mega super nerd

I wasn’t aware people had mortal enemies outside of books or video games.

It was a moment, just a hazy moment, beneath the lustrous facade of flirtation with pretty boys who he felt like he knew just a little too well (like he’d lived a multitude of lives caught up in his gravitational pull) - a dissonant (important - there was something important there) chord that shattered an illusion he hadn’t known was there. Eliot blinked once, then twice, licking his lips and wading bemusedly through the rising tide of things that suddenly didn’t make sense to him, until he caught sight of the broad stroke of ink on Quentin’s wrist as his nimble fingers ran through a trick that he’d probably performed hundreds of times.

Hedges.

There was something important about the hedgewitches. About cat-like smiles and brunettes with bad attitudes.

“Push is a game for cheaters,” he replied distractedly, snapping his fingers a few times like it might cast off the veil that had been wrapping around him like a fog. “You should know, you beat me over and over again that night at—”

And that wasn’t right, was it? 

Strewn out across the Cottages floor, surrounded by passed out party-goers from the first big blow out of the year, with fussy Alice snoring like a trucker on the couch behind them and Margo far too stoned to do anything except run her nails across his scalp and drape herself over him like a lazy, purring cat — and Eliot — Eliot a glorious, debauched mess who’d lost his shoes trying to teach the finer points of Push to a newly-initiated Physical Kid with a furrowed brow and big brown eyes and shiny hair who was taking the whole thing so seriously Eliot could have eaten him right up or adopted him right there. 

Quentin - Quentin was good at Push.

A sharp spike of pain lanced through his skull and Eliot cringed, his half-drunk coffee cup tumbling to the ground as he reached for his eyes. Oh, those motherfuckers.

“Q — Quentin, listen,” he tried urgently, ignoring the spill of lukewarm coffee that was soaking through his magnificently tailored trousers, “This isn’t what you think it is. You need to wake—”

The world around them warped, buzzing at the edges like an interrupted television signal, and Eliot realised what was happening long after he made the aborted attempt to reach out and shake Quentin from this living dream. 

He could just see Julia’s smug, cat-like smile in the back of his head.

Too late. 

It was starting all over again.

---

You should know, Eliot said, as if Quentin had ever interacted with this man before their fated meeting a few weeks back. His brow furrowed in confusion, watching Eliot grow distracted from their conversation as he snapped his fingers, a far away look in his eye. “I’ve never played Push,” he said slowly, like he was about to startle a deer. “Much less with you. You’re thinking of someone else.”

Then, of course -- of course -- all hell broke loose, and Eliot’s coffee was falling to the ground, its contents going all over the floor as Eliot reached for his eyes like he was in pain. Everything else remained forgotten as Quentin shot up from his seat, kneeling in front of Eliot ( as if that would help with anything ) and grabbing his arms loosely, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Coffee was soaking through his jeans, but he didn’t care, Eliot’s urgency sending a brief wave of panic through him. 

“Wake... what?” But suddenly the world was growing hazy, Quentin’s panic rising as his vision grew blurry and he felt the sudden, unshakable pull to go to sleep. No, not sleep -- pass out. Wake..? 

Was he sleeping?

Quentin didn’t have much of a chance to figure that out, collapsing against where Eliot had been and letting darkness overtake him. His last thought was that the hedges might find him, help him out once they figured out what was going on, but little did Quentin Coldwater know that that would never come.

He was whisked to a new world of his own making, and Quentin merely slept.

Perhaps it was just a little bit satisfying to hear someone echo his own thoughts aloud. Lately it seemed like everyone was conveniently forgetting just who’s bar they’d taken over for their war-rooms. “See that you do,” Eliot replied brightly, decisively, like he’d accomplished some great victory today without even breaking a sweat. Seeing that face regularly in his kingdom again would be well worth any grief it incurred.

Card tricks and nerd courtship and that small, proud little smile that gave way to something almost smug aside — Eliot never joked about Las Vegas. His eyebrows arched upward just so and he grinned, shark-like and intense as he turned a little further in his seat to reply, bluntly, “No,”  pausing for just a beat of comic effect before amending, “I’m asking you on a date to Las Vegas so I can watch you beat my mortal enemy in a game of Push, Quentin Coldwater.”

