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gooseberryhigh2018-02-07 06:07 pm
taxation_is_theft) wrote in gooseberryhigh2018-02-07 06:07 pm
Entry tags:
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Who: Stupid baby fox boys (I hate them, you should hate them too)
What: Quentin finally asks Miguel some shit
Where: Coppertot cabin (which still needs some other boys in it I’m just saying).
When: Backdated to Jan 29th, afterMiguel makes a deal with Archie-la, the Sea Witch classes
Quentin came back to the cabin when called upon - he didn’t really have shit else to do, it wasn’t like he was here at Miguel’s beck and call or anything - and dropped his bag at the door. He made a beeline for Miguel’s bed and climbed into it, making himself comfortable just fine, as if he belonged here. He sighed. He had a lot of stiff muscles lately. Shit had been so fucked up recently and it was stressing him out. So he laid in Miguel’s bed and sighed and closed his eyes and then held out his hand to Miguel.
“So, what’s up?” he asked. Quentin had this ability to slip in and out of his natural accent. He could sound like a hick when he got going on some bullshit but when he got serious and sober, his natural accent seeped away slightly. He pronounced his words more fully.
“If it’s your dry-ass cuticles, you’re dead,” Miguel responded, taking hold of Quentin’s hand with a wry look. “Because if I have to put more goddamn oil on them, that means you’re biting them off and then you’re going to get an infection.” He paused, and looked up at Quentin with a serious expression. “And die. Maybe. I wouldn’t fuck around with staph if I was you, but hey--I’m not and I don’t run around skinning dead things with open wounds in my hands either--yeah, these suck, I’m going to kill you.”
He attacked Quentin’s offensive nail plates with righteous vigor and fury, dripping mysterious liquids and viscous oils onto his ragged cuticles and irritated nail folds with an incredible amount of focus, with a spare cuticle pusher clenched loosely between his teeth. “It’s like you live to undo my hard work to make you decent and disease-free,” he mumbled around the stick, squinting at Quentin’s hands. “...better.” He pushed at Quentin’s knee with one sock-clad foot, insistently turning his hands over to better look at his palms. A wreck.
“...what were you doing,” he asked finally. “Highfiving your tree friend for his wedding?”
Quentin watched Miguel talk and then work on his hands, trying real hard to channel Juniper and just observe him. He already knew that Miguel did this dumb nail shit when he wanted to unwind. It was like the pg-13 version of a glass of wine or porn. But Miguel was talking a lot too. Now. If only Miguel knew why he did that…
“Nah, I tripped a couple times, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Quentin muttered. “I’m going to need you to stop talking for a minute.” Quentin didn’t fidget. He was actually still as malleable as he always was during these procedures. “And answer me honestly. No bullshit. I’m being serious here, alright?” Quentin took a very serious deep breath, and forced himself to spit it out. “Do you want to go to the dance with that toad Sweet? Or that lesser toad Finnigan something or another. Because if you do, that’s cool, I get it. But if you don’t then I was thinking…” Quentin’s voice dipped slightly and he muttered the rest much quieter and far less confident. “I was thinking maybe you could go with me.”
The not-quite-request to shut up was met with an eye roll and a quiet snort. Miguel hummed once to show he was listening, prodding at the healing scrapes on Quentin’s palm with the blunt end of the cuticle pusher and musing on the effectiveness of dittany. (And for a moment, he empathized deeply with his own mother.) He automatically opened his mouth to make a retort before the rest of Quentin’s words sunk in and he was drawn up short, gaping slightly and suddenly painfully aware that he was, in essence, holding Quentin’s hand.
“I thought--” He dropped Quentin’s hand with a vaguely embarrassed air and pulled his legs close to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. What the hell. “Okay, like, I didn’t figure London and Paris both already had dates to the dance?” He paused as a slightly more sobering thought occurred to him. He bit his lip and nudged at Quentin’s leg with his toes again. “...do they? You okay?”
Confusion crossed over Quentin’s face because what did this have to do with Paris and London and why was Miguel asking him if he was okay? It was a simple yes or no question, acceptance or rejection and technically Okay was acceptance but it didn’t feel like it.
Quentin watched Miguel closely. “I didn’t ask them,” he said, some of that confusion working its way into his voice. He sat up now too, turning toward Miguel. “Like I get you do this shit,” he dismissively waved his hand to indicate the nail shit, “to relax and shit so something’s obviously bothering you so this probably ain’t the right time to make this about me, which I get it’s a little fucking late to acknowledge that now since I did make this shit about me anyway but that toad -“
Quentin stopped himself, scowling. “I want you to go to the dance with me instead.” And that sounded strong up until he quickly added, “unless you don’t want to. That’s cool too, I guess.”
“But I thought--” Miguel faltered and loosened his grip, folding his legs in front of him instead and butterflying his knees up and down in nervousness as he pushed both hands through his hair. “Okay, like--okay. Um. I thought, like, you and the twins have been so--” He gestured vaguely and grimaced when he realized just how unhelpful it was. ”Into each other? For a while now? Or they seemed interested in you and it seemed...kinda mutual? I dunno, like, I don’t make a habit of stalking your social interactions, so I thought your big moral crisis of the year was going to be which one to pick.”
He chewed on his bottom lip again as his brain tried to connect logic to Quentin’s request and sent him only 404 errors and insistent redirect notices. His hands shook slightly as his fingers were flexing into guitar chord vamps in his lap.
C Mi6 to F7. F9 on the tenth fret, and now the eighth.
With building alarm, he realized that the plot of his life didn’t make sense anymore; that somewhere along the way he’d lost the arc of the story and hadn’t noticed when it passed him by, waving at him frantically as it unraveled into a tangled mess of knots.
F to B flat sustained, DM to C, B flat to F/A to C.
