Marina wasn’t sure what to do now. It was obvious that Eleanor was having feelings. There’d been a good amount of times where they’d encountered feelings since they started this show. She wasn’t really sure she understood why they started it, but she guessed, in a way, it was easier to spoil yourself than to let yourself be spoiled by idiots from your home world. It was partly why she’d been seriously considering watching her own show. She’d done enough looking into things to know where she’d stopped, but considering this it was hard to know if it was necessarily a good idea. But that still left her with the conundrum of people potentially spoiling her and if anyone was going to do it, she was going to do it. She could much more easily forgive herself for a misstep than she could others.
Still, she didn’t know what to do now. Should she offer an awkward shoulder pat? She was avoiding hugs unless she was surprised by them. Maybe burritos? Breakfast burritos made everything better. Except when they didn’t. But did they really not fix some problems? She was pretty sure that she could find a place that had breakfast burritos. She stared for a moment at Eleanor, the feeling of awkwardness settling over her.
“Well, hot stuff. That was...definitely something.” She stood slowly, not trying to seem like she was making an escape. “Was going to order breakfast burritos. You in the mood? More margaritas?” Because that was how she seemed to deal with emotions. Margaritas. Marina just wanted something to do with her hands so she could distract herself from the emotions. I mean, sure, somehow she didn’t immediately dislike Eleanor. It probably had something to do with the kindred spirit thing. She was definitely not up to calling them friends, yet. Even though she really couldn’t explain the whole watching four seasons of another person’s life with that person thing. It was probably friends. She had to stifle her natural response to that and not look like she’d just stepped in dog shit out of nowhere.
Ugh.
Definitely something was an understatement and a half, and Eleanor was still staring at the television, trying to pretend like her eyes weren't stinging from the tears threatening to spill over, because she was also trying to act like she wasn't about to cry. Again.
Because she had already, after the initial anger and shock of her mom still being alive. And her anger at the version of herself on television that somehow forgave her within 22 minutes. Because she didn't get to live all of this, only watch it on television, and seeing her mom with a family, acting like a real mother? That was going to sting for a while.
(Marina had been hugged after that, which was probably a mistake. Yet here she was, back in the penthouse.)
Then there was the episode where Chidi got his memory back that showed all these memories from their time together. Fuck, she missed Chidi. And Tahani, and Jason, and Janet, and Michael. It was almost overwhelming, how much seeing them on screen made her miss them. But that time they'd powered on till the end. Which was a total cryfest, for as much as Eleanor denied that she ever cried. So now she was staring at the screen, trying to pull her shit together.
"Good thing I didn't come here from the end," she said at last, in classic deflection. "Can you imagine walking through that doorway, thinking your complete existence was ending only to end up here? In a blizzard? No thank you."
Marina was going to take the non answer to mean yes. Mostly because she was getting breakfast burritos. She pulled the app up on her phone, putting in the order for perhaps more breakfast burritos than strictly necessary, but who knew? Crying probably made people hungry? She didn’t pretend to know. It had been a while since she’d cried and if she did, she refused to do it around others. It wasn’t really something she wanted to broadcast, but she knew she wasn’t entirely immune to it if something mattered enough. She’d cried over her hedges, but not until she was sure she was alone and she didn’t let herself do so more than once. It didn’t help anything.
She wasn’t sure about the margaritas, though, so she just went with half answered. “Might’ve been something, but you know.” She didn’t know what that meant. It was pointless words, but Eleanor was busy trying not to cry, so would she really question her? Probably not. “The snow’s never just some snow. It’s always ‘trapped in your house’ snow. I guess this place prefers to operate in mostly extremes that way.”
"You're making margaritas, right?" Eleanor asked, wiping the tears from her face and pretending like Marina couldn't see. "That was weird. I've heard of this place giving you a rush of memories like you'd lived it all, but I didn't live it. At all. Well some of it, I guess."
Before Michael had erased her memory 800 times.
"In my case it was lost in the snow, having no clue where I was, while some DOA employee cursed drawing the short straw and having to retrieve me."
Her conversation was haphazard, thrown together as incoherently as her thoughts because she was still reeling and taking everything in while trying to pretend she wasn't as affected as she was. Classic Shellstrop.