In the game of full names for emphasis Eliot had a feeling he would always win. Quentin Coldwater was an inherently ridiculous name. 

And when Eliot really wanted something, attainable and right there, he had a habit of obfuscating and turning circles so perhaps it was easier to just focus on the idea of a redemption game of Push against that one twat from the Welters circuit than on the jitter of excitement that the words a date kicked off in his chest. He was not a pre-teen girl with a crush. 

(He was maybe a pre-teen girl with a crush.) 

To be clear: Eliot Waugh had never, and would never, care about Welters — but he did care deeply about his Bambi and his Bambi cared in multitudes about the sport in that ferocious, intense way that only Margo could. The Welters incident of 2018 had soured what should have been a victory lap for his Bambi as the reigning overlord of the tournament circuit; it would have been her final crowning victory had that absolute cuntwaffle not stolen her crown and broken his heart in one fell swoop. Accusations of bad sportsmanship (fair) and intimidation (also fair) and racketeering (a complete fabrication, no profit had been gained from their ritualistic taunting of the other teams beyond the satisfaction of a job well done) hissed straight in the organiser’s ears had gotten them suspended from the finals leading to a legendary rampage through Las Vegas that had ended in Margo being banned from the strip for life.

Mortal enemy was too good of a word for Mike McCormick.

Eliot’s eyes lit up like the fountains outside the Bellagio, full of perfectly choreographed thoughts to the tune of Quentin Coldwater’s cardshark potential and dextrous fingers. His forehead furrowed faintly, eyes distant as he continued, aloud, “How is your probability magic? We may need to get some practice in.”

Quentin was ready this time. Despite the jolt of uncertainty that went through him at the word no, he didn’t let himself immediately fall for the dramatics a second time. Maybe if Eliot had waited a minute or so longer, he would have fallen back into the trap, but now when he continued on with the rest of his thought, Quentin just smiled widely, excitement bubbling in his chest and threatening to burst out of his chest.

A date. Eliot actually said the word date and seemed to have happily done so.

Never mind that the date was to defeat his so-called mortal enemy.

“I wasn’t aware people had mortal enemies outside of books or video games,” he joked, messing idly with the box in his hands before pulling a coin out of his pocket to fiddle with. Whoever this person was seemed to have offended Eliot desperately, enough that he held a grudge (though to be fair, Eliot seemed the type to hold a grudge regardless), and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little curious as to what the guy had done. “Though I can’t fully say I expected our first date to be the end of some guy’s pride, I’m not surprised either. You know how to keep people on their toes, El, I’ll say that much.”

Probability magic? Quentin tried not to be offended at the notion that he would need probability magic to come out on top over some random person in Las Vegas, but he could see why it would be useful. Anything to make sure they won instead of embarrassing both of them something fierce. Quentin rolled his quarter across his knuckles while Eliot spoke, sent it back and forth between his hands with an anti-gravity muscle pass, then used a final one to catch the quarter in between his two fingers straight up and down (a trick that took him months to master but now just found fun to do (and maybe impress people)). 

“I’m almost offended you’d want me to depend on probability magic,” he said, as if he couldn’t get by on skill alone like he had for most of his life. “But I don’t see the harm in fine tuning what I do know, if it’ll make you more comfortable.”

Of course this adorable nerd had taught himself card tricks, as if he couldn’t run hard enough towards the prospect of magic. Didn’t that make it that much crueler then, that he’d been resigned to a life of grasping at the scraps of magic that the local Hedge Witch safehouses had managed to squirrel away? Eliot didn’t allow himself to feel things very often, he vastly preferred the safety of nonchalance and he liked to think he’d earned that right by virtue of surviving the dusty backwater that had spawned him, but for a moment, shining and clear, he felt that. He could picture this odd little nerd shuffling around Brakebills campus and perched awkwardly on one of the sofas at the Cottage, showing off his card tricks in the midst of a raging party. 

Life was inherently unfair.

“Oh, does that mean you’re done avoiding Whitespire,” Eliot pressed in at the first glimmer of an advantage, cavalier and pointed all at once, as he continued, “Not that your friend with the conga line or the one who spent the entire night grilling Todd weren’t sparkling additions to our usual crowd, but neither of them seemed overly impressed by my cape.”

