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When Quentin Coldwater sits down at the breakfast table, and Eliot Waugh sets a blindfold down on said table, his mind goes absolutely wild.
But, Eliot, in a stunning display of seriousness, places a hand overtop it and says, “Mind out of the gutter, Q.” Before Quentin can so much as think of a lie through that , Eliot picks up his hand and adds, “I’ve got a surprise.”
No Kidding , Quentin thinks, eyes still locked on the small scrap of silk sitting next to his eggs. They’ve been plenty adventurous over the years, but somehow they’d never quite traversed the land of the unseeing, as Quentin liked to call it. Or, would like to call it, if Eliot weren’t raising a knowing eyebrow in his direction.
Quentin makes a noise at the back of his throat and lifts his fork to shovel some eggs—perfectly cooked, delicious eggs, also provided by his incredibly generous boyfriend. He stops mid chew, and looks between the eggs and Eliot, a sense of dread pooling in his stomach.
“You’re being particularly perfect today,” he accuses.
“Most people would say, wow, Eliot, how thoughtful, how kind, how wonderful. Thank you for being such an amazing, and attentive significant other.”
And, oh, that’s dangerous talk coming from Eliot Waugh.
Quentin swallows, narrowing his eyes. “What are you up to?”
Eliot binks at him for a long moment, before an easy going, somewhat mischievous smile flits across his lips. “Oh, this is perfect,” he murmurs, before pushing away from the table and standing. “Finish up, we’ve got a full schedule for the day.”
“It’s Thursday.”
Eliot nods, once, slowly, before prompting: “ And?”
“All we have planned is Josh’s stupid bingo thing.”
Eliot rolls his eyes, though that knowing little grin continues to sit on the corners of his lips like he knows something Quentin doesn’t know. “That’s next Thursday.”
“Then what’s this Thursday?”
Grinning, Eliot heads into the kitchen and casts a quick spell. Quentin watches, slightly entranced, as the dishes start washing themselves, but then Eliot’s moving back to the dining room table and clapping his hands. “Chop chop,” he says, waving his hands towards Quentins half eaten breakfast. “Plans to be had, places to be.”
Quentin looks down at his eggs mournfully, twitching a pout up at his boyfriend, “But my eggs.”
Quentin whines his way through the morning. When Eliot sends him upstairs to get dressed — “Something nice , Q!” — and when he comes back down and gets a subtle nod of approval. When they head to the closet at the back of the hallway, and Eliot checks his watch, and Quentin realizes that they’re waiting on a portal, and Eliot refuses to say to where. When the portal is late and they’re standing in their own hallway, staring at a normal door like a pair of weirdo mundanes.
When Eliot slips the little scrap of silk over his eyes, and the whole world disappears and Quentin’s mournfully fully dressed and planning to go somewhere other than straight to the bedroom.
And especially when they step through the portal and Quentin trips over his own two feet, and Eliot barely manages to catch him.
Eliot, for his part, finds the whole thing hilarious. Quentin can hear the smile in his voice every time he speaks, and the way his thumb flutters over Quentin’s elbow as they walk through what he assumes is Fillory, if the taste of opium is anything to clue him in, is a little too frantic and jittery to just be the hustle and tussle of guiding Quentin around.
“El, come on,” He finally huffs, “Just tell me where we’re going.”
“We’re almost there,” Eliot replies, that damn smile curling the ends of the sentence.
“Why are we in Fillory?”
“Because I have a surprise.”
“Why do you have a surprise?”
Eliot hums thoughtfully. “You’re going to be so mad at yourself when you realize,” he says, which makes absolutely no sense.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
But Eliot doesn’t reply, he just keeps leading them onwards, and Quentin, as confused as he is, just shuffles along with him.
When they finally stop, Eliot moves to stand behind Quentin. His hands come up to carefully untie the blindfold, but before he removes it entirely, he leans in and presses a kiss to Quentin’s temple. Even now, after five years together, three free from tragedy and trauma and magical duress, it sends goosebumps up his back and arms, to feel Eliot’s kiss.
But then, Eliot says:
“Happy Anniversary, Q,”
And Quentin’s mouth falls open as the blindfold slips away.
There are two things Quentin Coldwater is exceptionally good at that his perfect boyfriend is terrible at. These are their roles and they’ve accepted them as they are:
Being nice to strangers they don’t necessarily like.
And remembering important dates.
There’s not a birthday, holiday, or anniversary in the last five years that Eliot’s remembered. Not a single one. He’s so bad at remembering dates that Margo once cast a remembrance spell on him to make sure he didn’t forget her birthday.
And he still forgot.
But Quentin had remembered, and his present had both their names on it, and Margo didn’t hex either of them.
Quentin always remembered.
Except, lately, his students have been particularly needy before and after study hours, and he’s been a little stressed about maybe, possibly, giving up being a professor because somehow it’s gone from eagerly charming to guns out depressing teaching new Magicians day in and day out.
