Queliot

Jules

Summary: Quentin is acting reckless and Julia tries to convince him Eliot cant be saved and he needs to stop. Quentin tells her for the first time who Eliot really was to him.

Quentin was drinking in the stairwell. His feet were sliding off the steps, he was considerably closer to the floor than when he had sat down. He couldn't recall how many had had or at what hour he began, he only knew it wasn't enough.

Julia made her way towards him, one foot in front of the other. Walking the tightrope. Penny gazed longing at her before making a point to look away. Quentin couldnt tell if his wards were slipping.

"Jules, can you get me another?"

She delicately placed her hand on his glass before taking it. It was so fluid he hardly noticed, a knack for misdirection she had mastered at 10 years old. Card tricks were good for something.

"I think you've had enough Q."

"No." Quentin giggled.

"Q.."

Quentin swung around in his drunken stupor "I said no!"

People started to lead the room.

"Quentin! You've gotta get out of this! Yeah we lost Angus and I know you have your shit with Alice but you have to stop!"

"Stop what!"

"Quentin, you saw Alice sacrifice herself to save you. But she died then. You can't be that type of hero. You need to let him go."

"It's different."

"No its not Q. We have to make choices. Friends are choices, trust me I know how shitty it is to lose them, to make a choice that kills them."

He felt sorry for her, all Quentin ever seemed to do was underestimate her. Her trauma and potential, but then again such things tend to go hand in hand. But there was something she hadn't had, and it distracted him enough not to care about whatever lesson she was attempting to impart upon him.

"But sometimes they're just gone. How do you even know he's still alive? What the monster said was, pure nonsense!"

"It wasn't."

"Then your gonna tell me what it meant, right now."

Quentin reached for a drink that was no longer next to him with hand and breath, shaking like a taut string.

"He wasn't my best friend Jules. Your my best friend. We would just have drinks every night. We would walk to class. I thought that was all it was."

"Q-"

"I loved Alice and I can't forget that, hell maybe I still do but I brought her back from the dead just because I wanted to see her so bad. And Eliot's still alive in there."

"Quentin the monster was messing with you, to get us to help him."

"We were together Julia. Peaches and Plums was something we always said."

Julia stayed silent, Quentin was mesmerized by the glitter flaking away from her eyes.He couldn't stop shaking. This was something that before felt so fucking big, the thing that would break him. With brakebills, the beast, it all seemed so small he was willing to let anything happen, him happen. But when he was alone with Julia he was a 17 year old kid in Brooklyn. A kid who had a bag stashed under his bed for when his parents found out, and a prayer Julia would be the one to understand.

Turns out it was just as scary as he thought it would be, and he wasn't sure if he liked the feeling.

"When?"

"When what?"

"When were you together?"

"The quest, it took us to the past, we lived a whole life together. But I'd be lying if I said there wasn't anything before that." Quentin spat it out quickly, it still felt unnatural having her know the whole story.

"I'm not surprised." She said stuttering with disbelief. "I mean I suspected it when we were younger, with James and everything, it just feel weird to have it be real."

Quentin was about to reach for his glass again, but Julia drank all of it before he could even put out his hand.

"I'm sorry if you weren't ready to tell me Q."

"Its okay, I think. Your not the first one to know or anything. Just, you were the only friend, I really cared about losing."

They hugged. Quentin felt stiff and Julia was egregiously awkward. All of it just seemed to smother him, he let out a silent prayer for someone to pull a fire alarm.

 Quentin knew he would get over the feeling eventually, Eliot was worth more than all of it. The way his hair curled like christmas ribbons, the days when he had to smash something against the wall. The songs he sang to their son. Eliot, Julia, they were worth more than he knew to say.

***

Okay so idk why the writers are teasing qualice again but it's making me so conflicted because I was such a stan back in the day. Ik they're canon but book Alice and show Alice are by no means the same person, can't we have one of our ships be endgame?? Or at least be at bat for an inning? Okay but yeah this is hopefully unproblematic anyways cause it's Just Q and Julia, and this moment kinda has to happen at some point since the only person who really knows is Margo?? So yeah before they sink my ship lemme have a moment, at least if they dont work out I have the benfit of not having my Dad claiming they're ruining a perfectly good show with "a bunch of queer bullshit", but topics for another time, pls comment my sad fangirl heart crazes validation