And if having Quentin around and enjoying his company (and his face) and his conversation (and his face) proved a point to certain people over who exactly owned Whitespire than that was just a perk. 

Even if he did seem to be doubling down on the very wrong opinion that Eliot would ever be a Javert. 

He reached out to gently, ever so gently, let him down with an insincere pat to the back of his hand if only for an excuse to close the distance between them. Eliot had always been a tactile person, it wasn’t remarkable. “You have no idea how wrong you are,” he informed him fondly, lightly, before pulling back to settle in and watch some terribly dorky card tricks.

It was delightful. Quentin was delightful. Eliot could feel his own coolness slithering indelibly away from him the longer he sat and watched, far too transfixed by the dexterity of Quentin’s capable hands (far more graceful in these forms than they had been when mucking through his Poppers, which was a fair indication that he just needed a little bit of course-correcting and — well, apparently having a library planted in the middle of his dream bar had gone and made him a giant de facto nerd as well if that’s really the path his brain wanted to take when confronted with the dexterity of a cute boy’s hands but still.)

Eliot applauded, because who cared about dignity when Quentin had turned shy and fidgety, lips curled wickedly at the corner. “So exactly how good are you at manipulating cards? Because Bambi’s been banned from ever setting foot in every casino, magical or muggle, in Las Vegas since the Welters tournament of 2018 and there’s a guy who plays Push every month at The Venetian that I’ve wanted to watch lose miserably for fucking forever.”

He chuckled when Eliot jumped right onto his avoidance of Whitespire, the corner of his mouth pulling up into a crooked smile as he continued to list his friends and the impressions they set. He still bemoaned the missed opportunity of seeing Josh conga through the bar--maybe Margo saved a copy somehow. “Well, it is your bar, not Alice’s,” Quentin said slowly, looking at Eliot through his lashes. “And I happen to like your company, so... I suppose I can start coming by again. How else am I going to see this cape of yours?”

Eliot leaned closer, hand placed over his own, and Quentin felt his breath catch in his chest, eyes wide and searching his face in their proximity. They were dancing around one another, Quentin wasn’t blind, but he’d be lying if he said he understood it. What could a depressed super nerd have that someone like Eliot would want? He did though, or it seemed like he did from the casual touches and lingering eyes, the fond smiles that Quentin had a feeling weren’t a totally common occurrence, so why question it? 

Even if he seemed adamant against believing he could be a Javert.

“To each their own,” he murmured, ignoring the regret when Eliot pulled away and turning to his card tricks. To Quentin’s surprise, Eliot seemed delighted by them, watching his hands move as Quentin ran through the tricks with ease, quick and decisive with his movements and confident like an old pro could only be. The clapping startled him, though, because normally people merely commented if they thought it was good (or bad), and it helped to break him out of his shell a little as he smiled almost proudly. It was new, different from his routine, but no one said that new was inherently bad. 

“I’m very good at manipulating cards,” Quentin said, squaring the deck in his hands and tucking them back into their box. “I’ve been doing this for a good portion of my life.” He listened as Eliot went on about Margo and Vegas and that Welters thing again, thought for a moment while watching his companion for any sign of bad idea, before deciding to go forward and say, “Are you asking me on a date to Las Vegas so I can beat some guy at Push, Eliot Waugh?"

Quentin swallowed the bait—hook, line and sinker—for all of a few moments, at least, his face crumpling into something apologetic over his dismissal of the Vin Diesel oeuvre, and Eliot broke, chest aching with the force of the laughter that had him curling back into his chair, tears stinging the corners of his eyes as he wiped them away in disbelief as Quentin swatted his arm reproachfully. “I’m always,” he tried valiantly to rally himself back to a dignified expression, swiping a tear from beneath one eye and steading his breathing, “Deadly serious about John Cena.”

And honestly, it didn’t surprise him that Quentin was bad at parties, he had all the twitchy energy of a feral rabbit forced into the midst of a kid’s birthday party, wide-eyed and terrified for his life. Still, the grin on his face was not nearly as studied or artful as Eliot preferred as he echoed, “Card tricks, huh?”