He hadn’t looked at his calendar in days, barely knew what day of the week it was, and he’d managed to miss their entire five year anniversary.
He’s going to be sick.
He flips around and looks up at Eliot, tears pushing at the corners of his eyes. “I am so sorry,” he says, reaching up to grab Eliot’s hands. “I can’t believe I forgot.”
But Eliot’s smiling at him with those soft eyes. “Q,” he says.
“I’m the literal worst boyfriend on the face of the earth.” he glances around them, frowning as he realizes they’re not just in Fillory, but they’re in the woods. He’d assumed they were going to the castle. Maybe a village. Maybe the spot they claimed as theirs after the last true magical disaster finally ended and they found a few days of peace. “Did you bring me out to the woods to kill me? I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Why would I kill you?” Eliot asks, laughing. He shifts them so he can grab Quentin’s hands. “I put far too much effort into this,” he adds, carefully maneuvering them around.
“Into what?”
Eliot raises his eyebrows and motions around them.
Around six months after the last truly terrible thing happened to them, and they started feeling secure in their newfound safety and happiness, they went looking for it. The little cottage deep in the fillorian woods and its mosaic. They’d searched high and low, left and right. Used spells and went camping for nights on end. Even, eventually, told their friends the truth, and ended up with a search party ten people strong that traversed every inch of the forest their feet could travel.
They’d spent months looking. All to no avail.
At the end of it, they’d agreed that they didn’t need to relive that life to find their happy ever after.
Their beauty in all life, so to speak.
So, then, why, is Quentin Coldwater standing in the Fillorian woods, staring at the familiar, though now in slightly worse shape, cottage that plagues his dreams? Why, then, is there a strangely familiar blanket draped across the little sandbox they’d spent their days and nights carefully placing tiles in?
He spins around. “How?”
They’d agreed.
“When?”
They’d agreed to stop the search and move on.
“What!”
He spins back around, letting his gaze rake over the whole of the area. There’re weeds growing where Eliot had once carefully gardened, and most of the surrounding area is overgrown and covered in moss. But there’s no mistaking it for it is.
It’s home.
Hands settle on his shoulders, squeezing gently. “I wasn’t just going to give up,” Eliot murmurs, his hands slipping over Quentin’s collarbones and coming together to lace over his heart. “We found it a few weeks ago.”
“We!”
Eliot chuckles softly, nodding against Quentin’s temple. “Girls night with Bambi.”
Quentin inhales quickly, turning to look at him. “You lied about girls night?”
Eliot nods again. “She thought she’d found it, and I didn’t want to give you false hope.” He shrugs, pressing a kiss to Quentin’s cheek.
“That was weeks ago.”
Humming, Eliot pulls away. He steps around Quentin and moves in closer to the mosaic, “Mhm,” he holds his hand out. “I may have caught a glimpse of your calendar, and realized I had the perfect opportunity to surprise you.”
The calendar that Quentin hadn’t checked in at least two months. God.
He’d forgotten their anniversary.
No, not only had he forgotten their anniversary, but Eliot found the ultimate present, and Quentin had nothing but himself to offer up in exchange. Not that he expected Eliot would mind, but five years is a big deal, and they’d spent so long thinking they’d be lucky to get a week, that he should’ve remembered.
He should’ve been prepared.
“Q,” Eliot says, “Stop overthinking and take my hand. The surprise isn’t over.”
Quentin’s gaze flicks down to Eliots hand. “I’m the worst boyfriend ever,” He says.
Eliot scoffs. “You’ve been dealing with a lot.”
His gaze shoots up to Eliot’s face. “Eliot, we literally used to deal with gods and dragons and monsters that possess and murder people. What i’ve been dealing with—”
Eliot moves in, shaking his head and grabbing Quentin’s hand. “Is a lot,” he murmurs, bringing Quentin’s hand up to his lips and pressing a chaste kiss to his knuckles. “I’m not mad at you for forgetting. Just like you’re never mad at me for forgetting.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Eliot chides, tugging gently on Quentin’s arm and pulling him towards the mosaic. “Let’s do one,” he says, nodding towards the piles of tiles sitting beside the sandbox. “For old times sake.”
Quentin watches while Eliot folds the blanket and sets it aside.
And then, with Eliot’s twinkling eyes set on him, he reaches down and grabs a tile, and they get to work.
Even though they technically never spent their lives putting together and taking apart mosaics, it’s easy to fall into the pattern. Take a tile, place the tile. Argue about the placement of the tile. Kiss the argument away. Take a tile. Repeat.
The only thing they’re missing is the sound of a childs laughter.
