WHO: Eliot Waugh & Margo Hanson WHEN: The very early AM hours of February 18th, after this WHERE: Castle Whitespire WHAT: After an evening of distractions, in the wake of Petunia's disappearance, Eliot and Margo talk about heavy shit. TRIGGERS: References to alcohol and substance abuse, discussions of mortality, general spoilers for everything Star Wars, The Magicians or Harry Potter.
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Eliot hadn't lain in a bed of Whitespire in what felt like years. By this point in the evening, his head was appropriately spinning and the notion of standing anytime soon was a no go. He was here for the long haul, with his knees drawn up and feet near the foot of the bed, and his head resting comfortably against Margo's shoulder. His hand was resting by her head, finger tips delicately stroking her hair, as he studied the patterns of the ceiling above them.
New York that evening had felt like a step back through time to when there was no one else but himself and Margo. It was the sort of evening he'd only engage in at her side and it had allowed him to get out of his mind for a few hours. But now, in the Castle of their mutually respected former kingdom, there were no distractions to push the ache out of his heart. It was another tick mark of those he loved that he'd lost. The only hope he could hold onto, in Petunia's sake, was that those ingenious Potterverse Wizards would come up with a cure. They hadn't by the time Harry was fifteen. Maybe they would a year later. Maybe she'd be safe one day. At least in Petunia's case, he didn't know finalty, as he did with Remus. While he wasn't close with Remus, knowing what he'd meant to Petunia? And considering him something of a friend?
He wished he didn't know.
"Do you remember..." he began, not looking to Margo, "...in the Neitherlands. When we found our books?"
Margo took a long drag on the pipe she used solely for times with Eliot. They'd gotten it on one of the many, many raunchy, wicked times they'd gone out of town for debauchery. Or maybe it was on the town. Whatever. It didn't matter because it was only used with him. She hadn't gotten this fucked up in a long time, and after a night of snorting cocaine, she needed the marijuana slow down.
"Those fucking books. Everyone was so obsessed with their books. If I'm gonna die, I don't wanna know that shit." Jane Chatwin had already given her a really shitty outlook on her own life, and she hadn't wanted to know that shit then. She certainly didn't want to read it in detail in a book.
"I didn't look at mine." He'd assumed his was coming to an end at the time. There would be a final chapter, set in Fillory, that would likely go into innate detail of his final demise. The least he could hope for was that however he'd have gone that he'd have been able to help his friends. Finding out how would have been unhelpful and he'd been more focused on a different question. "I thought I knew how mine ended, so what was the point?" He said, his shoulders giving just a little shrug.
Finger tips delicately slid up past her hair into her peripheral view, flexing in a sign of asking for the pipe to be passed to him. "I sought out Mike's." And Margo had asked why he was torturing himself. But he'd thought it would help put an end to the questions. It did not. It just made him feel worse at the time.
"I wish I didn't know the ending of so many books," he then whispered. He'd not sought these out but he knew.
She gently lowered the pipe into his hands, her depth perception just enough off that it took a few times to get it into her hands. "This place is a bitch for that. Too many people going back to their last moments for my tastes."
Margo didn't want to say it, but it was likely that Petunia's story was coming to a close in her world. If she'd become a loving parental figure and Harry had his destiny, then it was very likely. She was glad that there wasn't a fic out there that she'd come from, that they could read though. And if there was? She wasn't telling Eliot.
She also didn't want to know what was in Mike's book. Not just because of her jealousy, but she didn't like the turn this conversation had taken. But Eliot was Eliot and if he wanted to talk, she was going to listen. "So what was in it?"
"Too many," he agreed. Fingers closed around the pipe and he pulled his arm towards his frame, lifting his hand so he could take a long drag from the end of it. On most days? Eliot could push the thoughts from his mind. He could focus on life here. He had a life here that was impossible back home.
But the portal liked to kick the chair out from under each and every one of them. Eliot felt like every time he'd climbed back up? It was out once again.
Maybe it was just this month. It was a hard one.
He heard her question but it wasn't necessarily Mike his mind was on. The Mike Eliot had cared for? He was a lie. He was a fiction that could never be thrust through the portal because he was a fabrication of the Beast. And Eliot was decades separated from that heartbreak, even if it were possible. He blew out the smoke he'd been holding in. "Everything was opposite of who I thought he was," he reminded her. He was a Republican, for fucks sake. He still hadn't deserved to die, though.
He turned his head ever so slightly so he could look at Margo. "Did she tell you?" He asked, shifting gears entirely, but Margo was Margo. He had a feeling she'd know exactly who the she was he was referring to was.
Margo was usually up on Eliot's rapidfire change in conversation topics, but this whole thing had started with Petunia's disappearance. Some obscene amount of alcohol, cocaine and weed later, she wasn't quite as with it as she usually was. Likely because she hadn't binged like this in well over a year. Margo's thought processes stuck on that for a moment with the stark realization that she was getting old and boring. Hadn't she once tried to snort her body weight in cocaine? Where was that woman?
Stuck in another universe where things were never quite so fucked up.