That answered that uncertainty. “Yeah.” She pulled everything she’d need for the margaritas out and started getting a pitcher ready because this didn’t seem like a one and done sort of situation. At least she was prepared for this...or she’d gotten herself prepared for it after the last time margaritas had played a big part in coping. It was better just to be prepared.
“The last place I was in did the memory upgrades, but the Wonder Team had access to some potion that stopped the updates. I wasn’t really part of that whole thing, so I didn’t really worry about it, but I went from less knowledge to more knowledge and then the only person who even knew what I knew didn’t remember it.” But she’d been careful not to disclose actual information. Just ask if he remembered the Stoppard Cube, which he didn’t. She’d gotten it there, but she didn’t have it here. She wasn’t sure if it even mattered. It wasn’t like they could time travel. She’d prefer Deweys or a magical battery if she was going to get something. Something that she could use if she needed to do magic bigger than she could handle. Just as long as she never had to deal with those stupid keys again. She hated that idea forever.
“Well, they have to do what they have to do, I guess. If they’re bummed about it, they shouldn’t have decided to work for the DOA.”
"I wouldn't mind being able to stop… all that from happening," Eleanor said, walking over to the bar. "It was depressing enough just watching it… And that would be a lot of time to go through in a night."
It was a lot of time just spent watching it, and she regarded Marina curiously. "Thanks for going through all that. Why did you? I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I thought you were gonna call this off after the mom episode." Or the one where MIchael gave her all those memories back but she wasn't going to draw attention to that. She thought those were separate episodes, but she couldn't really remember.
“I don’t remember who made the potion.” Which was true, but she didn’t know who made it in the first place. She knew Julia wanted to get a potion to make the memory upgrade happen, but she didn’t fully understand that either. “It was definitely a lot of stuff.” At least she hadn’t hugged her again, so that was a bonus.
Oh, but having to explain herself. She’d take the hug over that. “Well, I’m nosy.” That seemed fair. “But I’d definitely pick RHONY over that again.” That seemed...in character. “Makes up for the depressing youtube videos.” The stuff with the memory reboots was definitely a touch discomfiting. “And at least the old guy” who she knew the name of, but whatever. “Was less of a dick, but no less a weirdo later on.” She was quiet for a moment. “And I gotta admit, I considered leaving after Brent showed up, too.”
"Ugh, Brent," Eleanor said, latching onto that. "I can't believe I was stuck trying to make him a better person rather than, I don't, shoving that damn book down his throat." Clearly she wasn't as evolved morally as her counterpart.
"And Chidi, getting his memory wiped…" That had sucked to watch. "And I still can't believe my mother faked her own death and didn't tell me."
She hadn't realized she was pacing the floor, until she was all the way across the room. "Never google yourself. This is what happens." She paused. "I was kinda badass when I was in charge, though."
“He was a typical white, middle aged man. Gross.” She was glad he wasn’t someone she had to claim, but she had plenty of dumb men back home to pick from. “I wouldn’t have blamed anyone for hitting him with a book. He’s like someone I’d kill just to take over his shit.” Which wasn’t really something she over thought.
“Parents suck,” Marina agreed, completely sidestepping the Chidi thing for that immediate moment.
“Yeah, well, I could have told you that,” Marina quipped. “Given I did it once I knew I could and…” She trailed off, deciding not to explain the stuff she saw about her and Anna. There was a brief shift in her expression - something more disappointed than usual - but she corrected it. “You were okay in charge. I liked the bar fight most, though, and the somewhat evil plotting.” Even if it was to make someone a better person. Gross.
Eleanor waited until she had a margarita in her hand before she said anything more. And then once she did speak, it was to deflect at the first opening she saw.
"What did you find that made you make that face?"
Marina tried to keep her expression as neutral as she could, settling for taking a drink to avoid an immediate response. She was sure there was a lie in there that she could make up that would actually be real. “Margo and Josh sleeping together? Why?” That was true, but that was the last season. Not that she knew about that before. “Getting stuck with the Wonder Team is generally a disappointing endeavor.” She made a ‘grossed out’ face before opening her phone and looked at her phone to see when the breakfast burritos would get there.
"That's not…" Eleanor said, but shrugged it off. Marina was going to Marina, but that sure didn't sound like something that you'd find out googling yourself. Probably. She didn't really know enough about Marina's world to say so definitively. But still, this sounded like a Marina thing to do.