A broken string--
“...okay,” Miguel said finally, shoving his betraying hand beneath his thighs and fighting down the bloom of panic roiling in his stomach. He was not going to be sick. He was not going to be sick. “Just. Just stop it with Noel and stop it with this whole shit with Spencer, all right? Spencer’s my friend and not relevant to...whatever point you’re trying to make, so. His name out of your mouth, right now. I’m just--why even, though--”
He froze suddenly, staring at Quentin in horror.
Creo que Quentin le gustas, he remembered, staring up at him from a journal page in Dia’s handwriting. I think Quentin likes you.
“...oh my God,” he said faintly.
Miguel was usually a coherent kind of guy. Like okay, he seemed easily flustered. He didn’t tuck and roll too good when it came to quickly adapting to rapid changes in life. It showed a lot on his face during unexpected conversations. Quentin watched his face. “I already stopped it with the Finnigan kid. Apparently he’s really nice and apparently as slow on the pick up as you. I fucking interrogated him and it just…” Quentin swiped his hand over the top of his head.
“That Spencer kid is a dick and it has nothing to do with any of this.” A lot of Miguel’s friends were dicks. Like Archie.
And obviously Quentin.
Quentin fidgeted a little bit. Because this didn’t seem to be an answer either. Or if Okay was the answer - it felt more like an answer made out of distress. Especially with that look on Miguel’s face. Quentin idly picked at the scrape on the palm of his hand and then blew out a distracted breath. “I am into London and Paris. It is mutual. I think. It’s hard to tell. I don’t think Paris is into anybody, I don’t think she wants to be. And I think London’s into anybody that compliments her hair a lot. But I think you vastly overestimate my morality if you thinking choosing between them would’ve been a dilemma.” He probably would’ve tried to date them both. Not at the same time - probably.
“But I’ve been fucking trying to tell you, dude,” Quentin said slowly, carefully, trying very hard to keep his tone calm and unassuming and intelligible. “Also kinda fucking into you.” Quentin’s gaze had strayed from Miguel’s face to focus on picking at his hand - very intensely.
“You interrogated Noel--you brought Spencer up in the first place,” Miguel shot back and stopped, immediately dropping his head back to address a loud “UGH” of irritation to the universe at large.
Here, the universe was saying back. Right here, this moment: this is where everything you thought you knew tells you to eat shit and die mad about it.
”God,” he hissed at the ceiling. The ceiling, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. “Okay, everyone else is now banned from this conversation. Stop that,” he pried Quentin’s hands apart and held them away from each other with a surprisingly strong grip. Even, so his hands shook slightly around Quentin’s wrists and he could feel his face doing something weird without his permission, his mouth trembling and eyes burning.
It was that same feeling he’d had the last time they’d argued at the grotto party, that he tried not to be mad about after, because getting pissed off at your drunk friend for running his mouth was a sure road to insanity. It was that same feeling of almost-resentment with a sour chaser of stomach-bottoming-out-anxiety. He was tearing his bottom lip raw at this point and switched to chewing on the inside of his cheek as he stared at Quentin, trying to understand.
“Since when?” His fingers flinched around Quentin’s wrists and he ducked his head for a brief moment before looking back up with as neutral an expression as he could muster. “Is this why you’ve been so goddamn weird all month?”
He leaned back slightly, looking lost.
”Why? You can’t even stand me most of the time.”
Quentin stilled his fidgeting beneath Miguel’s hands. Unusually strong hangs. Quentin felt an uncomfortable pull in the pit of his stomach. Quentin got that sometimes. He ignored them pretty well when he rationalized that maybe it was just one of the eight thousand spiders you eat in your sleep in your lifetime eating through the lining of his stomach because that felt like a better rationality than what it probably was.
Emotions.
He lifted his gaze from his hands to stare at Miguel. Watching his face wasn’t helpful because Quentin couldn’t really identify anything he was saying. It was like he was navigating this awkward conversation blind. And then he looked away, which was unusual because Quentin had the annoying ability to maintain eye contact, regardless of what any given conversation was about. But in this instance he couldn’t. He glanced back at Miguel, and met his eyes for half a second before looking away again.
“Weird feels like a stretch,” he finally said quietly.
He licked his lips carefully, staring a hole into the wall in front of him. “Since you kissed me,” he said just as carefully but that was an admission itself. The last time he’d apologized for that kiss, Miguel had read into it as Quentin over compensating for feeling slighted about his kissing technique, when it was becoming apparent that it was more than that. He didn’t feel slighted about being called a bad kisser. He felt slighted about catching feels in a moment Miguel regretted entirely. Everything since then had just been an extremely public attempt of overcompensation for feeling slighted.
He swallowed hard and made another attempt at meeting eye contact before letting his eyes drift away again. He didn’t seem to notice it. “Do you seriously think I’d let you do half the shit you do if I couldn’t stand you? You think I’d go around letting some other asshole do my nails? Or order me around? You know how I act when I can’t stand people. I get I’m an asshole but I ain’t never treated you like that. Or, I thought I didn’t.” But Juniper had made that comment about him picking on people he liked - specifically Miguel. He shrugged, which looked mildly distracted because he was still staring at the wall instead of Miguel. “I guess,” he muttered, feeling another foreign emotion. Discomfort.
Miguel bit back the response on the tip of his tongue, the initial instinct to deny that that kiss should’ve even meant anything to Quentin besides a free pass back to class. That it had been an impulsive thing on Miguel’s end, a mostly-joke between friends, nothing that he thought could’ve been misconstrued. Something that later, he wished he hadn’t done at all. Nothing that Quentin, with his grotto party conquests, should’ve felt one way or another about. But, he mused silently as his eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown, Miguel himself had been stupider about Noel for less than that.
His gaze roamed over the only side of Quentin’s face he could see, tracing over his profile, and feeling the anxiousness compounding in his gut over how charged this moment was, almost expectant; he was half terrified and half hopeful that another cabin-mate would barge in to shatter the tension of the moment, and provide him with a feasible escape.
