Author's Notes…

OKAY. I had to do something. I couldn't take the end of season four! Not with my poor, dear Queliot on the line! (Does anyone else think Elioquen sounds better?) So I've cooked up a slight AU. Obviously MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD! Do not continue reading from this point if you don't know what happened!

Five!

Four!

Three!

Two!

Okay, I think it's safe. Anyway, this is an alternate universe where Quentin did not die in the mirror world. I've never written fanfiction for The Magicians before, and so I hope that this is satisfactory. Maybe it'll scratch some itches! My chapters are short, but I update quickly. Read on, my lovelies!

PS: I do not hate Alice. She is one of my favorite characters. Please know this going in, because I don't write hate-fic.

The Crystalline Knowledge of You

Chapter One

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Eliot Waugh had never been so sure of anything in his life, which was saying a lot. The entire reason he devoted himself to a plethora of recreational activities was to block out the many, many bad things he'd been through. Never mind the utter disaster that was his childhood, but going from High Fucking King of Fillory to Possessed God Man-Child to…?

Well, there wasn't any use dwelling on it. At least, not right now. He'd be left brooding forever, and he'd done enough of that while he'd been stuck in the Happy Place, and there would never be enough champagne in all the realms to deal with that hot mess.

Besides, everyone was celebrating.

"Yay…" he muttered sarcastically around a sip of a new martini he'd all but perfected. "We saved the world again."

"And you're fucking welcome," Bambi purred, bumping her shoulder into his with that mischievous smile of hers. "Come on, cheer up! You're bringing us all down. Since when do you sulk in dark corners by yourself?" She frowned with that pouty lower lip of hers. "Oh. Right. All the Goddamn time."

"I'm not sulking," Eliot corrected her. His eyes hadn't left a certain figure sitting between Alice and Penny 23 across the cottage. "I'm… ruminating."

"With a shitload of gin?"

"Sure," he said graciously. "We'll say it's gin." He took another sip.

She ran her fingers through his freshly cut curly locks. "Left the stubble, I see."

There was a reason, though he hadn't said what it was. Margo didn't need to be told everything. She got unbearable when she thought she was on top of things.

"You know, Josh thinks—"

"I don't want to know what Josh thinks," Eliot interrupted. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have more… mind-wallowing-slash-stalking to do, and I'd rather be by myself to do it." He grabbed ahold of his cane and its wrist strap, because why have a cane if you couldn't be like Fred Astaire? He wasn't Ned Stark—he had a sense of style, after all.

"You could just—you know—talk to him," Margo called after him.

Kady and Julia were singing, of all things, Immortals by Fall Out Boy, and if they hadn't all just had a truly horrific run… (again… God, the universe was really gunning after them, wasn't it…?) …he'd be less amenable to tolerating it, but why not let the girls have their fun? He was quickly growing drunk enough to not care, anyway.

And then his voice rose, off-key, with the others'.

"BECAUSE WE COULD BE IMMORTALS, IMMORTALS, JUST NOT FOR LONG, FOR LONG!"

"Yeah, Q!" Julia cheered, clapping her hands.

Margo gave Eliot a Look from the bar, then flipped her hair over her shoulder and made her way to the living room. She plopped down onto Josh's lap as everyone had a good laugh at the three figures dancing like the clowns they were.

Except for Penny, who was rolling his eyes and knocking his head against the back of the couch.

Eliot toasted his martini glass in his direction and received a faint smile in return.

"I just saved your lives, bitches!" Q exclaimed. "Come on, get up! Let's do this!"

"Yeah, I'm gonna have to give that a hard pass," Penny said.

"You're always such a downer!" Quentin laughed. He was drunk, and when he stumbled, Kady and Julia grabbed him. They pushed him back down to Alice.

Julia caught sight of Eliot. "Hey," she said. "Come over here. Join us."

Ah, damn it. How was he supposed to turn down the girl who had been possessed like he'd been, his monster's "sister"?

"If you insist," he sighed heavily.

"Oh, stop acting like it's such a burden." Kady squinted at him, a smile playing along the corner of her mouth. "Penny, Alice, and Q got rid of the monsters in the Seam, and that Everett bastard is dead!" She shrugged, like it was all so simple. "We live to see another day. Sit your ass down and celebrate with us."

Alice and Eliot exchanged a long look.

Eliot was going to need to make another martini.

The bitch had always been too smart for her own good.