Whatever, she had a margarita and plenty of other things to keep her mind occupied. Like Chidi. There was so much about Chidi that she didn't know how to process, including every emotion involved. Sighing into her drink, she fell uncharacteristically silent. Watching her abandonment issues play out on screen had been highly uncomfortable, and she didn't know whether it was better or worse watching with someone just as avoidant as herself.
"At least he left me that calendar," she said, seemingly without context.
Yep. It was definitely like Marina to make up something that had nothing to do with her really to explain something away. She didn’t really want to get into the subject of her future wife. Well, ex-future wife it seemed. So much for trying to be a better person. It still got you shit all. But, in all fairness, Anna’s demands were higher than she’d usually pay attention to and that was because she actually gave a shit about her. If she hadn’t, she would have told her to get fucked long before then. She wouldn’t have done any of the shit on her stupid list. She’d have just stuck to being herself and being a little more single. It was just that she hadn’t wanted that. She remembered the feeling of it from her last update.
The silence was somehow not any more comforting than the talking part. Mostly because it was clear that Eleanor had far too many emotions going on and she didn’t know what to do with her own emotions half the time, much less anyone else’s. At least not on serious matters. She guessed she could manage emotions when she needed to, but did she? Probably.
“I mean, I guess as far as parting gifts go, it was generous?” But then she didn’t really get the whole...Chidi thing. Not that she could talk. She’d like Holland and he was definitely more of the...pale unusual creature with one black eye and one blueish-green. But he’d also cheated at pool with her and had magic that could kick her ass a little, which was fun. It was kind of weird not being able to surprise him because of the ‘smell of magic’ thing, though.
"You know, for someone who hates the idea of people leaving her, this place is pretty terrible," Eleanor said. There wasn't any reason to hide that, not when the core of who she was had been on full display even as much as she'd hated it. "Vallo better leave me a calendar if anyone important to me disappears. And you better not disappear, but if you do, Vallo better leave me your penthouse. It does have a history of being stolen, after all."
Was that a feeble attempt to lighten the mood for herself? Maybe. Although the fact that people were here and then in a blink of an eye gone? Yeah, that was terrifying and demanded that she down the rest of her margarita. Thank goodness Marina had made a pitcher.
Marina shrugged. “You get used to it after a while.” Which was true and not true at the same time. She stopped being overly surprised by it, but she wasn’t immune to the losses...as much as she pretended to be. “I don’t have any intentions of going anywhere and only I do the stealing.” She made a face. Cause really. As okay as she was stealing from others, she was less okay with being stolen from. She could probably place the blame on a lot of things.
“But I don’t think it works like that anyway. Most things that belong to people that leave tend to disappear.” She shrugged, taking a sip of her margarita. “But you should also be aware in the event it doesn’t everything is warded up the vag and I refuse to take responsibility for what bad things happen when I’m not here to undo it.”
"Right, the gold triangle things that look pretty but apparently could cut a bitch. Noted." Eleanor said, refilling her glass. "Guess I'll always be stuck with Freaky Feet and Nightmare George Washington. Cool."
Of course, Vallo had "gifted" those to her so she probably wasn't going to get rid of them just by moving.
"Didn't you order food?" Eleanor asked after a moment, suddenly hungry.
“Your naming choices are weird in case I didn’t mention that.” At least she could follow why they were named what they were. It wasn’t like they were a surprise or anything. She was just glad she didn’t have weird clown portraits to get stuck with.
“Yeah,” she said, checking her phone. “It should be here in a few minutes.” She was actually looking forward to breakfast burritos. She glanced at the phone again now that she was reminded of it. If she could do magic to speed things up, she probably would. “Breakfast burritos. I didn’t know what fillings you liked, so I got options. Except vegan.” No one wanted vegan options. Unless Eleanor was secretly into vegan options.
She heard a knock and walked to the door, checking to see who was there before opening it and getting the food. “Yeah, thanks or whatever,” was all she said before shutting the door and coming inside. “Anyway. I think they’re labeled, so you can pick whatever you want.” She was going for the egg, cheese, sausage, and potatoes. “It clarifies the collection of youtube ship videos we’ve watched, at least. All the...hours of watching your post death life.”
"Yeah, well so are the clowns," Eleanor pointed out.
Every option looked delicious so she chose a random burrito to start, and then grinned at Marina. "You know, if this was the afterlife, you would have so many points right now for watching all of those with me. Especially with as much as you probably hated it."