Eat shit and die mad about it, the universe said again.
“You guess,” he echoed back quietly, more for something to break the silence than anything else. He tapped his thumbs thoughtfully against the pulse points in Quentin’s wrists and then slid his grip down to tangle their fingers together, dropping his gaze in--not embarrassment, but something he didn’t have a good name for. Not shyness, but a strange sort of anticipation that fizzled out quickly when the world didn’t end just because they were holding hands. He exhaled heavily, letting it curl him forward until he was dropping his head atop Quentin’s shoulder with a tired sigh and turned slightly to look up at Quentin’s face, still looking away.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “You’re kind of...catching me wrong-footed here and I don’t know what the right thing to say is. But it’s not…”
He paused, frowning.
“...it’s not bad, exactly,” he said, as if trying the words out for himself and slightly surprised to discover they were true. “I just--didn’t know.”
Quentin didn’t really move. Not while Miguel tapped his wrists. He’d been aware of Miguel’s hold on his hands, they hadn’t relented while he’d talked, but they relented now. He didn’t move when Miguel moved his hands down but now he had to look down to realize they were kinda - yeah that looked like they were holding hands. But even then, he didn’t move. He just dropped his gaze, observed the situation, and didn’t really try to analyze it. He was still waiting for Miguel to tell him to fuck off, but this felt like a weird way to do it.
His gaze snapped back up when Miguel put his head on his shoulder. He had to glance down at Miguel. It was a surveying glance. His expression was unreadable, but he was really looking at Miguel. He was still avoiding making eye contact, but he seemed to taking in everything else. He smiled very faintly.
“Not bad exactly would be my character concept,” he said, serious enough to seem self deprecatingly self aware for once.
Quentin almost shrugged again but didn’t because he didn’t want to dislodge Miguel. He didn’t realize it, but he still stopped himself. Miguel felt solid. He kind of liked it - but like, in an awkward kind of way where he was focusing really hard on his breathing so he didn’t accidentally dislodge him. Or breathe on him too much. Or talk too loud. It was uncomfortable and awkward and he wanted to make it last a little bit longer. “There’s no right or wrong, just say what you say. People see what they expect to see. That’s the foundation of conspiracies. We see what makes sense to us, even if it’s wrong. You didn’t know because it doesn’t make sense. It’s fine. You don’t owe me shit just because you know now.”
“Is this a conspiracy,” Miguel muttered. It was more a statement than a question, one he clearly didn’t expect an answer to. So it made sense to you though, he wanted to ask, but didn’t. It felt too much like opening a door that he wasn’t ready to walk through yet. “Because that would be mean as hell, even for the uncaring universe.”
You can still die mad about it, the universe replied back.
“Promise me something,” he said, tapping his temple against Quentin’s shoulder for his attention. “Okay, well--two somethings. You can let me know if they’re, like, unreasonable or whatever.” He tugged one hand free to slap against Quentin’s cheek gently, like he had the morning after the last grotto party. “So, first of all--if the Holloway twins come at me like murderous blonde valkyries for taking their sure bet, I fully expect you to avenge my untimely death and mail my ashes home to my mom for burial at sea. That’s promise one.”
Miguel likely had no idea how distracting he was being, but Quentin was distracted from being distracted when Miguel slapped him. It was gentler than the morning after the grotto, but a scowl rushed to Quentin’s face regardless. He grabbed Miguel’s offending hand and pulled it back down, to rest it in his lap, this time taking unconscious active participation in the hand holding. What the hell did he mean by a sure bet?
“Okay well first, they’re not gonna kill you,” he said confidently. “And second, they’d probably feel complimented by being called valkyries, that’s badass.” Some of Quentin’s normal cadence returned to his voice, relieving him of sounding a lot like he was being held at gunpoint. “But okay, sure, I promise I’ll avenge your death and not defile your ashes by throwing them at people I don’t like.”
And then he meant to ask what the second promise was when it occurred to him that this meant Miguel might say yes. Which made him falter, and his normal dismissiveness evaporate entirely. It showed on his face. It also showed when he started fidgeting with the hand he held in his own. But then he forced it back and said, “what’s the second promise?”
Miguel hesitated, biting down on his bottom lip again and ignoring the sting, even though it had been practically chewed to ribbons. “I don’t want,” he began. His hands tightened reflexively around Quentin’s. “For this to get, like...weird. Right now and, you know. After the dance and everything. I’m just not—“
He broke off with a one-shouldered shrug, looking almost apologetic for being unable to feel something more for Quentin.
“You’re my friend,” he offered a moment later as an explanation. “That’s all I can do right now.”
Quentin watched Miguel closely. That sounded like an acceptance and a rejection. Briefly he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it. But okay so was Miguel insinuating that this conversation right now wasn’t weird? Because it felt weird and uncomfortable and if he did consider it weird then Quentin could promise that he never planned on doing this shit ever again anyway. If he could go the rest of his life without having to have another conversation, he’d do it at this point.
At some point, he realized that he was kind of just staring at Miguel in silence and it’d probably been a while. It was probably the definition of weird. He was already breaking the promise. “I won’t make it weird,” promised the boy that had just stared at Miguel for a solid minute. “Promise. You’ll be just as pissed off around me as you usually are.”
“Yeah, but you have that super-constipated look on your face that means you got lost somewhere here in the past thirty seconds, so like,” Miguel pointed out. “You kinda already made it weird? Good job.”
He pulled back and glanced down at their hands with a curious expression.
“I guess I’m saying that I’m trying to keep it one hundred with you here,” he said. “Like--I’ll go. With you. And maybe die horribly when London and Paris rip out my trachea with their teeth.” (He bared his teeth at Quentin in a brief imitation.) “Which might fit the theme, I dunno.”