This was fine. He could handle this. He'd spent an immeasurable amount of time trapped in his own body, that monster parading around in his skin. And he'd spend even more time over the rest of his life getting over it. Alice giving him a wordless, "The last time Quentin was my boyfriend, you had sex with him, and I'm not going to let it happen again," was completely… completely…

Eliot poured a healthy dose of actual gin into his martini glass, out of breath just from thinking about this nightmare. His fingers were shaking! It was unacceptable. Alice Quinn, bless her… thoroughly confused and fucked up soul, was somehow back in the running. Eliot hadn't even been gone that long!

This was all his fault.

If he hadn't… If he'd—

He cricked his neck lightly and finished making his drink with a little flourish. His expression smoothed back into impassiveness. It was Alice Quinn, he reminded himself. If Quentin had managed to learn to trust her again, it was only just. Eliot still had time—time enough to say what he couldn't bring himself to before.

And then if it all went to hell, well, at least he'd tried. Right? Right.

Find Quentin. Get him alone. Say what I need to say. Preferably in that order, with perhaps the added, Kiss him senseless, because the only way you ever get to his cock is with romance. The man was more of a girl than he was. Hm. Would you look at that… Something for his father to be proud of. Would wonders never cease?

Look, Father, I'm doing it, I'm becoming a man, he thought dryly. I'm wooing a damsel in distress. I'm—

"HI!"

Eliot Waugh nearly died of a heart attack.

He shrieked and slammed a hand against the bar, the other going to clutch his vest. His eyes squeezed shut. Quentin's delighted laughter rang in his ears, adorably intoxicated as it was. Quentin had never been able to handle his liquor.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people," Eliot said once he had recovered. If the words were a little stiff, it didn't seem to make a difference. Q only continued to giggle to himself, seemingly fascinated with Eliot's face. "What?" Eliot asked suspiciously.

"You cut your hair," Q observed. "I just noticed."

"Yes." Eliot cleared his throat and shook his head back. He gestured with a flutter of his fingers toward his curls. "I feel more… me this way and less like I joined a hair band but no one told me what the wardrobe was—" He trailed off as Quentin's fingertips traced the curve of his cheekbone.

"You're real," Q said with a soft awe. "Like, I mean… you're back… You're really him…" His cheeks were flushed from alcohol, but it was maybe one of the happiest times Eliot had ever seen him, and those were few and far between. Quentin was more troubled than even Eliot in some ways. "It's so crazy…"

"Is it that crazy?" Eliot half-laughed, his eyes dropping.

"YES!" Q said with mighty emphasis. "Yes!" He pulled back, running his hands through his own hair as his laughter rang out again. "It is! We've been having to deal with that monster controlling you for months, and I only got that one glimpse of you—!"

"Peaches and plums," Eliot murmured to no one.

"—And now you're here, and it's amazing! You're amazing! I need a hug!" Q announced.

"What did Josh give you?" Eliot chuckled.

"I don't know," his friend admitted. "But it feels awesome." He abruptly broke off into song, and Eliot groaned. "Me-e-eeeeeeee, ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh, I'm the only one of meee, baby, that's the fun of me! Eeh-eeh-eeh—"

"Hey, jackass!" Penny yelled from the living room. "Can you not?"

"Ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh!" Q went on, as if he hadn't heard them. And maybe he hadn't. Josh's shit was potent. "You're the only ooone—of you, baby, that's the fuuun of yoooouuuu, and I promise that nobody's gonna love you like meeeee!"

"Yeah, you done?" Penny snapped.

"Yes," Quentin sighed tranquilly, buried in Eliot's arms and swaying them from side to side in a gentle rocking motion. Q's eyes were closed, his cheek resting on Eliot's chest. Eliot wasn't quite sure what to do with him, not with Alice glaring dagger eyes from five feet away. "Isn't it weird that the guy from Panic! At The Disco is singing with Taylor Swift? Never thought I'd see those two together in a duet…"

Eliot patted his head.

He wanted to do more—much, much more.

So much more.

Alice arrived on the scene, coaxing Q from Eliot's arms. "Hey, let's go upstairs to sleep…"

"No!" Q rallied. He flailed an arm weakly, but he was being easily shepherded upstairs by his girlfriend. "Justice will prevail! We will free the House Elves! Alice? Hey, Alice?"

"Yes, Q."

"I wanna join S.P.E.W."

"Uh huh," she said, tugging him along.

"Hey, where's Eliot?" he asked. He was stumbling over his own two feet. He twisted in the direction of the bar. "I need to see Eliot. I need to make sure he's alive."

"You just saw him," Alice protested, and Eliot had to turn away.

Fuck.

Guilt.

He hadn't expected to feel that.

Well, not in such a large quantity.

He'd already stolen Quentin from Alice once—and he hadn't even kept him. He'd just tossed him away, and Quentin had been glad to be free of him. Quentin had considered it one of the worst mistakes of his life. He'd made Margo and Eliot come to feel the same way. Oh, he'd all but ensured it.

