. Somehow. He started last week, Quentin thinks, or at least that’s when he thinks Eliot asked him about it. Meditation, Eliot had said, unprompted, before they’d even gotten out of bed that morning. Thoughts?
And, you know, yeah. Quentin’s got thoughts about fucking meditation.
Like, he’s not going to begrudge anybody how they deal with their shit, okay? God knows they have enough shit between the two of them as it is, and it’s probably better for Eliot to handle it with— anything, other than plowing his way through a bottle of tequila every other night.
But also: meditation is the fucking worst.
Quentin has had three separate therapists recommend it to him, and every single time he’s tried it, it’s been a nightmare. He’d told Eliot that, point-blank, Meditation is the fucking worst, but Eliot had decided to try anyway, and he’s apparently still trying, which is… It’s good. Probably.
Quentin should leave him alone.
He doesn’t. It’s fucked up, and he’s fucked up, but he just— he can’t. He needs… he doesn’t even know what, but he goes outside anyway, clatters through the sliding glass door, and drops ass-first down onto the deck about a foot from the far edge of Eliot’s purple foam mat.
Sorry. Amethyst.
Eliot doesn’t move. Or, at least, he doesn’t move more than to tip his head back into the sun, and to breathe in slow.
“Hi, Q,” he says, in a saccharine, indulgent sort of way that picks at the edges of Quentin’s frayed nerves. He hasn’t even opened his eyes yet, the asshole. “How’s it going?”
Bad, is how it’s going. It’s going fucking bad, Eliot. Except it’s also going fine, obviously, like, objectively. The worst thing that happened today was a mild inconvenience that gives them an excuse to have brunch a few extra days this week. So how, exactly, is Quentin supposed to respond to that? What’s he going to do, say ‘Bad,’ so that Eliot can frown and stop what he’s doing and rub Quentin’s shoulders and say, ‘Shit, baby. What’s going on?’ and Quentin can answer, ‘I thought we were out of eggs but we weren’t,’ because he didn’t have the decency to unpack his own mental breakdown before he came out here to ruin Eliot’s afternoon, like. Seriously? Who the fuck has time for that? Who has time for that in one of their afternoons, much less fucking— all of them, basically. Like almost every day, at this point.
“Mmkay,” Eliot says, and it slides in, pops through, snaps the meat of Quentin’s thought spiral right off at the joint.
Which sounds like a weird comparison to make, because maybe it is weird, but look, Quentin just watched Eliot break down a whole chicken a couple of nights ago. With an apron and a chef’s knife and everything, with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In, like, a couple of minutes, tops. Wings here, drums there, spine separated and sternum snapped, quick and clean and efficient, and— gross, and—
Quentin’s hands are on his face, joints of his thumbs digging into the corners of his eyes. He hadn’t noticed until it started to hurt.
He’s not thinking about that. The chicken. Eliot, peeling its spine out with his left hand.
Except he’s been thinking about it, obviously, for two fucking days, so.
So.
Eliot is breathing in, long and dramatic, through his nose. “So that’s where we’re at.” He breathes out through his mouth, letting his shoulderblades roll down and his vowels draw long. “Okay. Gotcha. No problemo.”
Quentin keeps pressing down on his eye sockets until they start to pop with color.
“Luckily for me,” Eliot goes on, all casual, all fucking— composed, like this whole situation isn’t as awkward and pathetic and weird as it is, “I could use a captive audience. Did you know that Bonus Penny and Julia are on the rocks again?”
Quentin didn’t know that, actually.
“You certainly didn’t hear it from me,” Eliot says. “And I certainly didn’t hear it while I was sitting out here minding my own fucking business in my own fucking home.” He sighs and cracks his neck, palms setting more firmly on his knees. “Not that I would ever suggest revoking Julia’s spare key privileges. Unless, of course, that was something you were hypothetically open to maybe potentially considering.” Quentin watches him try and fail to keep himself from smiling before he says: “Don’t say anything if you are considering it.”
Quentin tucks his chin between his knees, and watches Eliot smile, and thinks about all the different ways it changes the shape of his face when he does, and doesn’t say anything.
(Julia would fucking never. She’d make her own copies of the key before she let him take it away from her. She probably already has, just in case. But it’s, you know, fine. Thought experiments aren’t supposed to have solutions.)
“Interesting,” Eliot says, and then he stops talking, for a while.
Quentin fidgets. This is why he doesn’t like meditation; he can’t ever just… stop. Literally, or metaphorically, or metaphysically, or whatever. He knows that’s part of the point, that you’re supposed to let yourself feel whatever you’re feeling, but Quentin’s never had any problem with that either, okay? It’s just… It’s not for him, that’s all.
But it’s— maybe it is for Eliot. So Quentin sits, and waits, and gives Eliot space, and- and, you know, everything else. He can handle his own shit for five minutes. God, he hopes he can fucking handle his own shit for five minutes.
He was trying to be a good partner.
With the eggs.
