#Penny!23 and Julia traveled the multiverse together

[marper-didnt-die-for-blecho]

I'm sorry? The Magicians did WHAT???

They've known for HOW LONG???

[childoftimeandmagic]

Mending Major Problems

My first actual Queliot fic. You can also read it on AO3. 

FYI @kickassfu you’re welcome.

Mending of minor objects: a small and useless discipline, just like himself. Small, hazardous, and maladjusted. Fixing a toy plane, a mug, a kite for christs sake. Yet he couldn’t fix the big things. Couldn’t help Julia, couldn’t put Alice back together, fix Fillory, fix magic. None of it worked. Quentin for all his efforts, had in fact made most if not all of those situations worse. Maybe his mother had been right. Maybe Mayakovsky had been wrong. Maybe it came with a curse. Which meant the bigger the problem he tried to fix...maybe he just broke it more.

Sitting at Eliot’s side his fingers worrying the pages of Fillory and Further: The World Within the Walls. As he stared at the familiar pages, he thought about the last month of panic and intense fear; which had come to culmination in such an anticlimactic way. In the end it hadn’t been anything he’d done. Julia had negotiated them a deal.

Alive that had been the deal. They all got out of this alive and wouldn’t ever bother the monster or his sister again. The sister who had been shoved into Julia, only for Julia’s consciousness and god powers to expel her back out into the ether. The monster did not enjoy that, but there hadn’t been anything he could do about it. The influx of powers by awakening his older sister had jump-started Julia’s powers within herself. They’d found the body to hold his sister and then as Julia told it, the two goddesses had parlayed. 

Apparently the sister and Julia had come to an agreement. Something to solve the issues that the young goddesses had felt was applicable. So one fresh goddess and a newly awakened goddess worked out a deal for everyone, the entire thing though hinged on the monster returning Eliot to him them. They’d found an agreeable replacement, a god stripped of his spark. With no powers to reawaken, a weak conscious, and no backbone of substance to fight the possession.

Let Persephone deal with the twins if she cared about her son so much, that wasn’t their problem. Reynard would be the replacement for Eliot’s body. The monster’s sister knew a spell that would transfer her brother into him. All they’d had to do was win against Everett, and the library. Zelda had been initially enraged at what they’d agreed too. She had reluctantly agreed it was the only way, and if not then they were in for something far more dangerous. She’d quickly agreed to an amended deal as it saved the majority of the library’s contents from harm.

Everett had proven almost impossible to stop. Even with three gods, seven magicians, and a network of hedges all working together it hadn’t been easy. They’d managed it though and after they’d dealt with Everett, and fulfilled their promise to the young gods who’d been so horribly abused by the greed of man.The binder was burned and destroyed, which would allow them to disappear into obscurity.

They’d retreated to the new Library to lick their wounds.Alice was still in the infirmary with burns on her arms. Kady, Harriet, and Zelda had immediately started releasing magic back into the world. The sister, had in turn found a body that would work forever, and hold her soul encased. Julia had traveled back to Fillory to help ease the influx of magic that had explode through the multiverse with the defeat of the Everett led library.  

That had been four days ago, Eliot hadn’t woken up though. Nothing had brought him back. Not Margo beating on his chest, Fen crying over him, and then there was himself talking to Eliot whispering shared memories. The healers at the infirmary couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t waking up as his body was perfectly fine. So they’d taken him back to Kady’s loft so he’d be in a less frantic environment  if  when he woke up.

After the second day, Margo and Fen had been forced back to Fillory. Something about talking animals revolting or maybe the nymphs were going insane. Quentin if asked couldn’t give an answer. His focus had been solely on the brunette man lying peacefully on the bed. Putting the book down Quentin ran his fingers over the spine of the old much loved paperback.

Julia and Penny 23 were off doing goddess knows what, goddess knows where. Q had promised her that he wouldn’t lose himself in trying to wake Eliot up. Julia and Penny had tried to gain access to his mind, but had been rejected or barred from Eliot’s mind palace. When that had failed, Alice and Zelda had offered to search the library for anything about being unable to wake up following a possession.

“Remember those mornings back in Fillory when the sun would catch the dew just right and refract little rainbows everywhere?” Q murmured, shifting so he could stretch his back out and look around the room. “You would bend the light with Popper 98 and Teddy would giggle for ages.”

“You were always so good with him, especially after Arielle passed. Then we just gave each other a chance,” Quentin laughed, to himself scrubbing a hand over his face. Tears pricking his eyes as he looked down at the love of his life. “Gods, I miss Teddy and Arielle so much. You promised me El, you said I’d never have to do this alone. So you can’t stay in there forever.”

“I just -- need you to wake up.” Standing for the first time in a day-maybe two. His bladder screaming. His stomach knotted and nauseous he moved slowly through Kady’s loft to the bathroom. Wincing at his reflection Margo would call him an idiot. He had school, friends to help, a kingdom to support, and he was wallowing. His eyes sunken, hair growing out again, god he needed a haircut bad. Scrubbing his hands clean and zipping his pants he groaned.

Dragging himself through the loft toward the kitchen. The empty mug from someone who had given him a beverage of some sort in his hand. No one seemed to be around. Which was probably better, Quentin didn’t think he could handle conversation with anyone right now. Turning on the coffee pot that someone, probably Julia had set up before. He leaned against the counter.