"Yeah, I remember. He was homophobic jackass in real life." She'd be hard-pressed to say that he didn't deserve to have the Beast's hand up his ass for the rest of his short life, but that wasn't the topic. Something else was bothering Eliot. "We're not talking about Petunia, are we?"
"He was," Eliot agreed. It wasn't speaking ill of the dead when it was a fact, but Mike wasn't the concern. It was the books. It was the knowing. He didn't know where Petunia's fate would end up. She was still a question mark. It was basic analysis that made him think of odds and likelihoods and he needed to decidingly not think about that.
"No. Not specifically." He found he was only able to look at Margo for a few more seconds before he had to turn his gaze back up to the ceiling. He fell silent after, finger tips going back to stroking her hair, as he turned thoughts over in his head.
"Cut the vague shit. What do you know that I don't?"
It sounded harsher in Margo's head than it had come out. To counter how she'd felt, she tucked herself further against him and reached for one of his hands. Rey wasn't avoiding her, and Margo knew there was an update and that things weren't exactly great, but she hadn't pushed her to tell her. Maybe she should.
Eliot turned his head again so he could look at her from the corner of his eye. It didn't feel harsh even if it may have sounded it to others. It felt like Margo and that in itself was comforting, given everything. He gave her hand a squeeze.
"He dies if he goes home." He knew because Rey had confirmed it to Ren. Eliot gave a swallow and used his free hand to fish around on the bed for the flask. He took a drink to chase down any emotion that was building in his throat.
"Like I said...all the endings to the books," he rolled his eyes.
"It's Star Wars," Margo answered in a distant voice. She needed another hit off the pipe, reaching for it and paused, staring at some unknown thing ahead of her. Sometimes you just zoned out like that. "Someone was going to die. It's usually the one with the most guilt trying to redeem himself."
Like grandson and grandfather.
She snapped out of it and returned her attention to Eliot after she'd taken another puff. "He's here. Make the most of it." That was all she could say because even if Ren and Rey went back, they'd never see them again. It would be like they were dead here too. "Try not to think about it too hard, 'cause really? None of us get out of this shit alive."
"Mm," Eliot vocalized, as his fingers tightened around the flask. He didn't want to speak out of turn of what else he knew if this was new to Bambi, which it sounded as though it were. He'd avoided trying to think of what it was likely going to come to for his husband for years. He had held on hope.
"And then jump cut to the dancing teddy bears," he added dryly. He tilted his head back to look at her and held her gaze for a moment. There was a twitch of agreement. "Trying to," he assured her. But it was hard not to let his mind stack up the concerns of those who went home to little time. Remus, Quentin, Ren. Likely Petunia. He sighed, letting his hand drop the flask so he could push his curls out of his face. "It's what Petunia and Remus did. Made the most of it."
"Hey…" Margo said, and this time there was a little more force to her voice. She sat up a little, but not enough to break the embrace, and looked at him. She pushed his hair back, tucking it behind his ear. "I know it's a fucking twat of a deal we get, they get, everyone gets at some point, but letting that pull you down is not going to help you, and it's definitely not going to help them. They gotta think of that shit like a ticking time bomb; you get to be the distraction. The thing they look forward to."
Margo leaned forward and kissed his forehead before resting hers against his. "I know it's fucked up, and it's easy to focus on the bad shit."
His eyes shut and he leaned towards the touch of her pushing his hair back. With his eyes still shut, he gave a nod of understanding. He knew this. He'd done his best to keep it in mind and be strong for those who needed him to. He just always seemed to stumble at the outset, getting better with time. Departures on top of learning just made things harder. Another couple days or so? He'd have the act back on track and only those who really knew him would be able to see it was just a facade. Until it all settled and would be quiet again.
He just needed to give it time.
"I can be a delightful distraction," he noted before he gave a true smile in response to the kiss. With her forehead pressed to his, he reached up to rest his palm against her cheek.
"Thank you, Bambi."
"You are a delicious, delightful, goddamn miracle of a distraction." She punctuated her words with the very pinnacle of Margo expressions and hand gestures, articulating her fervor in a way that only she could. Margo wasn't drawn to drama, drama was drawn to her. "And Eliot?"
She grabbed his face between both of her hands. "Don't do that I need to be strong to me. You can always be upset with me, and I'll get you drunk or stoned or advice."
He soaked in every word she offered, letting it reassure him in this way that was solely and uniquely hers. It was enough to keep his smile displayed through every punctuation and gesture, pulling him back towards the earlier fervor of the evening. The concerns and the feelings weren't likely to truly go away but she had a point, as she always did, and he was going to lean into the advice.
He brought his hands up to rest over top of hers and searched her eyes for a moment. He knew this was true and he knew he didn't have to be with Margo, even though he'd tried to on occasion. It was always recognized for what it was and it was better to do just as she was saying. But the reminder, given everything, was appreciated. "I am, historically speaking, better when I am honest with you," he admitted. He drew in a breath, "And I don't see that ever being untrue."
He shifted, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. "And as much as I appreciate the drinks and the high and the advice, you know what I think we need next?" He paused, waiting to be sure he was holding her attention. "Sleep."