God but he was adorable. How was Eliot forever stumbling over adorable, socially maladjusted nerds?

“Bold of you to assume I haven’t already got a cape,” Eliot replied blandly, eyeing his nails for theatrical affect before turning his eyes back upon Quentin with vague amusement. “Hero may be a bit of a stretch, though I’ve been told my cocktails can literally save a life, so make of that what you will.”

The delight on Quentin’s face was just about consolation enough for the rather unfortunate decision to reveal any part of his complicated high school years to a relative stranger who Alice insisted upon dubbing The Enemy (capital letters very much included). “Fuck you very much,” was the visceral response to the suggestion that he was at all a Javert, “I’ll have you know I was a tour de force — I believe the common thread in all of the reviews was that I was the shining star of the production, thank you.”

Scoffing beneath his breath he tilted his chin a little higher, paper crown tumbling from his head and into his lap as he added, “Go on then Coldwater, it’s your turn. Show me one of your card tricks.”

Eliot was laughing, truly laughing--the kind of laughter that would likely give him side stitches while he curled into his chair--and even though it was at Quentin’s gullibility, he couldn’t stop the large smile that spread across his face at the sound of it. It was light and didn’t feel like a performance Eliot was putting on for the world; he wanted to hear more of it. “How can you be serious about someone you can’t see?” he teased, echoing John Cena’s infamous catchphrase.

His expression became a little embarrassed when Eliot echoed card tricks, though his smile looked a bit amused but, again, genuine. It certainly helped Quentin to relax again. “Yeah. I, uh. Before I found out magic was real, I decided to teach myself slight of hand and such. Jules followed my lead for a bit, but I’m the only one who stuck with it. Now we’ve got the real thing, but like... it’s still fun to do.”

Of course Eliot would have a cape already, though whether or not he was teasing was just out of Quentin’s knowledge. He wouldn’t be surprised if the man was telling the truth. “You’ll have to show it to me while giving me a life-saving cocktail,” he said, then snorted as Eliot began defending his reign as Jean ValJean. It was frankly adorable to see him so indignant (at least, it was in a situation where they were playfully poking at one another--Quentin would venture as far as saying they were actually flirting, rather than him either not noticing entirely or being the only one trying to flirt). “Javert is just as important to the story,” he said in defense of his statement. “Without Javert, ValJean never would’ve had the life he did. He could have stayed in prison for that bread, or never have gotten his new life as a wealthy man who adopted Cosette since Javert wouldn’t have been tracking him down. Don’t knock Javert.”

He could certainly believe Eliot was the star, though, no matter what role he might have gotten instead.

His eyes widened slightly when told to do a card trick for him, and Quentin reached into his bag automatically to retrieve the deck of cards he kept on him. He took them out, shuffled them a bit, then adjusted so Eliot only saw the front of him, unable to peek at the deck. Without speaking, he began to show a few tricks off, ranging from changing the color of the card shown while still in plain sight to making a card appear out of thin air, from a coin turning into a card to shuffling a pile of four that were supposed to be blacks on one side and reds on the other, only to have reds infiltrating the black card pile and end in the two colors alternating as he set down the flush. Compared to real magic, this was nothing, but it was still soothing, and he was able to do the tricks while only half-paying attention, the other half of his attention focused on seeing if Eliot was even liking what he was seeing. 

Quentin finished up the last trick and went on instead to fidget with the deck in his hands, chewing his bottom lip as he said, “Nothing compared to the real thing, but there you go.”

Nothing appeased Eliot’s vanity like a pronouncement that he always looked like royalty; coming from Quentin who stared too long before glancing shyly away as if he’d only just realised that Eliot could see him too. It drew his lips upward in a slow, knowing smile, his chest fit to burst with that familiar, thrumming anticipation of something as Quentin elaborated. 

“I’ll add it to my collection,” Eliot replied, touching a finger absently to the paper crown nestled in his hair. If Margo could see him now, indulging this, she’d never let him live it down. But it was undeniably sweet how Quentin actually listened to what he said, playing the part of co-conspirator and critic all in one. 

