this is like destroying me to contemplate. because like. he totally had a speech, and the purpose of the speech was totally to like, convince eliot that he could do this and be normal about it. like what did not, at any point, figure into his calculations and plans was any variant of the phrase âi want to sleep with you.â no. thatâs not how quentin does. (evidence: throne room season, entirety of season one.) like, obviously quentin wants to sleep with eliot, who wouldnât want to sleep with eliot, this is known and not worth saying because itâs very embarrassing to desire things, and obviously eliot knows that everyone wants to sleep with him (alexa play gold rush by taylor swift). so. okay. we donât need to dwell on that UNSEEMLY MATTER.
instead, we just need to convince eliot that it would be a good idea. now, why would eliot not think itâs a good idea? (1) he thinks quentin will be bad at sex. unfortunate, but if this is the case quentin canât really do anything about it. (2) he doesnât want to sleep with quentin. likely, but they are stuck together for somewhere between another 12 hours and eternity, and who the fuck else is eliot gonna fuck? the badgers??? eliot is smart enough to understand this, and horny enough to mind, so we donât need to dwell on that, but we should probably bring it up, just to like, plant the connection in his mind. as a silver lining, being stuck together for maybe together might act as a counterweight on issue (1), since, again, who that is better at sex is eliot going to sleep with? no one. plus, quentin is like, willing to learn. heâs actually demonstrated that provably in the past. should he mention that? no, that would be weird. it would be weird to say âi might be bad at sex, but iâll do whatever you tell me.â that would make hitting on your best friend that youâre marooned out of time with kind of awkward.
which brings us to reason (3) eliot might not be into it, which is: What If It Makes Things Weird? like, they annoy each other and bicker and are maybe slowly going insane, but things are not weird between them, and thatâs great, because quentinâs baseline of weirdness with most representative of the human race is pretty fucking high, so itâs lucky that if he had to get locked in the past with someone, it would be one of like 2 people on the planet heâs legitimately not Weird around, and arguably the only one heâs never been Weird around. actually itâs kind of nice, in ways. not as nice as it would be not to be here, but like. itâs pleasant to just sit and companionably work with someone who knows him really well and likes him anyway. itâs nice when they wrap up for the day and eat dinner and eliot makes him laugh or listens to him complain and itâs also nice when they donât have anything to say because theyâve been next to each other for 72 hours straight and itâs still not weird. itâs just kind of warm and peaceful. like sitting in the sunshine. sometimes they canât take another day of mosaic-ing and they go to the nearby stream to swim and itâs like really fun actually even though theyâre just taking their same personalities and selves that they should be so bored of by now into a slightly different and wetter location, and like after the third time they did this they didnât really have it in them to worry much about the nudity thing at the sacrifice of hanging around in wet underwear anymore, which was a little weird at first, for quentin, but eliot was so normal that that wasnât weird either, and quentin actually really liked that. that they could just like â be bodies, around each other, and be â comfortable. heâs like maybe never totally had that with another person, including any of the (multiple, thank you, hypothetical eliot in his brain) people he has had actual sex with. itâs really nice.
but like, OBVIOUSLY none of that is RELEVANT to the ISSUE AT HAND, which is that quentin wants to have some normal, not-weird sex with his friend. and thatâs, like. has he ever done that? no. but he knows he can! he feels like at this point, almost a year in, theyâve like literally weirdness-proofed themselves, which heâs, like, actually really profoundly grateful in a way that might be weird if he thought about it too long, but thatâs okay. theyâve been here almost a year. his head is going to odd places. which is one of the reasons he should have sex soon. (should he say that to eliot? argue that like, quentin is a crazy person and also as they both know super annoying but he will definitely be 50% less of both of those things if he starts getting laid, so that would be a big boon to eliotâs, like, workplace satisfaction and quality of life? no, that seems a little desperate.) so, heâs totally sure that this is a great plan that addresses many problems for both of them with like zero downside, because heâs not going to make it weird. (and obviously eliotâs not going to make it weird, because â why would it be weird for eliot? eliotâs had sex with like a million people in his life, because heâs just scientifically the hottest person to ever live. whatâs one more added to the list?) he just needs to convince eliot of this totally airtight logic.
