LET'S DO IT AGAIN

After Margo had left with her child groom Eliot and Quentin approached the gift basket that contained peaches and plums. Both were inexplicably drawn to the small basket of fruit. Quentin picked up the letter his other self had written to Margo. Eliot grabbed a peach, but then he was hit with an envelope.

Eliot bent down and picked it up. He was surprised to see his own handwriting blinking up at him. "To Eliot Waugh, After he remembers the Mosaic," it read. He warily opened it up and began to read.

To Eliot Waugh,

Just Before He Remembers The Mosaic,

This letter is enchanted to be sent wherever, to whoever, and whenever it is directed. And I'm writing to you- the world's biggest idiot who's about to make the worst mistake of his life. Don't deny it- you know who I am. I'm the same man that thought it might be better if a bus ran over my childhood bully. I'm the same man that's been regretting the day you will receive this letter ever since.

Let me tell you a little about what happens if you screw this up. You'll get magic back, but he'll be so heartbroken he'll offer to spend eternity guarding a monster the gods are scared of. And when you try to kill it, that monster possesses you. Oh your friends will rescue you, sure. But he'll die to save you.

So yay, magic is back. Yay I'm not possessed anymore- but IT WASN'T FUCKING WORTH IT! I'd rather live as you are now, no magic, Faerys directing my every move, and Quentin at my side than in this world with magic and no Q.

I know you're scared. You've convinced yourself that it was a fluke, that he was only with you cause you were there. But I broke his heart and he still died for me!

So you ovary up, bitch, and accept his heart when he hands it to you. If you cock it up again I'm gonna wring your neck. Better yet, I'll castrate you! (That was Bambi. I'd listen to her.)

So you'd better accept it. He loves you and wants your sorry ass, god only knows why. I swear on Teddy's grave you had better fix this mess. I can't break Bambi's heart too. I promised her I'd be here, but if he's not… I'm getting back to him with or without your help.

Tell him I'm sorry for lying to him, for making him think I didn't want him. You love him and cherish every one of his annoying quirks. Cause I promise you a world without them sucks balls. I'd give anything to be where you are right now, sitting next to that sweet nerd holding his heart out to me. So you fucking appreciate the chance I've given you. And you tell him you're in love with him. Don't ever let him go.

I have no idea if I'm gonna wake up and find I'm with Q after you get this letter, or if I will have to continue in this bleak world where he's still dead. But either way, I'll see him soon. Don't cock it up. Grow a pair of tits and dive in with him.

I'm so sorry Q. I love you. Don't let my present self push you away. He loves you, and that terrifies him.

Good luck,

Eliot.

As Eliot read the letter his memories of the life he had lived at the mosaic care back to him. He remembered it all, their first kiss, Teddy being born, Teddy getting married, all of it. He remembered being an old man and sitting outside listening to Q talk about the day's attempt to solve the mosaic, and drifting off…

Eliot wasn't the only one remembering. Before long both men were chanting, "peaches and plums," the mantra that reminded them of that life.

"I got so old…," Eliot said.

"You died," Quentin said.

If Eliot had not had the letter from his future self he would have dismissed the pain he detected in Quentin's voice. But he did hear it, Mosaic-Eliot's death still hurt Quentin.

"I died," he said. "We had a family."

"How do we remember that?" Quentin asked.

"I don't know. Did it happen?"

"Fifty years."

"It happened," Eliot said. He wouldn't allow his happiest days to be a dream or illusion or whatever. They were real and they happened.

"It was sort of beautiful," Quentin said.

"It really was," Eliot agreed.

"Look I know this sounds dumb… but us. We, you know, think about it. We- we work. We know it cause we lived it. Who gets that kind of proof of concept?" Quentin asked with hopeful enthusiasm.

Shit. This was the moment the letter from his future self was referring to. Quentin wanted to pick up where their mosaic selves left off. Panic shot through him, there was no way he wouldn't fuck it up.

"We were just injected with a half-century of memories and emotion. So, you may not be thinking clearly," Eliot started.

