WHO: Margo Hanson and Eliot Waugh WHERE: Eliot's apartment WHEN: The evening of her arrival (backdated) WARNINGS: Drinking? Otherwise N/A SPOILERS? Only for the end of The Magicians
Eliot sat the tray on the coffee table. It held a pitcher of a cocktail mix, several bottles of liquor and glasses. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. Margo was here. Really here. He could hardly believe it. He’d missed her so much and was beginning to think he’d never see her again. A thought that hurt his heart more than he cared to admit. However, he wasn’t going to think about that. Bambi was there and on her way to his very apartment and there was so much he wanted to say to her. Mostly he just wanted to hug her.
The knock on the door drew his attention and walked over to answer it. He took another deep breath, then opened it. A smile spread over his face before he drew her into a tight embrace. “I can’t believe you’re here, but I’m so fucking glad.” Tears pricked against the back of his eyes, but he held them back.
To say that the last few days in Margo’s life had been some of the most insane shit she’d ever gone through would be an understatement, and Margo had been through some truly insane shit. One minute she’d been figuring out plans for New Fillory with Alice, Josh, and Fen – the next? San Francisco. Back on Earth, but not her Earth, it would seem. Or maybe it was, but it wasn’t New York and she would’ve definitely have picked that over this.
At least until she’d found out about Eliot and the Quentin’s. It was hard for her to say she’d pick New York over having both (or all three, really) of them again. Not that it mattered because she was here and not there, right?
Once she’d pulled her pants back on, she made her way downstairs to the second floor and right to the apartment number Eliot had given her. She gave a knock and found herself face to face with an Eliot that she hadn’t seen in months, to be fair, despite having only just seen him a few days earlier. It was when he pulled her in for a tight hug that whatever tears she’d been trying to fight off for the last few hours came to the surface and she clung to him like her life depended on it. “Holy fucking shit, El,” she mumbled into his shoulder, squeezing her eyes shut tight.
ears slid down his cheeks and Eliot didn't give a damn. Margo was there and if that left him crying or anything else then so be it. God, how he'd missed her. A part of him had begun to believe he would never see her again and that she was better off back home or wherever she'd been anyway, but that didn't stop him from hoping. "Goddamn, it's good to see you, Bambi." He still hadn't let go and wasn't sure he wanted to. There was this irrational fear that she'd disappear if he did. However, he did loosen his hold a little, then finally he drew back from here and pulled her into the apartment.
There was so much he wanted to say and ask, his brain swirling like a delicious cocktail in a blender. "So...I have a pitcher of cocktails or the hard stuff; vodka, tequila, whiskey and gin. What's your poison?" He poured himself vodka then sat on the couch. "I can't believe you're really here. How are you? What point did you come from?" HE couldn't help wondering if she was before his point in time where he'd been pulled from.
Once they’d pulled apart, she palmed at the tears on her cheeks and sniffled softly, promptly putting herself back together as she beelined for the drink options. While a cocktail sounded nice, she needed something stronger in that moment, so she took one of the tumblers and poured a double of tequila before throwing it back with a slight wince.
“Okay,” she said, setting the glass down to fix a proper drink while she talked. “I’m— uh, y’know. Things aren’t as shit as they could be. You said something about being from when you went with Alice to the mountain and yadda yadda, yeah? A lot of shit happens after that, involving us saving the Fillorians, and I came directly from New Fillory. Like, I was there eating a slice of pizza off of a bush or something and then I was here.”
Laughter came from Eliot and he wasn’t sure if it was because his emotions had been wound so tight or if it was the relief and that sense of comfort and home he felt at seeing Margo. Or the eating pizza from a bush which would absolutely be a Fillory thing. “Pizza from a bush. Ahhh, I do miss Fillory at times. What’s new Fillory like?” There would be no Castle Whitespire there where they had reigned for a time.
He drank down more vodka then, but kept his eyes on her. “How are you? I know we’re all used to fucked up shit, but its still a lot to take in. How were the others? How are the others? Am I there?” That was something he’d never asked either Quentin. They both had enough to deal with no matter what point in time they came from. “I don’t know how this works as far as that goes. Is there just another version of me still there?” There had to be, right? It wasn’t like all these people simply poofed into thin air to be brought here.
Margo bit back a sigh and swirled the contents of her glass, the clink of ice the only sound for a brief moment. “I didn’t really get to see much of New Fillory before I was yoinked here, I’d only been there for about a week or something. Enough time to start helping people get settled but not enough time to do a whole lot of exploring yet, which sucks. It looked a lot like the old Fillory, at least. So it seemed like a good transition for folks, you know?”
