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No one interrupts them, so instead of talking feelings (already sidestepped) or plans (even worse), Eliot is able to ply Quentin with a lot of wine. Which was his plan.
The plan, a meticulous operation somewhat expedited by his new maybe-best friend’s imminent expulsion, is to get into Quentin’s pants. And if that’s maybe a little insensitive, then, well, it’s just that Eliot’s deeply a pragmatist in exactly one arena: dicks.
This has been some form of the plan since Quentin gaped up at him, and Eliot looked down at his name card. He had done this like he hadn’t sat there for too long—you can’t really time the portal shit very exactly, can you?—reading the words Quentin Coldwater, over and over, printed neat on thick white parchment, until they didn’t look like real words anymore.
Quentin Coldwater.
Not everyone got a student guide, of course. Just the really lost ones. They always know about those. Seems like it would be a devastating blow to tell Quentin, so he doesn’t.
But speaking of devastating blows.
Quentin’s face has gone almost slack, sitting back far on the couch; it’s late, the light seems lower in the cottage than it was, like something is alive in the walls that knows when to dim the house. The living room has cleared out, as far as he can tell; his legs are up on the table and he’s looking at Quentin and he’s not going to move around to figure it out.
“Hey, Q,” he says, and Quentin looks at him. And he, well.
His eyes are so open, for a second; this strikes Eliot about Quentin sometimes. He meets the world with, what, trust? It almost makes him uncomfortable. Just then it makes him forget what he was going to say, the ill-planned segue into seeing if Quentin will go upstairs with him.
He’s surprised when Quentin just goes, “Hey, El,” and lists into him, his head going down on his shoulder. Eliot, feeling welling in his chest, feeling, suddenly almost can’t breathe. Quentin does the opposite; he sighs out, long.
“Drinking was...drinking was such a fucking good idea,” Quentin says, voice adorably thick with close sleep. Eliot, like, hurts? What the fuck. What the fuck.
“Yeah,” Eliot says, completely thrown, words for once drying up on him.
And Eliot passed a lot of time recently imagining this: Quentin yielding to him sweetly, maybe being a little unsure until he wouldn’t be, Eliot is so certain he wouldn’t be. Quentin never having done this before. Eliot making it good. And then they could just, be this still.
But is that true?
The catch in his chest unbalances and unsettles this. Because it wouldn’t be another first-year nerd boy. It would be Quentin Coldwater, name printed dark on bright white, looking up at him in awe.
“Q,” he says, unsure of where he’s going with it, but he almost regrets it because Quentin had closed his eyes but unsettles himself then, his face tilted up to Eliot's. Their mouths are close.
Eliot has felt this way before, and it’s always ended so badly, and he can’t do that to Quentin.
But he looks down, where Quentin’s body is tilted almost comically far from his place on the couch into his, and he reaches to take one of his hands. Quentin looks down with the motion, a crease of confusion forming between his brows before it smooths again, like it was never there, and he puts his head back down on Eliot’s shoulder.
“You have nice hands, El,” he says, apparently contemplating them, lacing their fingers together, his skin warm and soft. “Like...magician’s hands, I guess.”
Eliot feels like it must be rolling off of him, like he’s a gaping, open wound. “Let’s get you to bed, Q,” he says, soft, but neither of them move for a long time.
*
So no more crass first-year nerd seduction. Fine. At least Quentin isn’t going anywhere. At least he gets to have Quentin in the way that they are, together.
Quentin’s going to do fine in the Trials, right? He’ll make sure. It weighs on him where maybe it wouldn’t have otherwise.
They’re reading for Quentin’s divination class. Well, Quentin is reading, Eliot doesn’t do readings for his own classes, but he’s watching him, the both of them sitting on Quentin’s bed. Penny left the room a while ago, very specifically not announcing his departure so they had no choice but to comment on it before he was out the door. Quentin has his legs pulled up in a way that looks kind of uncomfortable, surrounded by papers and his books and tarot cards fanned out, and Eliot has his legs crossed like a normal person who knows how to sit.
“Here, Q,” he says. “It’s tarot, it’s easy shit. You just need to learn the spreads and the meanings. Memorization bullshit.”
“But it’s magic,” Quentin insists. “So like, what do you, how… I literally, I don’t understand.”