He reads these articles every so often about, like, division of labor in the home. Or, you know, sometimes they’re videos, maybe-unscripted-maybe-not phone recordings of somebody and their piece of shit boyfriend, who refuses to pull his own weight, who expects the house to get cleaned and dinner to get cooked and his dick to get sucked, all in one day, without him so much as lifting a finger.
And yeah, it’s usually in the context of gender norms, and yeah, the couples are usually heterosexual, Quentin’s not saying it’s a perfect one-to-one mapping, it’s just—
Eliot cooks, usually. Always. And he deals with Quentin’s shit, always. And earlier this afternoon, Quentin remembered Eliot saying, Shit, we’re out of eggs, at the same time he forgot Eliot unpacking the groceries and putting the fucking eggs in the fucking fridge, like he always does.
“Unrelated,” Eliot says, out of nowhere, and it happens again: snap. Only maybe not so aggressive this time. Maybe this time it’s more like when he pinches leaves off the mint plant in the kitchen window: firm, but gentle. “I was thinking about giving that sesame garlic stir-fry another try,” he says. “With the tofu? But before you say anything—”
God. Quentin’s not even picky, really, he’s honestly down to eat whatever most of the time, but god. He remembers the tofu had been technically edible, and that was the nicest thing he could’ve said about it. He thinks he’d said something about ‘char,’ at the time? Like, Yeah, you can, uh, really taste it. Jesus christ.
“—I learned a lot from the last attempt, and I’m ready to internalize those lessons,” Eliot is saying. “Keep not saying anything if you find yourself feeling cautiously optimistic.”
Quentin almost laughs, which is kind of fucked up. Eliot had actually been mad at him when it happened, for, quote, ‘patronizing’ him, so… Quentin bites his lip, and wraps his arms around his knees, and thinks about— Eliot, in the kitchen, with the- the same apron, only Quentin actually does think about the apron this time, and not anything else. It’s Eliot’s favorite, dark green with deep pockets, stylish-but-machine-washable. Quentin bought it for his birthday two years ago after, like, literally— months of research. Months.
He thinks about Eliot, and Eliot’s birthday, and the apron, and the tofu, and jesus christ, all the fucking smoke.
There’s no fucking fire, Eliot had shouted at the fire alarm, I’m just having a very shitty day!
Quentin feels himself smile into his knees, and keeps not saying anything.
“Noted,” Eliot says, and then he stops again.
It feels like ten minutes, but Quentin knows from experience that it’s probably only, like, thirty seconds. That’s most of what he remembers from meditation, sitting down to do it for five minutes and it feeling like it took eight billion years.
But… this isn’t so bad. He’s not meditating, but the weather is nice. Sunny, but not hot. They’re high enough up that the noise from the street dulls out to sort-of-pleasant white noise. Just— the proximity is helping, he thinks, him and Eliot out here together. He hopes so, at least. The less Eliot has to deal with, the better.
Eliot sighs again. But like, really sighs, from the bottom of his belly.
“Anyway, you’ll be surprised to hear,” he says, and he’s frowning when Quentin looks at him, eyes still closed, head tipped over one shoulder to stretch out his neck, “that meditation fucking sucks.”
And that’s—
Uh.
Quentin laughs. It cracks out of him, like- like ice snapping in a glass when Eliot pours a drink over it, or like that time he made crème brûlée and made a show out of rapping a spoon against the crispy shell on top. Quentin feels like that. Like part of him broke open, and all the weird, gooey, too-hot insides are coming out, but like, in a good way. Like that’s how it’s supposed to be.
“Oh my god,” he gasps between his hands, between breaths. “Fuck off.”
Eliot’s got one eye open, watching him. He smiles when Quentin catches him looking. “Mmhm,” he says, like he’s proud of himself, what a piece of fucking work. “There he is.”
“Meditation is the worst,” Quentin says. He swipes at his face, because he’s— crying now, he guesses. Jesus, this day. “I fucking told you that. From the- from the start. The first time you asked.”
Eliot doesn’t make a big deal about it. The crying. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he doesn’t; Quentin doesn’t really know how he decides one way or the other, but in the moment it always seems like it’s the right call.
“You’re right,” Eliot says, and he’s still smiling, his cheeks still high and round. “You did. That’ll show me to question your wisdom.”
And then he turns one hand up on his knee. Offering.
Quentin’s sitting too far away. He could reach if he stretched over or something, but… you know, why? He sat here for a reason, he knows that; to give Eliot space, to let him… something. It just doesn’t feel as important now, while Eliot is looking at him and smiling at him and not pretending like he gives a shit about meditation anymore.
So. Quentin scoots across the deck until they’re sitting close, hip to hip and thigh to thigh, and tucks their hands together. He watches while Eliot interlaces their fingers, one by one.
“Hi, Q,” Eliot says again, soft and sweet and— maybe not all that different from how he said it the first time, even though it feels that way. “How’s it going, baby?”
Quentin squeezes his hand, and hangs on.