None of the books on magical comas had any idea what to do about this, they all said once the spell or the possession had ended, the soul of the original inhabitant would return. If they hadn’t been completely snuffed out. As long as the body wasn’t dead or hadn’t been killed while possessed, everything should be okay. Eliot should have woken right the fuck up. Yet, Eliot was unconscious upstairs, and Q was here making coffee and searching his tired brain for something that would fix this.

“Q, you in there?” Kady’s voice broke through to him finally and he looked up from were his head had been resting on his hands. When had she-god he was tired.

“Not really Kady,” he admitted looking at his fri-acquaintance, honestly at this point he was as close to Kady as he’d ever be. Hew as still not as close to her as Margo, Julia or Alice. But, Kady was here.

“I take it Sleeping Beauty hasn’t woken up,” Kady asked, pouring both of them a cup of coffee. “Cause you look awful Coldwater.”

“Gee thanks, and no he’s still sound asleep,” Quentin murmured, taking the cup she’d slid his way. Offering a gentle smile he sipped at the coffee and let out a bit of tension in his shoulders.

“Why don’t you just kiss him,” she asked, clearly joking, “you love him enough that you were willing to burn the world to get him back. Doesn’t true loves kiss always wake the princess?”

“Har har-” Q glared at Kady before he remembered that Fillory had also been a story “-wait that could work,” Quentin said, bolting back up the stairs to the room he was sharing with Eliot, though Eliot was sound asleep.

“Q it’s not going to work, that’s just a freaking kids story,” Kady shouted, shaking her head feeling bad for the nerd. It was just another disappointment in the making. Sipping her coffee she sent off a quick group text <Q’s trying something dumb, come back in case it doesn’t work.>

Standing in the door way he looked at the prone body of the man he’d lived fifty years with, the king he wanted to protect and guard for all time. Walking slowly over to the side of the bed, praying to Julia as hard as he possibly could that it worked. He leaned down. Eliot’s lips were warm and dry as he kissed him gently, pulling away. Nothing.

“Eliot Waugh you fucking pain in my ass. Get up, or I swear to god I am done,” he whispered, dropping down onto his knees at the side of the bed. Looking at the love of his life, who even with a kiss hadn’t woken up. Burying his head in his hands he started to finally cry. He couldn’t fix anything. 

“Brave...for you,” Eliot’s voice was a rasp, Q looked up eyes glossy and cheeks wet.

“El?” Q whispered, cupping Eliot’s face gently as he turned to look at him. Blinking.

“I need to be braver for you,” Eliot coughed out, sitting up feeling musty and gross but no longer locked in his mind. He couldn’t go somewhere he’d never been and the room wasn’t familiar. Also Q’s hair was shorter than he remembered it. He was awake.

“Oh god, I have to get Margo back from Fillory. You’re awake,” Q rambled, looking at Eliot who was blinking and moving around slowly. Pulling himself into a seated position as he looked from Q to the room and back. Pulling away only to have the man in question grab his hand. Intertwining their fingers tightly.

“Q don’t leave me,” he murmured, looking at their joined hands. Q was the only thing he recognized. Q was here, they’d done it -he’d done it. He’d saved him.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Q said, switching tactics to pull out his phone. Texting Kady that El was up and to get Margo here asap. He put his phone away and sat on the bed all without breaking the grip Eliot had on his hand.

Eliot was shaken to his core, he’d stumbled across the memories of Teddy and their life in Fillory. He’d made a refuge there, watching his family grow. Reliving the memories in his mind as he waited to either wake up or die, whichever came first. Suddenly everything had started to fade, first the cottage then his memory self, then Teddy and finally Q. Tears started to pour down his cheek.

“El what’s wrong?” Quentin asked, gently running his fingers through Eliot’s hair as the taller man dropped his head onto his shoulder. Sobs shaking his body.

“I was with him Q, I was rewatching all of Teddy’s firsts. Now I’m awake and you’re here. I love that, but he’s gone,” Eliot whimpered wrapping his arms around Q’s waist, feeling broken and tired. Gods he felt so tired.

“Oh El.” He wrapped his arms around his friend, holding him tight. Running his hand over Eliot’s back gently. “Teddy is always in your heart, so he’s never gone.”

“So you and Alice?” Eliot sniffed, reading himself for rejection. It was always Q and Alice. It was best to ask now, make sure he didn’t make a fool of himself.

“You have got to be kidding me, I literally give you true loves kiss, and you think I’m back together with Alice?” Q asked, snorting at the thought. “No she’s off helping Zelda and Harriet rebuild the library. I think, or somewhere else, I didn’t really care honestly.”

“So you’re single?” El asked, wiping at his eyes, feeling foolish.

“That depends on you Waugh, am I?” Q asked, looking at the man he’d been madly in love with for almost a year. A man he’d been ready to die for, and one he would rip the world apart brick by brick to bring home.

“Absofuckinglutely not,” Eliot said, more forcefully than he’d originally intended. Cupping Q’s face in his hands he looked into Q’s eyes. “I love you Quentin Coldwater. You’re never getting rid of me again. No more running. No more bullshit. I’m yours.”

“I love you too Eliot,” Quentin said, his thoughts torn. Maybe he could fix somethings after all.