Eliot snorts because this is cute, shaking his head, pulling Quentin’s book out of his hands. “Okay, listen, the cards are like dowsing rods, right? They collect the energy. You’re not doing anything, for once. You don’t need to. You do the right spread, you have a question, they either tell you something or feed you bullshit. Pretty much like every actual person in the world, I guess?"
Quentin flattens his mouth like, huh, does a little half-shrug, looking at all the shit he has laid out. “Is it really that...simple?”
“Well. I don’t know. Yes?” he says. “I’m not really a divination theorist. But also, divination is the fucking worst and the guy you got for your section, Molinero, specifically sucks ass, and not in the fun way.”
Quentin frowns. “You know what,” he starts, like something’s bothering him. “Divination blows in Harry Potter, too.”
Instead of calling him a nerd, Eliot ponders this, from his most recent movie marathon over long weekend break knowledge. “True,” he says, also a little unsettled, for some reason?
“Okay, uh, look.” Quentin sighs. “Can you just show me a, a spread?”
Eliot nods, indulgently patient, and does a quick three-card one with all of the cards turned over, narrating what each mean: “Okay, so this is—past, present, and future. You think a question at the cards and they might answer it. Who’s to say, not I.”
“Okay,” Quentin says, meeting his eyes, then looking down at the cards. And then, there’s profound seriousness in his beautiful little face as he obviously thinks of something specific, something bothering him, and draws his legs closer underneath himself to stare at the cards. It almost makes Eliot say Oh, no out loud. His mouth might open a little when Quentin actually closes his eyes.
“Okay,” Quentin says again, opening his eyes and apparently ready, and Eliot has thankfully reorganized his face. “Do I have to, like, say anything? Like my question, out loud? It’s really not...like, more? ”
“Quentin, I passed Molinero without having to resort to sex bribery because it is this fucking easy, he’s just really mean for no reason and it will be so exhausting,” and, he sighs, absently, “though I do relate to that, you know, emotionally. But it is just this easy. Trust me.”
Quentin, somehow, does.
He turns the cards over and they both look down over them. Past: Nine of Swords. Present: The Fool. Future: The Tower.
It’s really, actually, from what he half-remembers, pointed. This is definitely saying something. Looking at The Fool, he feels a traitorous little ache in his heart again, for Quentin.
Quentin frowns. “Okay. I don't remember, uh, The Tower…” He flips open a nearby book, and Eliot suddenly, internally grasps for something that will not make Quentin do his little sad face, which he will descend further into as he looks up all the individual meanings at length. The thought is suddenly unbearable.
“The Tower means dick,” says Eliot. Quentin blinks, looks up at him.
“What,” says Quentin.
He is so obviously, clearly bullshitting, but this is how they are with each other, so. “The Tower means dick,” he says. “Like, good dick. Good dick is in your imminent future, Coldwater, and a lot of it, for—” Eliot lets out a little breath, in spite of himself. “Almost unendurably long, incredible fucking. Maybe some sucking, too?”
They’re just, staring at each other.
“We should maybe praise some erotic gods for your good fortune, so as not to,” Eliot goes on, but he has to swallow, his mouth dry, “you know, give offense.”
The lightness he was trying to bring back does not rematerialize.
Quentin looks at him, for a second, and he thinks, maybe, maybe, there’s pink in his cheeks? There’s pink? He’s blushing? Oh. Oh, wow. And then Quentin laughs, a little, ducking his head like he’s looking back down at the book.
“Okay,” Quentin says, and for an obviously, uh, and apparently clinically-anxious little straight boy, he’s, well, he’s handling this—
Eliot almost misses the turn, a little set coming across Quentin’s face as he looks back up at him, as he smiles. “You wanna help me with with my fortune, too?” he says.
And Eliot knows his mouth falls open, feels his shock somehow bubble right to the surface even though that’s so far from where what he feels lives. Quentin’s grin goes wider, and Eliot thinks, almost hysterically, he hadn’t stuttered? Hadn’t stammered? Hadn’t said, um?
So Eliot says it for him: “Um.”
Is Quentin looking at his mouth? Are his eyes this dark, have they always just been this dark?
“Okay. Give me me your hand,” Eliot says then, like he's being obtuse, even though his heart pounding, pounding in his ears. Maybe Quentin will un-say it if they both give it some space.