“The Vin Diesel oeuvre spans many genres and has surprising depth,” he replied airily, picking at the cuffs of his shirt with studied nonchalance and refusing to budge an inch on whether he was joking or deadly serious. What was even the point of all this if he couldn’t mercilessly tease pretty boys with long hair and soft eyes when the opportunity presented itself? “I’d say his body of work belongs with the greats of the silver screen — Cary Grant, Gene Kelly,” his eyes dipped absently and he bit away a smile with an airy addition of, “John Cena.”

The insights into some of Quentin’s favourite things were interesting and surprising even if Eliot refused to show any surprise about any information that Quentin might have just dropped into his lap. There were a great many things that Eliot could tell Quentin in return; about how he’d been the best part of that tragic high school production of Les Mis or some wry acknowledgement of how the closest thing to a Gay-Straight Alliance at his school had been when his bullies stopped bullying him long enough to combine forces to give their biology teacher a nervous breakdown. Christ. There was nothing in the world that Eliot liked better than the idea of never revisiting his high school years ever again.

Rather than poke the sleeping bear, he settled upon a concise and delighted exclamation of, “Nerd.” Which really about covered it. “This might surprise you,” he informed Quentin seriously, turning his head to find Quentin’s eyes and impress upon him the importance of what he had to say next, “But some people,” his eyebrows arched and his voice lowered as if to impart a terrible secret, “Enjoy parties.”

Settling back into his chair to elaborate with a dramatic sweep of hands, “And as it turns out, I am an excellent host with impeccable taste. I was the hero that Brakebills deserved, if not the one it needed. You could almost say the parties found me.”

Humming to himself, he tipped his head towards the ceiling, studying the pendant light hanging over their little corner with a critical eye before continuing, forcefully, like it might just shove all the skeletons banging on their closet doors back to where they should be, “You know I was the star of my high school’s production of Les Mis.”

His eyes followed his hand as Eliot reached up and touched his new crown, lips tugging up into a smile to match Eliot’s. It could have been so much neater if he’d had the proper supplies--scissors, construction paper with clean edges, glue and decorations if he felt like being extra elaborate. Eliot seemed to like it, though, and if Quentin sat a little straighter in pride while his heart beat faster in his chest, then he saw no reason to draw attention to either of them (especially the latter). “If you want a better one, just let me know,” he said off-handedly, smile morphing into a smirk. “Can’t have your growing collection go stagnant, after all.”

He tensed slightly when Eliot took on a completely different demeanor, face going serious in defense of Vin Diesel of all people, and it occurred to Quentin that he may have made a mistake poking at the movies. He’d hate if people poked fun of Fillory books in front of him, after all (which was to say, he did hate, because far too many people rolled their eyes when he was reading the children’s books yet again). “S-sorry, I haven’t, um...” Then the words John Cena came out of his mouth, and Quentin let out a surprised laugh, reaching over to swat his arm lightly. “Ass. I thought I upset you.”

He rolled his eyes at the word nerd. “I’ve fully embraced that title, thank you.” His eyes widened slightly as Eliot went serious again, staring intently back at him and just... listening. He liked to listen, it was what he did best: a wallflower through and through. It was because of that that Quentin raised his eyebrows, giving a small shrug. “Mm, some people. Right before grad school, Julia and her then-boyfriend James would take me to parties, try to help me ‘get out of my shell’ or whatnot. I usually just hung back and did a few card tricks for people.” 

When he wasn’t talking about his books, of course. Quentin thought better of mentioning the books again, feeling a twinge embarrassed to talk about them so much in a single sitting to Eliot (not with, as he seemed content to just listen when Quentin went on his tangent earlier). “A hero, a king, a magician--you’re just about everything. Should I be fashioning you a cape, too?”

He was content to let the silence fall between them as Eliot glanced up at the overhead light, closing his eyes and relaxing. He always felt more relaxed when he wasn’t holed up in Marina’s safe house. Introvert that he was, he still liked being around people who didn’t want to declare war the drop of the hat (and judging by their interaction last week, Quentin was pretty sure the whole war thing was more of Alice and Margo’s thing than Eliot’s). He cracked an eye open when Eliot spoke again, the other quickly following as a delighted smile graced Quentin’s face. “You were Jean Valjean? I would’ve pegged you for more of a Javert, honestly.”