He blew out a breath, ruffling the fringe of hair hanging in front of his eyes. “But I’m not sure,” he continued slowly, “what to do with the rest of that information? I don’t--feel that, and I dunno if I will, but. I’ll go. It’s just--you’re my best--I don’t want this getting messed up, okay? Us getting messed up. Does that make sense? I mean, I’ll try but I just don’t know.”
Quentin snorted. And then he paused, seemingly to respond, when he snorted again, grinning despite himself. Miguel was… annoying. And hard to read. Quentin wanted to shove him off the bed. “Dude,” he said. His voice sounded lighter. He reached a hand forward and ruffled Miguel’s hair. But just the fringe of it, the part he’d already messed up.
“I dunno how the fuck you can let somebody down while agreeing to go to the dance with them or if that counts as weird, but that’s definitely a talent.” He returned his hand to his lap, to fiddle with Miguel’s hand. “It’s fine, dude. You not feeling anything. I only told you because… I mean you’d probably be mad if I punched Noel in the face. Figured this was safer.” And Noel had given him an ultimatum. “But had to do something. It doesn’t mean you gotta change anything if you don’t feel like it. It won’t fuck anything up. Mostly because I don’t think I got the dedication to be a dick about this.” He shrugged. “And because I don’t think I’m that kinda dick.”
“You were a dick about this all month and I thought you hated me,” Miguel muttered, sullenly watching Quentin manipulate his fingers and trying to convince himself he was not pouting because he was too damn old for it. “Also, it’s a point deduction and detention if you punch Noel in the face, so don’t.”
His eyes lingered on Quentin’s hands moving his own for another long moment before he lifted his gaze to Quentin’s face with an uncertain expression, as if unsure of how to begin.
“....hey,” he said. “Do you remember, after the grotto party? Like, anything? What you said when we got back to the cabin?”
“I won’t, he interrogated me and was nice about it so he cool I guess,” Quentin muttered.
Quentin’s fidgeting got worse at the question. He remembered most of the night. He’d been ignoring it, for the most part. But like - not successfully. So he focused on fidgeting with Miguel’s hand while he tried to pinpoint why Miguel was even asking him that. But listen, if you remember any of this in the morning, you can ask again if you mean it, you dumbass. Quentin gaze lifted abruptly and his eyes narrowed on Miguel. “You said if I was serious about kissing you again, I could ask again in the morning. You mean that?”
“It’s been two weeks and I’m testing a theory,” Miguel said defensively, shoulders hunching towards his ears. “But you said some other messed up shit and then never said anything about it again after, so I thought, you know, you forgot because it didn’t bother you anymore or it didn’t matter or whatever.”
He dropped his gaze, feeling his face superheating with embarrassment.
“But fair’s fair and I said it, right?”
Great. Now Quentin had to try to remember what messed up stuff he said that night. When he thought hard about it, he remembered a lot of falling. Gravity had been doing the most that night.
Quentin released Miguel’s hand and reached out to him, touching his cheek with his first two fingers. “It’s only fair if you’re okay with it,” he said. “Otherwise it’s the same bullshit as the mistletoe, right?” Miguel’s cheek felt hot. Normally Quentin would’ve made fun of him. He wasn’t the best person to embarrass yourself in front of. He found most of it funny.
“Am I bringing this up for my health?” Miguel asked the wall over Quentin’s shoulder. His eyes shut of their own volition as Quentin’s fingers brushed against his face before he forced them open to stare back at Quentin challengingly. “Because this is obviously not the same situation, dumbass.”
Quentin grinned despite himself. “Okay, just checking, shit.” Quentin relaxed his hand against Miguel’s cheek, and leaned forward. It wasn’t far. They were sitting a lot closer than he’d realized during that entire awkward talk. Quentin kissed him. He wasn’t really thinking about spin the bottle or the mistletoe kiss or that time he’d kissed Carolina in the hallway because of that kiss drug or the fact that this was the first time he’d kissed anyone without the prompting of a drug or prank or game and someone that made the kiss different. Less rushed.
What’s the diagram of a kiss really supposed to look like, Miguel wondered to himself as Quentin pulled back. Scientifically speaking, it wasn’t much. Two peoples pressing their mouths together, maybe eyes closed, trusting in liminal space. Science couldn’t seem to reliably document, graph, or diagram what went with it: the sudden shock of someone else’s palm against your face, the electric current that seemed to light up every neuron in your system to blinding, painful focus in one spot, the pleasant-but-nauseating swoop in your stomach when liminal space finally stopped existing.
As Quentin pulled back, Miguel let out a shaky breath, eyes still closed. “You kiss like a white boy,” he whispered. “I said you needed to mean it.”
Quentin made a face but he was still grinning. He rapped Miguel’s heated cheek twice with the hand he still had against it. “Guess I just need more practice,” he said cheekily.
Miguel landed a solid punch to Quentin’s arm with his free hand. ”God, you’re such an asshole,” he hissed, bright red and practically withering in embarrassment. “I swear to God, that made me think you’ve just been bullshitting me this whole time for kicks.”
Quentin didn’t even move to deflect the punch, but his grin didn’t waver. He returned his hand to Miguel’s cheek, more of a caress than mild curiosity this time. “Wasn’t bullshitting,” he said, sounding more confident this time. Then he pulled his hand back and flopped back on Miguel’s bed, stretching back out until he was in the original position he’d been in before they’d started this whole conversation. “Wanna finish?” He asked, holding out his hand.
Miguel glared down at Quentin, still willing away the flush he could feel in his cheeks and pushing down the mingled irritation-something else to that small place inside where he stored most of his Quentin-based annoyances. “I’m still holding out for your untimely death via staph infection.” He stared hard at Quentin’s hand, at the supplies littering the bed and turned his gaze back to Quentin, now spread out and entirely too smug about it. “Fucker,” he muttered and leaned forward to press a kiss to the corner of Quentin’s mouth, just to prove a point. “Die mad about it.”