Quentin’s grin falls, but his face is open, and he pushes himself closer to Eliot on the bed, something in the gesture, the way he pulls his body up, a little anxious. Still, he puts out his hand as easily as he offers anything to anyone.
Quentin’s wrist extended, with the dusting of hair on it that disappears under his sleeve, his palm up flat, makes Eliot understand why a stray patch of ankle used to be obscene. But Eliot cups Quentin’s hand in both of his, and bends his head over it. He remembers substantially less about palmistry, because really, he skated by in Molinero after tarot. But there’s a groove in the middle of Quentin’s hand that he would kiss, if he could. It goes on and on and branches up his palm. Hopefully that’s the life line. Quentin better live a long time, or he's going to have to speak to the fucking manager.
“See,” he says, not looking at Quentin, but putting a finger on that line at the base of his palm. “Here. That’s your love line. And it goes…” He traces it up, where it splits, the splay of shape on warm skin.
Quentin shakes his head, and the gesture makes Eliot look up to see that his face is really so, so open.
“What’s it mean, El?” he asks.
“Oh,” Eliot says, sounding amazingly not-casual even though he’s usually just fine at playing this, and he lets Quentin have his hand back. “That one’s easy. A lifetime of dick. Absolutely.”
Quentin’s grin makes a stunning, brief reappearance, and he’s definitely looking at Eliot’s mouth when it eases again. When the grin falls what replaces it is a look of decision, Eliot recognizes it right before Quentin reaches up for Eliot’s jaw with both hands and pulls the distance between them closed, his mouth soft.
And Eliot, as if Eliot were the maybe-man-virgin between the two of them, Eliot moans into it, but he can’t think to feel embarrassed by it. He is half-aware of Quentin dropping his hands to swipe papers and tarot cards and books out of the way between them, more than a little graceless, the hard thump of at least one textbook falling to the floor, and then Eliot just pulls him full into his lap where he seems to fit.
Quentin gasps at his mouth when Eliot settles him straddling on his lap, and Eliot has never wanted anyone to be totally naked more than Quentin Coldwater in this moment, now. He breaks off only to take his shirt off, and they both fumble with Quentin’s pants, and then Quentin is naked.
And he’s so beautiful, rocked back from Eliot on his knees on the bed now, the hair brushed out over his hips trailing down that he hurts to put his fingers in, and fuck, Quentin Coldwater’s cock is right there, and he wants to do about twenty different things at once, dizzy with it. And this is just, this is always just Quentin’s body? Underneath hoodie layers and loose jeans? What the fuck?
“What the fuck,” he says out loud, not thinking if that may not, uh, inspire confidence.
Quentin apparently receives it in the spirit it is intended, grinning shakily, and it must be because, Eliot knows he’s looking at him in awe, in awe. He’s so beautiful. He gathers him up in his arms like a delicate thing—it’s never, ever been like this before—and Quentin makes a soft little noise, clinging around him like the physical distance had actually been painful, and Eliot shoves a less-gentle fist in his hair to pull Quentin’s mouth down on his own, swallowing the moan that gets him.
And they just kiss, Eliot just wants to kiss him, open-mouthed and hard, until Quentin’s hips are grinding down on his in little desperate circles and he’s ruining Eliot’s pants with precome. When Eliot feels that wetness he wrenches their mouths apart, saying, “Fuck,” and just has to breathe, and Quentin is whimpering like he is falling apart, his skin so, so pink.
“Fuck, Q, I don’t have—” He squeezes Quentin’s ass, desperately like that will make it better, and Quentin groans unsteadily. “I don’t have my shit in here, we can go to my room, do you want—”
“No, no, ” Quentin breathes, shaking his head desperately, “fuck, no,” and he puts his mouth open slack back on Eliot’s. And when this had happened in Eliot’s mind he took lavish, careful time with Quentin, he was prepared, it would be perfect, of course it would, and mildly life-ruining for Quentin Coldwater in a Brideshead Revisited miniseries kind of way.
God, Eliot is such a fucking dumbass.