Before either one could say or do anything more the letter from his future self folded itself into a paper airplane and flew into Elliot's head, before unfolding so he could see that some of the words now glowed on the page. So you ovary up and accept his heart. If you cock it up again, I'll castrate you! He winced. Just his luck that a fucking charmed letter was going to argue with him.

"What's that?" Quentin asked.

"Nothing," he said.

Quentin apparently decided to let it rest as he said and asked no more about it. Either that or he was just single-minded on his objective. "I'm just saying what if we gave us a shot? I mean would that be so crazy?"

When Eliot didn't immediately reply he went on, "Why the fuck not?"

Quentin really was going for it, putting himself out there. Eliot wanted to say yes, really he did. But that life had been so idyllic. How could anything in this fucked up world compare to what he had with Quentin in that cottage in Fillory? It was bound to disappoint and everything would be so much worse.

And if he fucked up Quentin? His best friend aside from Margo? He'd never be able to live with himself if he lost his friendship with Quentin. He'd hate himself more than ever if he broke Quentin. Eliot wasn't made for long term stable relationships.

The letter had to be wrong. It could not possibly be worse to have and be with Quentin yet break Q than it was to just let him go in the first place.

"I know you and you're not…" Eliot hedged.

"What does it matter?" Quentin said, rather than argue again, that he wanted and liked Eliot, sexually. Really, was he still on this? Eliot was always fighting that Quentin didn't want him when he could have a girl. He was so biphobic and it had led to many fights during their time at the mosaic. It was so annoying as Eliot was a bit bisexual himself.

"Don't be naïve, Q, it matters." Again the letter rose up and hit him on the head, harder this time. When it unfolded, new words appeared over the original script.

"Don't you dare reject him!" showed up first in his own script before fading back into the page.

"I will CUT you up, bitch, if you hurt him!" appeared in Bambi's writing.

"Tell HIM!"

"OVARY UP! GET YOU FUCKING COCK OUT OF YOUR ASS AND GROW SOME TITS!"

"Don't let him die thinking I don't love him!"

The words on the page looked to be written by his future self and Bambi. He wanted to believe them, to believe that it could work between him and Quentin, but he was a class A fuck up. He would hurt Q even more and they'd still be screwed.

Quentin looked at him with those big beautiful puppy eyes he had. He couldn't bear to see him look at Eliot not with fondness but with dislike or hatred when Eliot fucked up. "That's not you, and that's definitely not me. Not when… not when we have a choice," Eliot said, shutting Quentin down.

Before Eliot was finished talking, the letter flew and landed softly on Quentin. He was quick to pick it up, having been curious as to why this innocuous letter kept hitting Eliot and now him, too.

A phrase near the bottom was lit up like a neon sign, clearly wanting his attention. He was shocked to see Eliot's handwriting on the page. He read the highlighted portion first.

"I'm so sorry Q. I do love you. Don't let my present self push you away. He loves you, and that terrifies him. Don't listen to his claims that it wasn't us! I chose you then, I choose you now. No matter what, I love you."

He scanned the rest of the letter to get the context. Holy crap. Eliot was trying to fix his past, change it. His greatest regret was this moment, when he rejected Quentin- and El's present self wasn't listening. Well if he wouldn't listen, Quentin would.

So instead of backing down and giving up on all he remembered, on all the love he had for this man, he pushed back. Instead of allowing himself to feel hurt and sad, he got angry.

"Bullshit! Don't you dare tell me you were with me for fifty years out of some sense of obligation!" Quentin yelled at him.

"No- Q that's not what I meant-," Eliot tried to object.

"No I heard you. 'Not when we have a choice?!' How dare you?! I'm not a bloody obligation!"

"That's NOT what I said!" Eliot finally yelled.

"How can you invalidate our life? Our family? Our marriage?!"

"Fuck, Q! I'm a screwup! There's no way I won't fuck this up, fuck us up, and I can't lose you again!"

"What do you mean? You didn't lose me," Quentin asked, completely lost.

"I did. When I let you chase after Arielle," Eliot confessed

"You pushed-"

"I know! I know it was my fault. And I'm so happy we had her in our lives, that we had Teddy. But you weren't, you weren't... mine after that."