What: Quentin finally asks Miguel some shit
Where: Coppertot cabin (which still needs some other boys in it I’m just saying).
When: Backdated to Jan 29th, after
Quentin came back to the cabin when called upon - he didn’t really have shit else to do, it wasn’t like he was here at Miguel’s beck and call or anything - and dropped his bag at the door. He made a beeline for Miguel’s bed and climbed into it, making himself comfortable just fine, as if he belonged here. He sighed. He had a lot of stiff muscles lately. Shit had been so fucked up recently and it was stressing him out. So he laid in Miguel’s bed and sighed and closed his eyes and then held out his hand to Miguel.
“So, what’s up?” he asked. Quentin had this ability to slip in and out of his natural accent. He could sound like a hick when he got going on some bullshit but when he got serious and sober, his natural accent seeped away slightly. He pronounced his words more fully.
“If it’s your dry-ass cuticles, you’re dead,” Miguel responded, taking hold of Quentin’s hand with a wry look. “Because if I have to put more goddamn oil on them, that means you’re biting them off and then you’re going to get an infection.” He paused, and looked up at Quentin with a serious expression. “And die. Maybe. I wouldn’t fuck around with staph if I was you, but hey--I’m not and I don’t run around skinning dead things with open wounds in my hands either--yeah, these suck, I’m going to kill you.”
He attacked Quentin’s offensive nail plates with righteous vigor and fury, dripping mysterious liquids and viscous oils onto his ragged cuticles and irritated nail folds with an incredible amount of focus, with a spare cuticle pusher clenched loosely between his teeth. “It’s like you live to undo my hard work to make you decent and disease-free,” he mumbled around the stick, squinting at Quentin’s hands. “...better.” He pushed at Quentin’s knee with one sock-clad foot, insistently turning his hands over to better look at his palms. A wreck.
“...what were you doing,” he asked finally. “Highfiving your tree friend for his wedding?”
Quentin watched Miguel talk and then work on his hands, trying real hard to channel Juniper and just observe him. He already knew that Miguel did this dumb nail shit when he wanted to unwind. It was like the pg-13 version of a glass of wine or porn. But Miguel was talking a lot too. Now. If only Miguel knew why he did that…
“Nah, I tripped a couple times, don’t worry ‘bout it,” Quentin muttered. “I’m going to need you to stop talking for a minute.” Quentin didn’t fidget. He was actually still as malleable as he always was during these procedures. “And answer me honestly. No bullshit. I’m being serious here, alright?” Quentin took a very serious deep breath, and forced himself to spit it out. “Do you want to go to the dance with that toad Sweet? Or that lesser toad Finnigan something or another. Because if you do, that’s cool, I get it. But if you don’t then I was thinking…” Quentin’s voice dipped slightly and he muttered the rest much quieter and far less confident. “I was thinking maybe you could go with me.”
The not-quite-request to shut up was met with an eye roll and a quiet snort. Miguel hummed once to show he was listening, prodding at the healing scrapes on Quentin’s palm with the blunt end of the cuticle pusher and musing on the effectiveness of dittany. (And for a moment, he empathized deeply with his own mother.) He automatically opened his mouth to make a retort before the rest of Quentin’s words sunk in and he was drawn up short, gaping slightly and suddenly painfully aware that he was, in essence, holding Quentin’s hand.
“I thought--” He dropped Quentin’s hand with a vaguely embarrassed air and pulled his legs close to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. What the hell. “Okay, like, I didn’t figure London and Paris both already had dates to the dance?” He paused as a slightly more sobering thought occurred to him. He bit his lip and nudged at Quentin’s leg with his toes again. “...do they? You okay?”
Confusion crossed over Quentin’s face because what did this have to do with Paris and London and why was Miguel asking him if he was okay? It was a simple yes or no question, acceptance or rejection and technically Okay was acceptance but it didn’t feel like it.
Quentin watched Miguel closely. “I didn’t ask them,” he said, some of that confusion working its way into his voice. He sat up now too, turning toward Miguel. “Like I get you do this shit,” he dismissively waved his hand to indicate the nail shit, “to relax and shit so something’s obviously bothering you so this probably ain’t the right time to make this about me, which I get it’s a little fucking late to acknowledge that now since I did make this shit about me anyway but that toad -“
Quentin stopped himself, scowling. “I want you to go to the dance with me instead.” And that sounded strong up until he quickly added, “unless you don’t want to. That’s cool too, I guess.”
“But I thought--” Miguel faltered and loosened his grip, folding his legs in front of him instead and butterflying his knees up and down in nervousness as he pushed both hands through his hair. “Okay, like--okay. Um. I thought, like, you and the twins have been so--” He gestured vaguely and grimaced when he realized just how unhelpful it was. ”Into each other? For a while now? Or they seemed interested in you and it seemed...kinda mutual? I dunno, like, I don’t make a habit of stalking your social interactions, so I thought your big moral crisis of the year was going to be which one to pick.”
He chewed on his bottom lip again as his brain tried to connect logic to Quentin’s request and sent him only 404 errors and insistent redirect notices. His hands shook slightly as his fingers were flexing into guitar chord vamps in his lap.
C Mi6 to F7. F9 on the tenth fret, and now the eighth.
With building alarm, he realized that the plot of his life didn’t make sense anymore; that somewhere along the way he’d lost the arc of the story and hadn’t noticed when it passed him by, waving at him frantically as it unraveled into a tangled mess of knots.
F to B flat sustained, DM to C, B flat to F/A to C.