so i feel like, thatâs what the speech is focused on. quentin is trying to explain that YES he wants to have sex with eliot (duh), and also YES he and eliot SHOULD have sex (less intuitive, which is why he needs the speech), but NO, heâs not going to be weird about it. because obviously eliot will assume quentin would make it weird, right? quentin canât blame him; he has that vibe. and historically, like, yeah. he has made it weird. but historically heâs had sex with people he either barely knew at all or else was in love with, which is like basically torture, like, how does anyone ever fall in love and not make it weird when itâs this constant nightmare of anxiety and inadequacy as you wait out the timeline on the timebomb of your personality flaws blowing up your first ever shot at happiness? he doesnât feel anything like that about eliot, thank god. when he thinks about eliot he just thinks about nice chill stuff like laughing and hanging out and how sometimes when theyâre falling asleep eliot will start telling him some anecdote from his days of hedonism but heâs so careful with the telling that it almost feels like a bedtime story. and like quentin could say that to eliot, right? he could say, like, âi think we should sleep together and it would be fine because even though i want to strangle you like nine times a week at the core of it youâre just this really constantly positive presence in my life and i canât imagine anyone iâd be better suited to working on this stupid puzzle with than you and sometimes weâre having so much fun that i forget to mind the fact that our lives are effectively over and sometimes i get sad about that but youâre really nice about it and thatâs cool too.â but that doesnât really feel like it would make it less weird, actually. actually in his head when he says that, it definitely sounds weird, even though he doesnât mean it in like, a weird way. itâs just, like. eliot. you know? eliotâs great.
given these constraints, quentinâs going to keep it short and efficient and to the point. heâs not gonna do his thing he does when he gets nervous where he just physically cannot stop talking, because then eliot will think heâs nervous, and that will make eliot think quentinâs going to make it weird, but like quentinâs not nervous about that, heâs just hypothetically a little nervous that if he brings this up it might impact their friendship, which would be like one of the most devastating things to ever happen to him probably, but thatâs normal, considering that now his life is such that eliot is his only friend. heâs just going to say that the two of them should consider hooking up, you know, for fun, because letâs face it, both of them want to get laid, and both of them are sick of politely finding excuses to leave the area so the other one can get some privacy to jerk off, and it would just be more convenient if they took care of their bodily needs together, and like, maybe kind of fun too (should he say that? maybe he shouldnât say that. maybe eliot will think thatâs weird, or like, trying too hard, or whatever), and like, yeah, on paper, this situation seems like the kind of thing that could âgetâ âcomplicated,â but like â come on, el. (he should try to laugh here, but like, real casually). itâs me! q! itâs us! if things havenât gotten weird by now, a couple handjobs between friends arenât going to ruin it. (and blow jobs. heâd like that. heâd like to suck a dick, and get his dick sucked. should he say that? eliot likes blow jobs, right? who the fuck doesnât like blow jobs? maybe he should say it to like, sweeten the pot. no, thatâs like, desperate. chill out, coldwater. if you blow you blow donât make a thing about it.) no pressure, obviously. he should add that, not like eliot will feel pressured, but like â he might worry about hurting quentinâs feelings, so quentin should make sure to be really clear up front that he doesnât have any feelings here to hurt. no pressure, if you donât want to thatâs cool, i just figured â yeah, i think so â why the fuck not?
and then itâs Time and heâs drunk enough to feel brave but sober enough to know what heâs doing and heâs trying to remember this speech he had but there are too many words and he canât remember if he decided to leave in the part about blow jobs or not and his brain is spinning with things like I WANNA SUCK ELIOTâS DICK and REMEMBER WHEN WE WENT SWIMMING AND WATCHED THE SUN GO DOWN? I DIDNâT EVEN NOTICE TILL LATER THAT THAT WAS THE MOST PEACEFUL IâD EVER FELT IN MY ENTIRE LIFE and YOU HAVE TO DO IT THAT WAS THE PLAN IF YOU DONâT DO IT NOW YOUâLL CHICKEN OUT FOREVER AND THEN YOUâLL NEVER GET LAID AGAIN and he just fucking goes for it and, shit, he might have made it weird, but, well â itâs done. itâs eliotâs turn to make the call.
(then they kiss for real, and then they fuck, and then they fuck again, and iâm not sure exactly when in that timeline quentin realizes that oh, shit, i was being weird about it all along, but, man, that oneâs gotta hurt.)
