Fandom: The Magicians

Ship: Quentin/Eliot, Arielle/Margo/Quentin/Eliot

Rating: Teen

Wordcount: 1,116

Genre and tags: Vignette, canon divergence AU

Life in Fillory bore many suprises — that was, after all, kind of its whole deal — but perhaps the most startling among them was Quentin's discovery, a year or two in, that he was a morning person. The cottage's curtains were light enough to let in the first rays of sun each morning, and Quentin enjoyed waking to them; he enjoyed the cold, quiet morning, and working at the mosaic when dew still clung to the tiles. It was peaceful, still a strange feeling after all those years.

On this particular morning, Eliot had joined him, grumbled when Quentin passed his bed on the way out and followed him anyway. He sat barefoot, doodling on the back of a discarded blueprint. They'd been doing this more regularly for the last while: Quentin worked while his brain allowed it, Eliot quietly kept him company, and Margo and Arielle inevitably slept in. It was nice, new.

Frustratingly, Quentin's body still hadn't received the memo.

An hour or two after they'd risen, Quentin stretched too far to place a pale blue tile, and a spot in the middle of his back kind of... combusted. As if a ghostly clamp had reached across realms just to pinch his spine, except the clamp was also on fire.

"Ow," he said with feeling, and found his body tipping over without consulting his brain. That was fine, though. Quentin's brain was also okay with not being vertical for the moment.

The spasm didn't release immediately, leaving Quentin to lie on his side and think dark thoughts about the ageing process. When the pain did fade, Quentin moaned pitifully and opened his eyes to find Eliot crouching in front of him.

"Another one?" Eliot asked, with far less sympathy than Quentin's poor body deserved. Quentin tried a pout; it earned him only an eyeroll. "I told you."

Quentin assessed his situation, then rolled over onto his back. The relief in his shoulders was instantaneous. He could almost hear a chorus of angels singing about it somewhere in the back of his head. "You're cruel and unfeeling," he told Eliot.

"True, but you have bad posture."

"I told you, I'm cultivating my dad bod." After a further moment's contemplation of the sky — a bit grey today; it might rain later — Quentin sat up.

"You and I both know that I'm a fan of the dad bod. The problem is that it's not a fan of you. Here." He held a hand, palm down, two or three inches above the top of Quentin's head. "Try to touch my hand without getting up."

Quentin cast his eyes at Eliot's hand. He tried to grab it and Eliot smacked his hand away.

"You know that's not what I meant."

"You know to be specific with your words," Quentin said, but he took pity on Eliot and tried it: he elongated his neck until Eliot's palm rested on his hair. Eliot raised his hand again and Quentin followed it, his shoulders and hips adjusting to accommodate the stretch until he sat fully upright.

Huh. He was taller than he'd thought.

"There." Eliot patted his hair. Quentin tried to tip his head into the touch, but Eliot pulled away. "That's more or less what your posture should look like. How's it feel?"

Frowning, Quentin scanned his body. Some of his muscles were aching with relief, sure — but others just plain ached. "Weird. I don't think my body likes being tall."

"Good thing you're not at any risk of that, then," Eliot said, dry. "Of course it's not going to be easy at first. You've spent twenty-nine years hunched over like a goblin."

"Almost thirty." The correction seemed important. He never really knew why.

"Yeah, well, I'll welcome you to middle age when you actually get here. You need to keep at it, Q. That's how muscles work."

The crow's feet at the corners of Eliot's eyes were crinkling up, putting the lie to his unimpressed air. Quentin loved the lines on Eliot's face, the way they were getting deeper all the time. The two or three premature greys near his hairline — discovered recently by Margo, to her immense delight — were pretty fantastic, too. Quentin couldn't wait until there were more of them.

If he told Eliot that, of course, he'd be smothered in his sleep. Didn't make it any less true.

"All right," Quentin said instead of any of that. "Out of my space, Waugh. I've got an artistic vision to realize."

"Fuck off," Eliot replied. He ruffled Quentin's hair beyond salvation and returned to his post.

Eliot truly hadn't been paying attention to Quentin's mosaic work before his body's little revolt, and he didn't pay much attention after, either, except to use his favourite branch — long and sturdy, normally used to gesture imperiously at the mosaic like a professor with a pointer — to smack Quentin in the back whenever Eliot glanced up and caught him slouching. It became a game, sort of: when Quentin saw it coming, he'd dodge. Jump over stacks of tiles until he was out of reach, maybe blow Eliot a kiss. More often, Eliot hit him.

Sometimes when he did, Quentin even straightened up.

Margo emerged from the cottage, blinking in the daylight, just in time for Eliot to land a hit between Quentin's shoulders. Quentin glared at him and fixed his stance. Eliot nodded his approval. "Good boy."

"Oh, good," Margo said. Her voice was husky, a sure sign she hadn't been awake long. "Are we doing puppy play? You should have woken me up."

A laugh escaped Quentin, loud and startled, and Eliot waved his branch at Margo in a frantic sort of warning. "Don't give him ideas," he hissed, which only served to make Quentin laugh harder.

"Arielle!" Margo shouted back to the cottage, never able to resist escalating. "There's kinky shit happening out here!"

"Without me?" Arielle's muffled voice returned. "That seems a bit rude."

"That's what I said!"

Eliot's face was in his hands now, his long fingers covering his eyes, but when he said, "I hate all of you," his voice came loud and clear.

Stretching her arms up toward the sky as she went — one arm up and over her head, then the other — Margo joined Quentin, peering over his shoulder. "No offense, Coldwater," she said after a moment, in the way she did when she absolutely meant offense, "but there is no way that is gonna reflect the beauty of all life."

Quentin sighed. He couldn't argue on this one. "Yeah," he said agreeably, and slung an arm across Margo's shoulders. Absently, he pulled her in, kissed her temple, and let her go. "Back to the drawing board."