A broken string--
“...okay,” Miguel said finally, shoving his betraying hand beneath his thighs and fighting down the bloom of panic roiling in his stomach. He was not going to be sick. He was not going to be sick. “Just. Just stop it with Noel and stop it with this whole shit with Spencer, all right? Spencer’s my friend and not relevant to...whatever point you’re trying to make, so. His name out of your mouth, right now. I’m just--why even, though--”
He froze suddenly, staring at Quentin in horror.
Creo que Quentin le gustas, he remembered, staring up at him from a journal page in Dia’s handwriting. I think Quentin likes you.
“...oh my God,” he said faintly.
Miguel was usually a coherent kind of guy. Like okay, he seemed easily flustered. He didn’t tuck and roll too good when it came to quickly adapting to rapid changes in life. It showed a lot on his face during unexpected conversations. Quentin watched his face. “I already stopped it with the Finnigan kid. Apparently he’s really nice and apparently as slow on the pick up as you. I fucking interrogated him and it just…” Quentin swiped his hand over the top of his head.
“That Spencer kid is a dick and it has nothing to do with any of this.” A lot of Miguel’s friends were dicks. Like Archie.
And obviously Quentin.
Quentin fidgeted a little bit. Because this didn’t seem to be an answer either. Or if Okay was the answer - it felt more like an answer made out of distress. Especially with that look on Miguel’s face. Quentin idly picked at the scrape on the palm of his hand and then blew out a distracted breath. “I am into London and Paris. It is mutual. I think. It’s hard to tell. I don’t think Paris is into anybody, I don’t think she wants to be. And I think London’s into anybody that compliments her hair a lot. But I think you vastly overestimate my morality if you thinking choosing between them would’ve been a dilemma.” He probably would’ve tried to date them both. Not at the same time - probably.
“But I’ve been fucking trying to tell you, dude,” Quentin said slowly, carefully, trying very hard to keep his tone calm and unassuming and intelligible. “Also kinda fucking into you.” Quentin’s gaze had strayed from Miguel’s face to focus on picking at his hand - very intensely.
“You interrogated Noel--you brought Spencer up in the first place,” Miguel shot back and stopped, immediately dropping his head back to address a loud “UGH” of irritation to the universe at large.
Here, the universe was saying back. Right here, this moment: this is where everything you thought you knew tells you to eat shit and die mad about it.
”God,” he hissed at the ceiling. The ceiling, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. “Okay, everyone else is now banned from this conversation. Stop that,” he pried Quentin’s hands apart and held them away from each other with a surprisingly strong grip. Even, so his hands shook slightly around Quentin’s wrists and he could feel his face doing something weird without his permission, his mouth trembling and eyes burning.
It was that same feeling he’d had the last time they’d argued at the grotto party, that he tried not to be mad about after, because getting pissed off at your drunk friend for running his mouth was a sure road to insanity. It was that same feeling of almost-resentment with a sour chaser of stomach-bottoming-out-anxiety. He was tearing his bottom lip raw at this point and switched to chewing on the inside of his cheek as he stared at Quentin, trying to understand.
“Since when?” His fingers flinched around Quentin’s wrists and he ducked his head for a brief moment before looking back up with as neutral an expression as he could muster. “Is this why you’ve been so goddamn weird all month?”
He leaned back slightly, looking lost.
”Why? You can’t even stand me most of the time.”
Quentin stilled his fidgeting beneath Miguel’s hands. Unusually strong hangs. Quentin felt an uncomfortable pull in the pit of his stomach. Quentin got that sometimes. He ignored them pretty well when he rationalized that maybe it was just one of the eight thousand spiders you eat in your sleep in your lifetime eating through the lining of his stomach because that felt like a better rationality than what it probably was.
Emotions.
He lifted his gaze from his hands to stare at Miguel. Watching his face wasn’t helpful because Quentin couldn’t really identify anything he was saying. It was like he was navigating this awkward conversation blind. And then he looked away, which was unusual because Quentin had the annoying ability to maintain eye contact, regardless of what any given conversation was about. But in this instance he couldn’t. He glanced back at Miguel, and met his eyes for half a second before looking away again.
“Weird feels like a stretch,” he finally said quietly.
He licked his lips carefully, staring a hole into the wall in front of him. “Since you kissed me,” he said just as carefully but that was an admission itself. The last time he’d apologized for that kiss, Miguel had read into it as Quentin over compensating for feeling slighted about his kissing technique, when it was becoming apparent that it was more than that. He didn’t feel slighted about being called a bad kisser. He felt slighted about catching feels in a moment Miguel regretted entirely. Everything since then had just been an extremely public attempt of overcompensation for feeling slighted.
He swallowed hard and made another attempt at meeting eye contact before letting his eyes drift away again. He didn’t seem to notice it. “Do you seriously think I’d let you do half the shit you do if I couldn’t stand you? You think I’d go around letting some other asshole do my nails? Or order me around? You know how I act when I can’t stand people. I get I’m an asshole but I ain’t never treated you like that. Or, I thought I didn’t.” But Juniper had made that comment about him picking on people he liked - specifically Miguel. He shrugged, which looked mildly distracted because he was still staring at the wall instead of Miguel. “I guess,” he muttered, feeling another foreign emotion. Discomfort.
Miguel bit back the response on the tip of his tongue, the initial instinct to deny that that kiss should’ve even meant anything to Quentin besides a free pass back to class. That it had been an impulsive thing on Miguel’s end, a mostly-joke between friends, nothing that he thought could’ve been misconstrued. Something that later, he wished he hadn’t done at all. Nothing that Quentin, with his grotto party conquests, should’ve felt one way or another about. But, he mused silently as his eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown, Miguel himself had been stupider about Noel for less than that.
His gaze roamed over the only side of Quentin’s face he could see, tracing over his profile, and feeling the anxiousness compounding in his gut over how charged this moment was, almost expectant; he was half terrified and half hopeful that another cabin-mate would barge in to shatter the tension of the moment, and provide him with a feasible escape.
