gay? i'm?

“Another pretty good year,” Eliot said when he could bear to pull his lips away from Quentin’s. Quentin laughed, up on his toes to throw his arms around Eliot’s neck. “A weird one, that’s for sure.” “Best one so far,” Eliot said into his ear, and he meant it entirely. He’d been so miserable just twenty minutes ago. But it was true. This was the best year he’d had yet, and he believed, he really believed, right here and now with Quentin in his arms, that next year would be even better.

“And you know, in the back of my head, I always thought it’d be okay if I failed,” Eliot said. “I gave up on Mike because he didn’t fucking love me, and maybe I’d never find anyone else, but that was fine, it would all be fine, because—I’d have Margo. She’d never—I’d have her, and she’d never go off and get fucking married to someone else, so I’d have her, even if I couldn’t have what I really wanted. I’m such an asshole.” “You’re not,” Quentin said at once. “Fuck, of course you’re not. Eliot—would you look at me?”

The gaming portion of the evening fell away, and Quentin was transported back to his very favorite days in undergrad, those magical moments in the dorms or somewhere hidden away on campus, with people he could talk to without feeling ashamed or awkward. (…) At one point he and Eliot wound up next to each other on the couch, arms rubbing together companionably, the conversation creating a calming murmur around them as the evening faded deeper into night.

Quentin raised a very skeptical eyebrow. “Right. Well. I was just about to grab lunch, there’s a deli across the street that I like to go to. If—well, if you really don’t have other plans.” The funny thing was, with a different man Eliot would have assumed this to be the prelude to some sort of midday hookup, an honest-to-god afternoon delight, but this was Quentin, and Eliot was actually pretty sure an invitation to lunch was just an invitation to lunch. Margo would be disappointed, but Eliot discovered that he really wasn’t. “Sure, okay.”

“So you’ve decided to acknowledge me?” Quentin asked huffily as he took his seat, wrestling his carry-on messenger bag into place. “I’m sorry about that,” Eliot said, quite calmly. “I was caught off guard, what with you and Mike being acquainted.” “Hmm.” “Don’t be mad,” Eliot said, jostling his shoulder into Quentin’s. Quentin felt the touch like a shockwave, the breaching of some invisible barrier of propriety. “Mike can be terribly jealous, and I didn’t want him to speculate as to the nature of our previous relationship.” “I see you haven’t changed a bit,” Quentin said, and he waited to make sure Eliot was looking at him before he rolled his eyes, big and emphatic.

“Oh, I’m not judging,” Eliot said, cutting off another ramble before it could gather steam. Pop culture had been his attempt at an olive branch, but he was starting to think Quentin might be one of those guys who didn’t like olives. “My best friend is what you might call a closeted nerd. Although she doesn’t approve of the word ‘guilty’ being anywhere near the word ‘pleasure’ unless it’s for sexy reasons.” Eliot put on his most winning smile and glanced over at Quentin, ready with a wink, only to find Quentin staring moodily out the window. He probably hadn’t even been listening. So much for making an effort.

It’s instantly familiar. Quentin knows right away he’s tasted it before, or something very similar. It’s sweet and tart, bright, but with a lingering darker flavor, like a spice of some kind. There’s so much going on, it’s almost too much to take in at once; he’s overwhelmed for a moment, and then the flavors settle into something warm and welcoming, leaving his mouth tingling.

“Is this,” he asks. “I mean, you made this for me before, right?”

Eliot… is he blushing? No, he can’t be. It must be a trick of the light; they have a lot of candles lit in here for some reason.

“I mean, I don’t know if I’d go that far—” Quentin laughs and then immediately cuts himself off when he sees a text alert flash across Margo’s phone. From Eliot.

Haha very funny, it says.

Because the last text Margo sent him, presumably, was that selfie in the chapel, in front of that tacky JUST MARRIED! banner.

Oh god.

Margo whips out her phone. “C’mon Q, let’s get a selfie to send to El, so he can see all the fun he’s missing out on because he insisted on being a little bitch.”

Right. A selfie, to send to Eliot, because he’s not here, and therefore he missed Quentin and Margo getting married. Because…it’s Vegas, and they’d had a lot to drink, because when you keep winning at the tables, they keep bringing you drinks, and Quentin had been winning a lot, but also, they’d just been having a lot of fun, because Margo is so much fun, and Quentin loves hanging out with her, and she thinks he’s funny for some reason, and somehow yeah, of course it made sense for them to get married as like, a celebration of their friendship. And Eliot had missed it all.

Quentin’s panic turns back to giddy amusement and now he can’t stop laughing. What the fuck.