Studied nonchalance couldn’t quite hide the wicked turn of his lips as Eliot replied, sing-song and goading, “The Susan doth protest too much,” with an extravagant raise of eyebrows before he sunk, cackling back into the confines of his chair, any and all elaborate facades falling away. Quentin Coldwater was eerily good at worming his way in past Eliot’s best defenses.

He was discretely swiping away the tears of laughter gathered at the corners of his eyes when Quentin began rummaging through his bag, his eyebrows raised as he watched Quentin diligently set about folding paper between clever, deft fingers. His head tilted, bemused as it began to take shape and understanding dawned quickly, suddenly, with a faint twist of his lips upward.

High holy fuck did he have a knack for attracting nerds into his orbit.

Reaching out, one eyebrow hitched and smile wry and amused, he turned the paper crown between his fingers before perching it, jauntily, atop his carefully cultivated curls. Apparently he was indulging this kind of nerdy courtship these days. “Do I look like a King?” he asked, blatantly fishing as he tilted his chin just so, sitting back in his chair like it was a throne.

And it seemed that Quentin wasn’t quite ready to give up their borrowed moment either, if the way he scrambled for something else to say was any indication. His lip twitched upward before he leaned in Quentin’s direction, as if to share a secret, his voice low as he admitted, “I told Margo that I’d read the Harry Potter series and those Game of Thrones books to get her off my case, but really I just read the wiki pages. I watch Vin Diesel movies for the plot and I loathe, and I mean loathe, Welters more than anything but I played in every tournament because it was Bambi’s favourite game.”

His lips twitched faintly before he asked, “Go on, your turn.”

“Oh shut up,” he said, but there was no bite in his words as he laughed with Eliot, ignoring the looks that got sent their way and rolling up his straw wrapper into a tight ball. He tossed it at Eliot and beamed when it bounced off the center of his head, as if he’d hit a bullseye rather than his friend’s head--and that was a thought. Were they friends? They’d spoken only a handful of times, but each time it had felt easy, casually poking at each other to see how they worked. He’d never had the easiest time making friends, so maybe he was reading into it. 

Then again, Eliot Waugh was ridiculously handsome, so Quentin kind of hoped he wasn’t reading into anything too much.

Do I look like a king? he asked with the small crown atop of his head, and Quentin nodded, pulling his knees back up to his chest as if he owned the chair and could sit in it as he pleased (bisexuals didn’t know how to sit properly, or so Julia, claimed, so... there was his reasoning).”You’ve always looked like a king,” he said before his brain could catch up to his mouth. It was true, though; Eliot knew how to hold himself in just the right way to exude nothing but elegance and regality wherever he went. Even when they were sitting in the library at Whitespire, Eliot’s feet firmly in Quentin’s lap, there was an air about him that marked him as in control of the room (at least until Alice showed up and picked a fight). He realized after a moment that he was staring, and Quentin glanced away quickly to keep it from being weird (was it weird?) “Think it’s just who you are, Eliot. Now you’ve got the crown to prove it.”

Quentin was a bit surprised when Eliot actually answered his request, and he leaned forward as if it would help him hear him better (and not at all to try and be closer to him). “You should at the very least watch the Harry Potter movies,” he said. “That way you’ll know little details if she tries to quiz you. Also, Vin Diesel movies? Really?” His tone was teasing, but he still hadn’t expected that. “My turn? Alright. Um... well, you already know my favorite books, but I also really love the Book Thief? Guess it’s a little morbid, but it’s still a good story. I prefer musical theater to movies and concerts, which is an expensive taste but always worth it. Only managed to be stage crew for shows though.” He tapped his chin as he thought of something else to say, then said, “And I was president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at my high school, Columbia, and Yale. Be gay, do crime.” 

Hint and lowkey feeler to see if flirting with Eliot was alright: dropped.

“You’re turn,” he said, head tilting to the side as he thought of something to ask. Twenty questions it was. “Why parties?"