“Q,” he says, almost into his mouth, “Q, I wanna fuck you,” and he feels Quentin’s whole body shudder, and there’s no time to think about where this is coming from or how it’s not quite what he wanted from Quentin. Because the reality, and this is something that has always tripped up Eliot, the reality is better than his imagined performance.
And Quentin is so into kissing him, moving against him, that he has to take his head in his hands to pull their mouths apart so that Quentin groans and leans his forehead down into his, breath feathering between them. “Listen,” he breathes, “listen, full— full academic attention, okay, I wanna do a spell to make it comfortable for you.” Quentin is already nodding, but he still says, “Is that, is that okay,” a little brokenly, and Quentin just groans, still nodding desperately into kissing him.
So does the spell with his hand low on Quentin’s back and the words in sotto voce, and he hears Quentin react to it, knows how it feels to have your body made warm and liquid, a little choked-off gasp. And he swears, one day he’ll show Quentin how it can be even better than this, when they can take the time, but Quentin is persuasively making the case for not taking any time at all.
Eliot’s almost proud.
But everything else recedes when he unzips his fly, pulls his own cock out of his pants, and Quentin dazedly pulls away for what feels like the first time of his own volition to look down and see, and, holy shit. What a miscalculation that Eliot had made.
“Q, okay, okay,” he says, “spread like this,” and he shows him by moving him, holding him, and he doesn’t know how he’s keeping it this together when he’s guiding Quentin to sink down on to his cock, watching his mouth fall beautifully, awedly open with the sensation, and Eliot’s mouth drops with an echo of the feeling, a reflection.
And Quentin is impossibly slick and hot and tight on him, like he had perfectly worked him open, and it’s really, really not like he hasn’t done this before but maybe right then Eliot loves magic as much as Quentin does.
And he’s inside of him.
“Fuck,” he says, broken, “fuck,” and he’s pulling Quentin down and down and down, as desperate as Quentin had been to just grind into him and as Quentin now gasps and grabs around his shoulders. Eliot’s fingers dig in hard at the dip of his hips, and he thinks that’s why Quentin cries out.
He thinks a lot of things. Eliot doesn’t know when he starts babbling all of it into the hot skin at Quentin’s throat, slick from where his mouth has worried it, telling him how good he feels, how good he looks, “So pretty, pretty,” like a dam has burst that he didn’t know was there at all and—
He comes before Quentin does, and he can’t even think to wonder if that’s disappointing, he can’t even think, holding Quentin down hard, their bodies nearly tipping back on what would be Quentin’s back with how he pushes himself wholly into Quentin, skin flush to the fabric he somehow isn’t out of. He’s trembling and finally groans, finally, like his body is slow to let go of something.
“El,” says Quentin, “oh, god, El,” and he kisses Eliot’s face all over as Eliot pulls them more upright, impossibly tender and needy at once, and holy shit, why is this better than any of the given literal magic orgies he has been to in the past three months alone? How?
And the possibility that this is so good but that he’s a disappointment rushes on him, and he breathes, “Q—” And he ducks his head to reach for Quentin’s cock, pressed now firm against his belly, the vest over his shirt ruined, too.
But there’s only Quentin’s mouth falling open again on a fragile little moan, so private, it seems like it’s impossible that anyone else has ever seen him make this face before. Instead of magic Eliot slicks him with his own spit on a second thought even though his skin is already wet and so soft, tender, sweet. And when Quentin comes, his whole body goes taut on top of him, so like him and how wound up he is, and then he relaxes, and fuck.
They both take the time to gasp into each other’s mouths, and sweat cools, and Eliot’s vest is terribly, horrifically ruined. Quentin stays in his lap, and they are both still pressed against each other where they are soft and spent, and it feels warm and comforting, even though this clothed versus naked situation will be gross in about five seconds. He’s sure. The feeling is coming.
He doesn’t want to move.
“Eliot,” says Quentin, somehow very articulately, and then of all things, Quentin laughs a little, feathering against his temple where his mouth presses.
And maybe Eliot should be kneejerk offended, but when he pulls away to look at him, his face is so sweet and unencumbered and very different from this boy he’s been getting to know.
“Yeah,” says Eliot, on another deep breath, smugness returning, “good dick?”
Quentin laughs a little more, desperately. “Oh, man,” he says, and he presses their foreheads together, his eyes bright now, and so close. “Good, yeah. Good dick.”