When the image of a sunset is complete, and the sun has set over the clearing, Eliot grabs the blanket and sets it out overtop their hard work, and conjures up a picnic basket. Because Eliot’s perfect. Quentin sits down silently across from him as he pulls out the food and sets it out for them.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” he says once all the food is laid out and Eliot’s pouring their drinks into the little tin cups.
“No,” Eliot agrees, smiling across their meal at him. “I wanted to.”
“I didn’t get you anything.”
“Sure you did.”
“Eliot, I forgot.”
Eliot hums thoughtfully, before reaching into the picnic basket once more and pausing. He glances up at Quentin from beneath the curls that have fallen in his face. “Maybe,” he says, “But that’s okay. More than okay, because you would have done something wildly romantic and blown my plans out of the water.”
“I don’t think anything I could’ve done would have beat this.”
“Then be glad you don’t have to compete.” He pulls something small and black out of the basket and sets it between his knee and the basket, just out of Quentin’s line of sight. “Besides, I’m not done yet.”
Quentin’s heart beats a little wildly at that, because what the hell else could he have?
“This is seriously enough, El.”
“Maybe,” He murmurs, before clearing his throat and sitting up a little straight. “For an anniversary it might be, but that’s not all this is.”
“It’s not?”
“No, Q,” he smiles, all soft eyes and crinkling cheeks. It takes everything in Quentin not to swoon, and even then, his vision goes a little blurry at the edges, because despite everything, he’s still not quite so used to just . . . being happy. It’s no longer new and unfamiliar, but it’s still wild and exciting. “So I’m going to say some things, and you’re going to sit and listen.”
“I can do that.”
“Already failing.”
Quentin huffs. “I was just—”
“Q.”
“I’m just say—”
“Shhh,” Eliot hushes, leaning forward and placing a hand on Quentin’s atop the blanket. The moment is reminiscent in his mind to something that feels less and less like a memory and more and more like a dream. “Just listen.”
Nodding, Quentin uses his free hand to lazily mime zipping his lips with a playful roll of his eyes.
Eliot grins, pausing to watch him for a beat. “Good,” he says, pulling away and sitting up straight. “So. As you know, today’s our five year anniversary.” He raises his eyebrow, before shaking his head and looking down at the space between them. “When this all started, neither of us really thought we’d end up at a year, let alone five. But they’ve been beautiful and wild and there’s not a thing in this world I’d trade them for.”
He clears his throat, before looking around them. “And that includes our life here. I think it’s good that we didn’t find it until now. That we got to find ourselves without the memory of this looming over our relationship like a plan for how things ought to be. I’m so, so happy with what we’ve created together, Q.”
Without really meaning to, Quentin reaches out and presses a hand to Eliot’s knee. “Me too,” he says, softly.
Eliot smiles at him softly, setting his hand atop Quentin’s. “There’s one thing we had in that life that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about,” He says, gaze locking on Quentin’s. He freezes there for a moment, before he reaches out with his free hand and picks up the item he’d placed beside his knee. The hand atop Quentin’s comes up, as well, once he’s got it between them, and then he’s flipping open the lid of a small, black ring box and setting it down between them.
The gentlest of movements. Barely a rustle of fabric as he pulls away and leaves it there between them so Quentin can look at it for as long as it takes for his mind to wrap around what he’s looking at.
“I want to be your husband,” Eliot says after a long while, his voice soft, so soft it barely travels along the wind, and Quentin doubts he hears it correctly, but then; “I want you to be mine.”
Quentin’s gaze flickers between the ring and Eliot’s face. Back and forth and back and forth.
I love you, Quentin thinks.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
“What?” He asks, his voice a delicate little thing.
Eliot picks the box up and holds it out between them with one hand while his other grabs Quentin’s. “Quentin Coldwater,” he says, very seriously, “Will you marry me?”
Oh.
Oh.
He’s thinking the answer on repeat, staring down at the simple silver band within the box, silently chanting yes. Yes. Yes!
“Q?” Eliot asks.
Quentin breaks his gaze on the ring box and looks up at him. “El?”
Eliot raises his eyebrows, glancing down at the ring and then back up. “Do I need to repeat—”
“Oh, no.”
“No?”
“No,” Quentin says quickly, “Not no. No, you don’t need to repeat. Yes.”
“Yes?” Eliots eyes twinkle as he asks, and Quentin shuffles to sit on his knee, already nodding, yes, yes, yes.
“Yes,” Quentin says.
“Yes,” Eliot echoes.
Quentin nods again, cupping Eliot’s hand holding the ring box with both of his hands. “Yes.” He says, swallowing down a wave of emotion. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
Eliot shifts to his knees as well, pulling the ring out of the box. He motions for Quentin to put his hand out, and Quentin does, trying to ignore the trembling in his fingers as he looks down between them. But then Eliot’s slipping the ring on his finger and pulling him into a hug and Quentin feels like his whole world just grew three degrees softer and warmer and more wonderful all at once.