“Yeah yeah.” She waved it off, focusing on the burrito for a minute. She really did love breakfast burritos. “We all know emotions aren’t my happy place.” And there’d been a lot of them. Most of them were Eleanor’s in real time and the others were just...everyone’s. Jason was at least the least emotionally uncomfortable one. He was just so stupid, it seemed like things were basically less potent.
“I don’t think I have to worry about the points, though. Not sure here has the same ranking stuff. And even if it did...eh.” Because that was just too much to overthink about and she didn’t feel like it. Maybe on a different day. “So...at least it doesn’t seem like there’s the chance of more at least.”
"No, that seems pretty final," Eleanor agreed. "Over. Finished. Done."
Which was a lot to think about on its own, but she wasn't going to subject Marina to that. She wasn't sure she wanted to, anyway. That was for brooding about in her own apartment with the incessant clowns.
"So, what about your show?"
It sounded like Eleanor was slipping into emotions again, so Marina took a sip of her margarita in case she was forced to deal with something that involved an outpouring of emotions. She wanted to be psychologically prepared to act like it wasn’t fucking weird. But she didn’t. She just stood there.
And then she mentioned her show. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know where it was going, but she had to clarify anyway. Just in case.
“What about it?”
"What if I wanted to watch that? Next?"
Yep. That tracked for what she thought was going to happen. She definitely wasn’t letting her do it alone, though. Cause that just felt uncomfortable even though she didn’t really want to watch the entire show. It just seemed...long.
“You weren’t depressed enough by the youtube videos?”
"I didn't even know what I was watching, really," Eleanor pointed out. "And I've seen how those videos can make things seem one way with tricky editing. I never really got to see what Tahani as my soulmate looked like, after all."
She sounded vaguely disappointed about that.
"I just didn't know if that's something… You even want me doing?"
“If I know anything about home, your show’s like a picnic in the park comparatively speaking.” Because that was the thing about it. The strongest magic came from negative emotions. Good feelings just didn’t do it. Also she wasn’t really in it as far as she knew.
“It’d be weird if you watched it alone. Like being watched while you’re in the shower without knowing about it. Awkward. I don’t even know when I actually show up and having known the others, it’s kind of mostly them and sometimes me. And they’re just trauma city to an annoying level.”
"Okay, that's not awkward, that's creepy," Eleanor pointed out. But Marina wasn't saying no, which surprised her. "So you're saying you want to watch it with me?"
Maybe it shouldn't have been that surprising. As soon as she knew her life, or mostly her afterlife, was available to watch, the idea had lodged into her brain and she wanted to know. Just like she'd wanted her memories from Michael apparently. Maybe it was nothing more than curiosity.
“Want to and probably going to end up watching anyway are two separate things. Especially from the start. I’m not even technically in that part. I mean, there’s a version of me, I guess.” And she had to admit that she was curious about the relationship between that her and Julia. Was it the fun kind of tension? Was Julia lying? Was the death scene really that bad? She was absolutely certain that she was going to regret this. “There are five seasons. And as far as I know, they’re all bleak.”
But she did want to see the last season, the parts she didn’t remember. She’d prefer there to be a distance between her and whatever emotional bullshit there was in it because she really didn’t want the memory update and to feel all of those emotions swirling around inside her like something unpleasant. So it was probably better to watch it and avoid the spoilers later.
Eleanor could not have known how unprepared she'd be for Marina's show, but she did expect bleak from the videos they had watched.
"It's a good thing you keep your bar fully stocked then," she replied easily, having successfully distracted herself from her own emotions. There were breakfast burritos, margaritas, and Real Housewives if necessary. All valid things to focus on rather than the fact that she'd just watched herself step out of existence.
"Before we start that though, you need to watch at least one episode of Atlanta. NeNe will be better than all those New York bitches combined, I promise."
“If you die of alcohol poisoning, it’s definitely not my fault.” But she nodded at the mention of more Real Housewives. She’d take that over the awkward emotional turmoil they’d just experienced and were going to experience once they started her show. “I’m voting no more self starring shows for the night for the sanity of everyone involved.” And also to put it off a bit. “So we can watch NeNe in all her glory.”
Maybe Eleanor would forget The Magicians and maybe she’d realize how bad it was and stop. It was all Marina could really hope for, but at least she could postpone the inevitable regret and emotions for now.