"Eliot, I never asked for more than you were ready to give, not then, not now. I didn't need anything other than you. Me needing more, that was all you. I don't need anything else but you."

"We aren't even together and I'm already hurting you-," Eliot said, upset at himself.

"The flying fuck we aren't together! I remember every one of the last fifty years. I remember turning to tell you something and finding you gone! Solved the fucking puzzle, only it costs me my life partner's life! You know, I lived seven more years after that? Seven years without you El. The only thing that kept me going was knowing I'd join you soon.

"Don't leave me alone again," Quentin whispered, crying now.

It had been so hard to go on living after Eliot had died. He had finally solved the stupid puzzle they had devoted their lives to, and had to give the prize to Jane Chatwin so that the timeloop happened and their timeline, timeline 40 happened. He had nothing left after that. Teddy had wanted him to come stay with him, but Quentin refused to leave the place he had lived with Eliot.

So Aurora, Teddy's sixteen year old daughter, had volunteered to look after him. Teddy and his son Quell had built her an addition on the property where she could have her own space but close enough to look after her Granddad Q. Without her, he'd have died within a year or two, if not sooner. He was almost catatonic those first few months.

Eliot felt like a heel. Here he was trying to spare them pain of hooking up and breaking up and Quentin says they are already together in his mind. It had not occurred to him that Quentin remembers anything beyond solving the puzzle. He felt like a bitch.

"I'm sorry, Q," he said, finally pulling the younger man into his arms. "I'm right here. I'm alive," he tried to soothe Quentin.

"I don't need pity hugs, Eliot," Quentin tried to fight him off.

"It's not pity. You're right, we work," Eliot said.

"Then why-"

"Because what if we don't work here?! I don't want to lose you, Q. You mean too much to me. Your friendship means too much to me."

"Eliot. Our friendship is too strong to lose like that. Even after the emotion-bottle threesome with Margo… Sure, we were fighting, but we were never in danger of losing our friendship."

"Weren't we? You were pretty pissed," Eliot said, a bit bitter that Quentin had blamed him for screwing up what he had with Alice.

"At myself for hurting Alice. We wouldn't have done anything had I not been interested in you two in the first place."

"Yeah?" asked Eliot, hopeful.

"Gods, El, couldn't you tell? Why do you think Alice was so pissed? She felt threatened by you, by our connection. Until we slept together she could write it off as friendship. But that convinced her there was more to it, even if I didn't realize that at the time."

"That- that- I had NO idea. I thought-," this completely changed his perspective on things. How had he never learned all this in those fifty years at the mosaic?

"You thought I was straight?!"

"Yes!"

"Or did you tell yourself that to avoid your feelings?" Quentin asked wisely.

"How-" said Eliot, shocked at being called out.

"Fifty years, El. I know you," he said with a smirk.

"I guess you do," Eliot said, returning the smile.

"So are you done running?"

"Oh, probably not," Eliot said, only slightly joking.

"At least you're being honest."

Instead of retorting Eliot just pulled him into a kiss. Quentin gasped into his mouth and reciprocated. The kiss was so loving and heated all at once. It was brand new and so familiar at the same time. They kissed like an old married couple meeting for the first time in a long time.

"I love you, Q. I'm sorry I tried to deny us."

"I love you, El. I'll sick Margo on you if you do it again," Quentin replied.

"Let's do it again," Eliot said.

"Peaches and plums."

"Peaches and plums."

With that one change things went in a different direction. Quentin had a renewed hope, fresh optimism. Suddenly it felt less like he was waging a war on his own, and more like he was fighting a winning battle with his friends. Maybe, just maybe this time they could restore magic without getting Eliot possessed and without setting the Monster loose. Then Quentin wouldn't die.

They were questing magicians not post-Voldemort heroes so life was not easy. There were always more demons to slay and more obstacles to overcome. But Quentin and Eliot were stronger than ever, and that helped everyone else fight that much harder.

Maybe with this change Alice and Dean Fogg wouldn't betray them and they wouldn't get mind-wiped. Maybe they even saved Penny-40 who got the short end of the stick. Maybe the Library didn't try to take over the world- okay, so they definitely tried. But maybe they failed. Either way, Eliot and Quentin fought together.