“Is it?” he replied, leaning heavily into the teasing tone as his eyebrows inched upward, “Karen just wants to speak to your manager, but Susan — she posts thirty blurry pictures from her camera roll of her son’s birthday cake from three years ago. Individually,” with a theatrical shudder he lazed back in his chair, holding himself like it was a throne as if to prove a point and eyed Quentin steadily. “You tell me which is the true menace?”

Eliot had cultivated a presence for himself, finding all the right angles to present himself in his most regal light, but there was always a strange dissonance whenever someone believed so easily in the facade. Like they didn’t notice the occasional twang in his voice or that you could see the Indiana in him in a certain light. Like his father’s nose or his grandfather’s jawline might just give the game away. “My liege should be just fine,” he replied gamely without a bat of an eye, like maybe if Quentin would so readily play along than he could believe in the lie too.

(And maybe Quentin’s readiness to believe in him wasn’t just based on airs and graces anyway.)

“Penny doesn’t help anyone if it won’t help him,” Eliot agreed with an amused twitch of his lips, settling a little further back into his chair and draining the last of his coffee, head tilted as he hummed to himself in thought before his nose wrinkled faintly. Somewhere amidst the stacks there would be a volume or two on interdimensional travelling. Alice had been thorough in her ‘shopping list’ from the Neitherlands Library and Penny was nothing if not self-interested. All of this theoretical work was Alice’s domain, much like interpreting nerd-texts was secretly Margo’s and travelling to other world’s was Penny’s prerogative. 

Eliot was not the nerd that Quentin was looking for, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t be curious. 

“If you ever do figure it out let me know,” he offered wryly, setting his empty coffee cup on the table before him before settling back into his seat, not feeling remotely like he wanted to leave just yet. “I’ve always thought I’d make an excellent king.”

He raised an eyebrow in amusement, eyes crinkling and head shaking slightly. “Mm, but no one is obligated to actually follow what someone’s posting. Pretty sure you can just turn them off without unfriending them. Meanwhile, hell hath no fury like a Karen scorned.” He wrinkled his nose as if that would help his case. “Lord have mercy on whoever has to tell a Karen that their coupon is expired or applies to a different product.”

He chuckled and bowed his head as if he really were addressing royalty, feeling lighter than he’d been in days. It was nice to just... be. Eliot, as far as he knew, had no expectations of Quentin, nor did he have any of Eliot. They just got along, bantering back and forth easily, and it was so nice. “Then you should probably have a crown,” he said, staring at Eliot for a moment before an idea popped into his head. He put his Fillory book aside and dug into his messenger bag, pulling out two pieces of paper that looked relatively square-ish. Without another word Quentin began to fold, pausing once or twice to make sure he was doing it correctly, but within a few minutes he had a small, origami crown in the palm of his hand. A glance around told him no one was looking, and he quickly changed the color of one paper to a deep purple, the other a slightly staying white. Satisfied, Quentin finally looked up at Eliot and presented the crown to him, chin tilting down a fraction. “I hope it’s alright, my liege.”

Quentin sincerely hoped that Eliot was alright with the nerdy kind of flirting he did, because he was the least suave person he could think of.

“That tracks,” he said with a sigh, scratching at the bridge of his nose and glancing back at his book, then to the empty coffee cup Eliot placed on the table. Did that mean he was leaving? Shit, how could he convince him to stay for a few more minutes? Thankfully Eliot spoke, buying him a little time. “Well you’re already the party king. Shouldn’t be too much different.” Quentin chewed his bottom lip before deciding to simply say, “Tell me something interesting about you, Eliot. A hobby, favorite movie, guilty pleasure, doesn’t matter. I’d like to get to know you more.” He paused. “If that’s alright, I mean.”

The indignation that greeted his judgement of Quentin’s Facebook presence had him hastily covering a laugh with the rim of his coffee cup with a murmur of, “Calm down, Susan,” eyebrows raising innocently before he conceded, “No, I suppose you don’t,” without even a hint of remorse before amending, “But your friend Julia sure does. Does she have one of those bumper stickers that says, ‘My kid is on the honour roll’ as well?”

