After Mike's attack, Eliot is left reeling, Margo is trying to hold things together, and both of them have a lot of questions. Meanwhile, Quentin finds answers inside his own mind that he didn't even know he was looking for.

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enfleurage   chapter 19/??

explicit  |  quentin coldwater/eliot waugh  |   68,206 words  |  in-progress

warnings: see author’s notes. canon-typical violence

Durstan won't leave Quentin alone for a minute, not even while he'd like a little privacy. He zips up his jeans and steps away from the bushes, rolling his eyes as he catches sight of Durstan.

"Honestly, if you were going to turn your back anyway, you could have let me just have a minute to myself."

"My instructions are explicit, Honored Consort," Durstan says as he turns around, and Quentin fights to hide his wince at the sight of the man’s wasp-stung face. "It's my duty as a knight of the Eye."

"Right." And he can't fight with Eliot about it, because Eliot won't fight. He'll explain, in that disquietingly calm voice, his face blank and expressionless unless he remembers that he should smile. Quentin is important. Quentin is the key in the fight against the Beast. Quentin is their edge in the war Eliot declared against a force that held all but a small corner of Fillory in shadow, and therefore he can't even take a piss in privacy.

Quentin's the key in the fight against the Beast. How's that work? What's he going to do, bloom flowers at it?

A towering fir tree's boughs slump in dejection, and Quentin alters course to pat its trunk. "Sorry. That was mean. It's just I don't know what to do, and it's frustrating and—"

He stops himself. "I'm talking to a tree."

Quentin's brain still breaks sometimes and Eliot still has trouble believing he's worthy of love but they always pull each other through the darkness. They learn how to be happy together. It isn't perfect but it's a beautiful life.

enfleurage   chapter 10/??

explicit  |  quentin coldwater/eliot waugh  |   32,103 words  |  in-progress

warnings: no major archive warnings. canon-typical violence

"It's like you're saying I'm heartless."

Margo ignores that. "And then here comes this guy who doesn't, I mean does not fit your usual criteria. And you don't just flirt with him. You go out of your way to do things that make him happy."

"Giving him that wine was worth it."

"So here's what I think." Margo cradles Eliot's head and gently, slowly tests his range of motion. "I think Quentin is the kind of guy you actually like. The kind of guy you usually avoid. Because he's not a bump genitals I'll call you later type. He falls in love, Eliot. And you want that."

enfleurage

mature  |  quentin coldwater/eliot waugh  |   13440 words  |  in-progress

warnings: no major archive warnings. canon-typical violence

chapter five now online

Eliot considers it. He glances at Quentin as he decides to believe him. Quentin's lying to him, he's lying, but not about that. "Eliot. You're not my secret. You're, you're my front page news. I just, I can't rub it in her face like that. Julia and I were going to attend the same school, and the alibi spell has me doing something really shitty to her, and I don't want you caught in the middle of our argument."

enfleurage   chapter 20/??

explicit  |  quentin coldwater/eliot waugh  |   71,707 words  |  in-progress

warnings: see author’s notes. canon-typical violence

Eliot turns back to his task. All the sod has been cut and set aside. Now he drives the point of his spade deeper, cutting up the soil packed for years undisturbed. It's hard work, but the birds are singing overhead, and Quentin's quietly talking to a stag that walked into the clearing and leaned on Quentin until he gave in and scratched its fur. Robins perch on the stag's antlers, singing and landing on the fresh turned earth to feast on worms.

Blisters ache on palms he had worked hard to make smooth and soft—the hands of a man who had never worked a day in his life, save the writer's bump on the side of his left middle finger. His shoulders and his back protest every time he pierces the ground, every time he lifts a block of dirt on his spade—years of bending and working long forgotten.

enfleurage   chapter 18/??

explicit  |  quentin coldwater/eliot waugh  |   64,333 words  |  in-progress

warnings: see author’s notes. canon-typical violence

Eliot hears Durstan's weeping before he makes it to the clearing. The prisoner sits on a fallen log looking monstrous, but he falls to his knees when Eliot walks into view.

Eliot waits for the sobbing and pleading to stop. He knows what he's saying, that he was helpless, that he couldn't stop himself from sneaking up to where the High King rested in an attempt to assassinate him.