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Straights had no imagination.
Eliot leaned against the wall and took a slow drag of his cigarette. The brickwork was cold through his thin shirt—it was not the highest price Eliot had ever paid for his fashion choices—and he resisted the urge to cast a quick charm to warm the wall up.
The number of people dressed as cats tonight was astounding, even for Halloween in New York. Oh, and here one was now. Five foot and change, wearing a catsuit to boot, two dollar eyeliner drawn in Vs on her cheeks.
She leaned against the wall next to Eliot and pouted her pretty lips. "Care to share?”
Behind her, Eliot saw a burly guy dressed as a devil. Much more his type. Alas, devil guy’s eyes were drawn to cat girl’s rear. Such a waste.
"Nope," Eliot said, after a pause to consider it. Merits were for pussies, but he wasn’t feeling generous. "Cat costumes are so last Halloween."
Cat girl’s eyes narrowed. "Fuck you," she said and stalked off angrily towards devil guy, wiggling her hips so her limp cat tail shook from side-to-side.
"Was that a generic no to all people in cat costumes or just a specific no to her?"
Eliot, who had vainly been making bedroom eyes in the direction of devil guy just in case, startled to see Quentin grinning sheepishly at him. He had to swallow back all his complaints.
Quentin, probably because he lacked a certain amount of imagination of his own, the poor boy (alas, Q had taken after his science textbook father rather than his artistic mother) was dressed as a cat too.
He wore it better than most of the boring cat people in the club, Eliot decided.
"Sorry I’m late," Quentin said. "I tried to convince Alice to come. But she’s too busy reading that new thesis on particle-wave duality in light magic."
"Shame," Eliot said, insincerely. It was a shame, that Quentin was still trying to pretend his relationship with Alice was a functioning one. Anyone could see from the outside they were imploding.
Maybe that was unfair. Eliot was working from a different perspective than everyone else right now. Eliot wasn’t sure if even Quentin knew just how many times he’d cheated on Alice already. They’d spent nearly every night for the last two months hitting clubs together, drinking increasingly weird cocktails, getting high on both muggle and magical means. The number of times Eliot turned around to see Quentin in the corner with someone, hands slipping into inappropriate locations as they desperately kissed, was heading into the triple figures.
What happened out here, they had decided together weeks ago, stayed out here, under the smoky starlight of New York’s infinitely interesting nightlife. But it was one thing keeping it out here and another thing keeping it spilling out into the daytime. It was only a matter of time until Alice realized Quentin had been unfaithful to her.
If Eliot was a better friend, he’d tell her now. But she was stubbornly clinging to this insane idea that she and Quentin were a perfect couple, that they would have some fairytale “oh we fell in love as teenagers at school” story to tell their 2.4 kids as they whitewashed their picket fence as a tiny matching family dressed all in some sad shade of plaid.
Eliot didn’t think she would listen, if he told her the truth. Told her how in the night, Quentin was himself. Wild. Someone not to be tamed. Quentin didn’t belong in some square, domestic box. He was made for starlight and shadows. He was a natural at commanding attention. But Quentin didn’t know any of that, and Alice took advantage of it to spin them both a fantasy that they both futilely bought into. And Quentin was always a sucker for fantasy.
"Where to tonight, Cap’n?" Quentin easily sloped his arm through Eliot’s, a routine perfected by now. Side-by-side on the sidewalk they began to stroll, Eliot tipping a wry wink at Cat girl who was still loitering outside. She scowled on seeing him, but then her eyes caught on Quentin and they widened. Her mouth fell into a little oh and she looked mollified. Eliot basked under the assumption she had just made, that he and Quentin were a couple. It was a secret indulgence that Eliot would never admit to enjoying.
“I’ve been keeping this place in reserve for a special night," Eliot said, starting to lead Quentin down the street.
"What’s so special about tonight?" Quentin’s voice always had a note of surliness to it. Eliot liked that. In any other school, Quentin would have been a golden child, beloved by teachers—he and Alice came close, skipping a year, actually completing Mayakovsky’s insane challenge—but Brakebills had never been an ordinary school, and all its students were imperfect, damaged in the right way to make them obedient. But Quentin’s speech patterns—cycling wildly between fantasy, petty argumentativeness, self-loathing, and sarcasm—reminded Eliot that Quentin wasn’t perfect, he was as much a flawed human as the rest of them. It was a comfort to him that Eliot wasn’t the one dragging Quentin into the dark—Quentin had his own flashlight and was forging his own messed-up path through life.
″The same thing that's special about every night,″ Eliot says. ″We're young and we're hot and we're rich.″
Quentin laughs. ″All right. Let's go dazzle our audience.″
Eliot smiles. And if tonight Eliot is one of the people that Quentin's hands and lips finds in the darkness—well. It won't be the first time. Quentin never remembers, even if Eliot always does. If Eliot tells him, Quentin will stop, and Eliot needs those moments more than he even wants to admit it—but that's another secret that will stay here, kept between him and the smoky starlight and the shadows.