Eat shit and die mad about it, the universe said again.
“You guess,” he echoed back quietly, more for something to break the silence than anything else. He tapped his thumbs thoughtfully against the pulse points in Quentin’s wrists and then slid his grip down to tangle their fingers together, dropping his gaze in--not embarrassment, but something he didn’t have a good name for. Not shyness, but a strange sort of anticipation that fizzled out quickly when the world didn’t end just because they were holding hands. He exhaled heavily, letting it curl him forward until he was dropping his head atop Quentin’s shoulder with a tired sigh and turned slightly to look up at Quentin’s face, still looking away.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “You’re kind of...catching me wrong-footed here and I don’t know what the right thing to say is. But it’s not…”
He paused, frowning.
“...it’s not bad, exactly,” he said, as if trying the words out for himself and slightly surprised to discover they were true. “I just--didn’t know.”
Quentin didn’t really move. Not while Miguel tapped his wrists. He’d been aware of Miguel’s hold on his hands, they hadn’t relented while he’d talked, but they relented now. He didn’t move when Miguel moved his hands down but now he had to look down to realize they were kinda - yeah that looked like they were holding hands. But even then, he didn’t move. He just dropped his gaze, observed the situation, and didn’t really try to analyze it. He was still waiting for Miguel to tell him to fuck off, but this felt like a weird way to do it.
His gaze snapped back up when Miguel put his head on his shoulder. He had to glance down at Miguel. It was a surveying glance. His expression was unreadable, but he was really looking at Miguel. He was still avoiding making eye contact, but he seemed to taking in everything else. He smiled very faintly.
“Not bad exactly would be my character concept,” he said, serious enough to seem self deprecatingly self aware for once.
Quentin almost shrugged again but didn’t because he didn’t want to dislodge Miguel. He didn’t realize it, but he still stopped himself. Miguel felt solid. He kind of liked it - but like, in an awkward kind of way where he was focusing really hard on his breathing so he didn’t accidentally dislodge him. Or breathe on him too much. Or talk too loud. It was uncomfortable and awkward and he wanted to make it last a little bit longer. “There’s no right or wrong, just say what you say. People see what they expect to see. That’s the foundation of conspiracies. We see what makes sense to us, even if it’s wrong. You didn’t know because it doesn’t make sense. It’s fine. You don’t owe me shit just because you know now.”
“Is this a conspiracy,” Miguel muttered. It was more a statement than a question, one he clearly didn’t expect an answer to. So it made sense to you though, he wanted to ask, but didn’t. It felt too much like opening a door that he wasn’t ready to walk through yet. “Because that would be mean as hell, even for the uncaring universe.”
You can still die mad about it, the universe replied back.
“Promise me something,” he said, tapping his temple against Quentin’s shoulder for his attention. “Okay, well--two somethings. You can let me know if they’re, like, unreasonable or whatever.” He tugged one hand free to slap against Quentin’s cheek gently, like he had the morning after the last grotto party. “So, first of all--if the Holloway twins come at me like murderous blonde valkyries for taking their sure bet, I fully expect you to avenge my untimely death and mail my ashes home to my mom for burial at sea. That’s promise one.”
Miguel likely had no idea how distracting he was being, but Quentin was distracted from being distracted when Miguel slapped him. It was gentler than the morning after the grotto, but a scowl rushed to Quentin’s face regardless. He grabbed Miguel’s offending hand and pulled it back down, to rest it in his lap, this time taking unconscious active participation in the hand holding. What the hell did he mean by a sure bet?
“Okay well first, they’re not gonna kill you,” he said confidently. “And second, they’d probably feel complimented by being called valkyries, that’s badass.” Some of Quentin’s normal cadence returned to his voice, relieving him of sounding a lot like he was being held at gunpoint. “But okay, sure, I promise I’ll avenge your death and not defile your ashes by throwing them at people I don’t like.”
And then he meant to ask what the second promise was when it occurred to him that this meant Miguel might say yes. Which made him falter, and his normal dismissiveness evaporate entirely. It showed on his face. It also showed when he started fidgeting with the hand he held in his own. But then he forced it back and said, “what’s the second promise?”
Miguel hesitated, biting down on his bottom lip again and ignoring the sting, even though it had been practically chewed to ribbons. “I don’t want,” he began. His hands tightened reflexively around Quentin’s. “For this to get, like...weird. Right now and, you know. After the dance and everything. I’m just not—“
He broke off with a one-shouldered shrug, looking almost apologetic for being unable to feel something more for Quentin.
“You’re my friend,” he offered a moment later as an explanation. “That’s all I can do right now.”
Quentin watched Miguel closely. That sounded like an acceptance and a rejection. Briefly he wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it. But okay so was Miguel insinuating that this conversation right now wasn’t weird? Because it felt weird and uncomfortable and if he did consider it weird then Quentin could promise that he never planned on doing this shit ever again anyway. If he could go the rest of his life without having to have another conversation, he’d do it at this point.
At some point, he realized that he was kind of just staring at Miguel in silence and it’d probably been a while. It was probably the definition of weird. He was already breaking the promise. “I won’t make it weird,” promised the boy that had just stared at Miguel for a solid minute. “Promise. You’ll be just as pissed off around me as you usually are.”
“Yeah, but you have that super-constipated look on your face that means you got lost somewhere here in the past thirty seconds, so like,” Miguel pointed out. “You kinda already made it weird? Good job.”
He pulled back and glanced down at their hands with a curious expression.
“I guess I’m saying that I’m trying to keep it one hundred with you here,” he said. “Like--I’ll go. With you. And maybe die horribly when London and Paris rip out my trachea with their teeth.” (He bared his teeth at Quentin in a brief imitation.) “Which might fit the theme, I dunno.”