But then Eliot thought of the life they'd had together, Quentin and Eliot, when they'd been working on the mosaic in Fillory. By the time Quentin's wife had died, Q hadn't hesitated in turning to Eliot for comfort. They'd raised his children and his children's children, and when they'd been together, wine had never had to be a precursor again.

It was still crazy that they remembered it at all, but it had happened.

"Fifty years."

Eliot hung his head. Despite facing it in the Happy Place, that moment with Q right after they'd regained those memories, he still felt shame in his heart.

"It happened."

"It was sort of beautiful."

"It really was."

"I know this sounds dumb, but… us, we… You know, think about it… w-we… we work… We know it because we've lived it. Who gets that kind of proof of concept?"

"Q, come on, let's get upstairs… Get some water in you… Okay?" Alice asked gently.

"Yeah, okay…" Quentin mumbled.

"We were just injected with a half-century of emotion, so I get that you're not thinking clearly."

"No, I'm just saying—what if we… give it a shot? Would it be that crazy? Why the fuck not? I…"

"I know you, and you… aren't…"

Margo hopped up onto the counter, getting comfortable. She jerked her head at Eliot, her eyebrows raised. He thought that pirate eyepatch should be set on fire and that they would go shopping for a new one in the morning. Whatever circle of hell she'd dragged it out of, it needed to be sent back, posthaste.

"What's going on with you?" she asked bluntly. "You look sad. Real sad." Her tone softened. "Wanna talk about it?"

"What's it matter?"

"Don't be naïve. It matters. Q, come on. I love you, but… you have to know that that's not me, and that's definitely not you, not when… not when we have a choice."

"…Okay. I… Okay. Sorry—I…"

"No," Eliot said. He added a fresh piece of fruit to his new beverage. "I do not. In fact, I believe I'm going to drink this and then call it a night."

"Q, I'm sorry. I was afraid, and when I'm afraid, I run away."

Damn.

He had said that, hadn't he?

"If I ever get out of here, Q, know that when I'm braver, it's 'cause I learned it from you."

Eliot stared up into Margo's eyes beseechingly, and she pouted back at him and cupped his cheeks in her hands.

"I know," she cajoled. "Josh made your favorite." It was sing-song as she nuzzled the tips of their noses together.

He brightened. "Rainbow hugs?" he gasped.

"He did you one even better," his best friend said with a proud smile. "He made it with that acid bullshit you ate on Fillory that nearly got us all killed."

"Oh, Bambi…" Eliot took her hands in his. He kissed her knuckles and then placed her palms over his heart. "What would I do without you… and the lovely new assortment of drugs your boyfriend will now be providing me, free of charge?"

"I love him, you know," Margo said.

Eliot straightened. "Oh," he replied. "Oh, it's… serious time. Oh. Okay. Ah…"

His feisty minx took back her hands and crossed her arms with a rather forbidding expression.

He smiled. "I think that's great, Margo."

"You do?" she asked with obvious relief. When he nodded, she grinned and put her arms around his shoulders, tilting her head. Her hair was a long shower over her shoulder. Her knees rested on either side of his hips. "You know, Alice said the most interesting thing to me. Really got me to get on board with this whole love shit."

"Alice did?" he asked carefully.

Alice? Margo had been getting advice from Alice?

The mice really had been at play while he was away.

"Yeah. She told me that I could still be a boss bitch and love a punk ass like Josh." Margo shrugged. "That's some serious truth right there."

Eliot couldn't argue with that.

Gives good advice, he mentally noted.

Margo, always on his wavelength, proceeded to get straight to the point. "Don't wait around too long," she said.

"For what?" Eliot replied innocently. He hadn't told her about what had happened with Quentin, and he didn't intend to. This was currently on a need-to-know basis. If Margo was "officially" let in, she'd scare all the straight back into the poor boy. And on accident, too, making it infuriatingly difficult to be angry with her.

Yeah, no, he wasn't telling her outright.

She gave him another Look. "You know what." She hopped down from the counter and brushed her hands over her clothes. "All right. Alice has got Q in bed, Kady's gone home with Julia, I don't know where the hell Penny disappeared to, and I'm about to get my groove on with Joshua. Don't interrupt me for the next twenty-four hours."

Impressed despite himself, Eliot bowed his head in acquiescence. "Yes, Your Majesty."

She grinned.

"Werewolf thing?" he asked.

"You betcha."

And then she rounded the corner and was gone.

And Eliot was essentially alone for the first time since the monster had been expelled from his body.