She took a sip and then turned to Eliot with a tight, almost sad smile. “I’m okay though, I think. My version of you wasn't able to come to New Fillory with us cause of the whole broken hands thing I was telling you about, but Josh and Alice and Fen were all doing okay. I think– I think you’re okay. Back in my part of the timeline. I hope you are, anyway. A lot of fucked up things happened in a short amount of time and one of those was no way back to Earth– that seemed to be a Fillory original and not something you could magically recreate just by thinking about it. But I would’ve gone scorched Earth to figure out a way back, you know.”
There was relief and comforting hearing that New Fillory looked a lot like the original. The place would always be special to him. Perhaps not in the way it was to Quentin, but it had saved him. "Did the talking animals make it to the new Fillory? Quentin asked and I didn't know what to tell him." Q was probably thinking more of the messenger bunnies, but he did have an overall fondness for animals. "Looking similar would definitely help with the transition."
It was a little sad to think that he'd been left behind while the others went to Fillory. Maybe not so much to live there forever, but knowing he couldn't visit because they couldn't return to Earth. It would have been worse to be back home and know he couldn't see Margo because of fucked up shit. As it was, it had been bad enough here. He took a long sip of his drink. "Well, you should know that fucked up shit still happens here in this version of San Francisco. That seems to be our lot in life for all of us. I guess you have to enjoy the calm between the fucked up storms." How he hated that remained true no matter where he went...was pulled. Eliot grinned. “Oh, I know you would have gone full scorched Earth to figure out how to get back. God, I’ve missed you.”
Margo took another sip of her drink, promptly topped it off, and then went over to sit by Eliot. She slipped her shoes off and sat down, curling her legs up under her and leaning into him without a word. Just like old times.
“Yes, we got everyone who was alive from Fillory to New Fillory. Fuckin’... Fen shoved the world seed up her cooch to keep it safe while we used a sea turtle thing the size of my hand as an ark to hold everyone, there was some ridiculous shit with reversing time, blah blah. It’s so much to explain and pointless, ultimately, I guess. Considering New Fillory exists now and everyone’s safe there.”
She let out a sigh and leaned her head against Eliot, briefly closing her eyes. “What kind of fucked up shit happens here?” she asked before taking another drink from her glass.
Eliot put an arm around her for a moment and his mind wandered back to the Physical Kids Cottage for a few moments. He couldn't help laughing at learning about what Fen did. "Oh, Fen, she loved Fillory and would do anything to save it." It was odd to think of a new Fillory, but he was glad it still existed. It was so important to Quentin and really to them all. "I'm glad it's still around and that it thrives."
He pressed a kiss to her hair and sighed. "Well, there was that time where a lot of people woke up as someone else with no memory of who they really were, visions in the rain, being mistaken for someone else and the whole power swap thing. I lost my magic for a week because the person I had swapped with had no abilities or magic. I wasn't a fan of it." He finished off his drink then poured himself more. "There's always something weird happening here. It's like a tamer version of home in that sense."
Margo’s faced twisted into the very definition of ‘what the fuck?’ the more he talked about the oddities that would happen in this version of San Francisco, yet something about it felt… well, normal to her. She supposed maybe that was the case for most of her friends – this wasn’t something entirely out of the ordinary for any of them.
“Well, losing your magic sounds like it sucks, even temporarily. The fuck do you mean visions in the rain though? Like… you could see something that would happen if it was raining or you saw it in your head or what?”
"Mm, can't say I was too happy about it. It felt like part of me was missing. And having to clean myself sucked," he laughed. He took a long sip of his drink. The whole 'future visions' rain thing had been strange and this was the first time he'd thought about it since it had occurred. "It lasted a week I believe. Anytime it rained if you got wet you had a vision of the future, so they said."
Eliot drank more vodka. "We should do some shopping soon," he smiled. Make a day of it; spa, lunch, shopping. What do you say, Bambi?" He looked down at her and smiled. He was so fucking happy she was there.
“Huh. Well, you’re right, that is fucking weird.” Margo smirked a little and took another sip of her drink. She was definitely curious about the kind of shit people saw, but chances were high that those were personal and she didn’t want to pry. Not right now, anyways.
Looking back up at him from her glass, she smiled and then let out a laugh. “Yes, obviously. I know that $5K is meant to last me until I find a job, but Kady’s little trick with the ATMs is probably going to come in handy while we’re here. Or we could rob another bank,” she added with a grin, before finishing off what was left in her glass. “I need to get my nails done anyways, get some fucking… clothes, I guess. But first... let’s just bullshit and snuggle, okay? Turn on a movie or something, I don’t know. Would that be okay, El?”
His smile grew when Margo accepted the invitation for a day of pampering and shopping just for them. "I have no idea what you're referring to," Eliot said in a very casual singsong tone. "I could never." He laughed and gave her another squeeze. "It will be perfect. I can't wait." It gave him something to look forward to.
"I'm all for bullshit and snuggling." He didn't want her to leave anytime soon. Veg out and just hang out together. He grabbed the remote and brought up Netflix. "I'll even let you pick the movie.." He grinned and handed her the remote.