He blew out a breath, ruffling the fringe of hair hanging in front of his eyes. “But I’m not sure,” he continued slowly, “what to do with the rest of that information? I don’t--feel that, and I dunno if I will, but. I’ll go. It’s just--you’re my best--I don’t want this getting messed up, okay? Us getting messed up. Does that make sense? I mean, I’ll try but I just don’t know.”
Quentin snorted. And then he paused, seemingly to respond, when he snorted again, grinning despite himself. Miguel was… annoying. And hard to read. Quentin wanted to shove him off the bed. “Dude,” he said. His voice sounded lighter. He reached a hand forward and ruffled Miguel’s hair. But just the fringe of it, the part he’d already messed up.
“I dunno how the fuck you can let somebody down while agreeing to go to the dance with them or if that counts as weird, but that’s definitely a talent.” He returned his hand to his lap, to fiddle with Miguel’s hand. “It’s fine, dude. You not feeling anything. I only told you because… I mean you’d probably be mad if I punched Noel in the face. Figured this was safer.” And Noel had given him an ultimatum. “But had to do something. It doesn’t mean you gotta change anything if you don’t feel like it. It won’t fuck anything up. Mostly because I don’t think I got the dedication to be a dick about this.” He shrugged. “And because I don’t think I’m that kinda dick.”
“You were a dick about this all month and I thought you hated me,” Miguel muttered, sullenly watching Quentin manipulate his fingers and trying to convince himself he was not pouting because he was too damn old for it. “Also, it’s a point deduction and detention if you punch Noel in the face, so don’t.”
His eyes lingered on Quentin’s hands moving his own for another long moment before he lifted his gaze to Quentin’s face with an uncertain expression, as if unsure of how to begin.
“....hey,” he said. “Do you remember, after the grotto party? Like, anything? What you said when we got back to the cabin?”
“I won’t, he interrogated me and was nice about it so he cool I guess,” Quentin muttered.
Quentin’s fidgeting got worse at the question. He remembered most of the night. He’d been ignoring it, for the most part. But like - not successfully. So he focused on fidgeting with Miguel’s hand while he tried to pinpoint why Miguel was even asking him that. But listen, if you remember any of this in the morning, you can ask again if you mean it, you dumbass. Quentin gaze lifted abruptly and his eyes narrowed on Miguel. “You said if I was serious about kissing you again, I could ask again in the morning. You mean that?”
“It’s been two weeks and I’m testing a theory,” Miguel said defensively, shoulders hunching towards his ears. “But you said some other messed up shit and then never said anything about it again after, so I thought, you know, you forgot because it didn’t bother you anymore or it didn’t matter or whatever.”
He dropped his gaze, feeling his face superheating with embarrassment.
“But fair’s fair and I said it, right?”
Great. Now Quentin had to try to remember what messed up stuff he said that night. When he thought hard about it, he remembered a lot of falling. Gravity had been doing the most that night.
Quentin released Miguel’s hand and reached out to him, touching his cheek with his first two fingers. “It’s only fair if you’re okay with it,” he said. “Otherwise it’s the same bullshit as the mistletoe, right?” Miguel’s cheek felt hot. Normally Quentin would’ve made fun of him. He wasn’t the best person to embarrass yourself in front of. He found most of it funny.
“Am I bringing this up for my health?” Miguel asked the wall over Quentin’s shoulder. His eyes shut of their own volition as Quentin’s fingers brushed against his face before he forced them open to stare back at Quentin challengingly. “Because this is obviously not the same situation, dumbass.”
Quentin grinned despite himself. “Okay, just checking, shit.” Quentin relaxed his hand against Miguel’s cheek, and leaned forward. It wasn’t far. They were sitting a lot closer than he’d realized during that entire awkward talk. Quentin kissed him. He wasn’t really thinking about spin the bottle or the mistletoe kiss or that time he’d kissed Carolina in the hallway because of that kiss drug or the fact that this was the first time he’d kissed anyone without the prompting of a drug or prank or game and someone that made the kiss different. Less rushed.
What’s the diagram of a kiss really supposed to look like, Miguel wondered to himself as Quentin pulled back. Scientifically speaking, it wasn’t much. Two peoples pressing their mouths together, maybe eyes closed, trusting in liminal space. Science couldn’t seem to reliably document, graph, or diagram what went with it: the sudden shock of someone else’s palm against your face, the electric current that seemed to light up every neuron in your system to blinding, painful focus in one spot, the pleasant-but-nauseating swoop in your stomach when liminal space finally stopped existing.
As Quentin pulled back, Miguel let out a shaky breath, eyes still closed. “You kiss like a white boy,” he whispered. “I said you needed to mean it.”
Quentin made a face but he was still grinning. He rapped Miguel’s heated cheek twice with the hand he still had against it. “Guess I just need more practice,” he said cheekily.
Miguel landed a solid punch to Quentin’s arm with his free hand. ”God, you’re such an asshole,” he hissed, bright red and practically withering in embarrassment. “I swear to God, that made me think you’ve just been bullshitting me this whole time for kicks.”
Quentin didn’t even move to deflect the punch, but his grin didn’t waver. He returned his hand to Miguel’s cheek, more of a caress than mild curiosity this time. “Wasn’t bullshitting,” he said, sounding more confident this time. Then he pulled his hand back and flopped back on Miguel’s bed, stretching back out until he was in the original position he’d been in before they’d started this whole conversation. “Wanna finish?” He asked, holding out his hand.
Miguel glared down at Quentin, still willing away the flush he could feel in his cheeks and pushing down the mingled irritation-something else to that small place inside where he stored most of his Quentin-based annoyances. “I’m still holding out for your untimely death via staph infection.” He stared hard at Quentin’s hand, at the supplies littering the bed and turned his gaze back to Quentin, now spread out and entirely too smug about it. “Fucker,” he muttered and leaned forward to press a kiss to the corner of Quentin’s mouth, just to prove a point. “Die mad about it.”