And smothering best friends were a relatable topic, at the very least, even if Quentin had to go and veer straight into the minefield that was the high school experience. Tread lightly. “I didn’t just throw parties,” he replied, as if he could nonchalantly dismiss the wreckage of his unearthed high school self and dive straight into his glorious reinvention without any implosions, “I was Royalty.” And he was never, ever going back to Indiana so it didn’t matter in the slightest who he’d been there which only served to prove his point, Alice was wrong, he wasn’t going to go spilling every last detail of is life just because Quentin Coldwater was cute. 

Eliot could expound on the struggles of being campus royalty, he supposed, but Quentin actively lit up at being asked about the notes scattered through his margins. Fizzing and sparking with an energy Eliot hadn’t seen from him before, bright pops of excitement that set his hands in motion and eyes wide and intent, filled with purpose as he talked rapidly and with vigour without seemingly any need for input from Eliot himself. It was so completely the opposite of the wry, reserved Quentin he’d met so far that it stunned him, just a little, to see him so wholeheartedly enthusiastic about anything. Eliot, well-aware he hadn’t exactly absorbed much of anything from Quentin’s words, settled back to just watch.

“Margo’s going to love you,” he murmured more to himself than anything, more than a little enchanted by the whole charade as Quentin reeled himself back in with a half-embarrassed, half-dismissive, It’s a bit silly, I guess. 

“Not at all,” he replied firmly, dragging his thumbnail across the seam of his coffee cup absently, as inside him a complicated yearning for anything so pure as that bright and shining moment of belief rattled through dusty layers upon layers of cynicism. “It’s an interesting theory,” he blinked a few times, clearing his throat and feeling a little caught off-guard before he offered, “Our doorman, Penny, his discipline is — it’s rare. He can travel, just about anywhere he wishes, in an instant. He’s been to other worlds before, usually unintentionally. Maybe somewhere out there your Fillory does exist, in some form.”

Eliot cleared his throat, glancing away to add, “Of course, Penny’s also a raging dick, so the last time anyone asked him to take them to another world with him he left them in a Denny’s parking lot in New Jersey.”

“Don’t laugh,” he huffed, but there was no bitterness in his voice since he realized how ridiculous the whole thing really was. Getting fussy over what someone thought of his social media profile was the least of his concerns. “Susan? I guess it’s better than Karen.” Quentin snorted and shook his head, figuring yeah, Julia did post a bit like that. “Not now, but her mom did. Still might, actually, I’m not sure if she took it off. When Jules got her license she had to drive that car around, if that counts.” No matter that he was throwing his best friend under the bus. At least it was only about amusing childhood anecdotes.

“Royalty,” he echoed, raising an eyebrow at Eliot and turning in his chair to face him more fully. He could see that, really, or at least why Eliot would use that label for himself and his parties. The man held himself in such a way that said he knew who he was and what he deserved, which was obviously the best. There was no doing things halfway for Eliot Waugh. He could respect that, wishing he had that amount of confidence. “You were the best of the best, then. I suppose I really should call you High King Eliot, since I’m in the presence of royalty.” 

Quentin didn’t fully expect Eliot to actually pay attention while he went on about Fillory and his theories about why the place might legitimately be real, but there he was, watching Quentin quietly and focused solely on him. What he had expected was the question being asked to be polite, perhaps, and for him to pull out his phone for something to do while Quentin talked--it’s happened before, and it would happen again (neither Kady nor Marina were interested in his little fantasies, as they called it). It didn’t happen, though, and even if Eliot didn’t get what he was saying, he was still listening, and something about such a simple act (or fucking human decency, his internal voice that sounded scarily like Julia supplied) left Quentin even more dumbstruck when he contributed a possible solution to furthering his research. Quentin was quiet for a moment, brain lagging in the processing area, but when it finally caught up he blinked rapidly and smiled a bit timidly.

“I doubt he’d help me anyway,” he said with a shrug. “Penny seems to dislike me in particular. Besides, for all I know I’m grasping straws, and I’m not sure how this... traveling, you said? I’m not sure how that works, like if he’d need something to get there intentionally instead of unintentionally, or--” Quentin cut himself off and coughed. “Sorry.” He glanced back to the book and sighed. “Most of the hedges think it’s total bullshit, so if it did end up being real, they wouldn’t get there for a long while. I’m not sure I want to see what Marina’s like if given the literal source of magic in the universe, so maybe that’s a good thing.”