InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I'm living in a box."

Eliot would have liked to say that his reluctance to drag himself out of bed this morning was entirely because of being up into the wee hours closing things down after another long night at the bar, but it would have been a lie. So many lies he'd told himself over the years, had lied through admission to others, and now they were all converging into the pile of shit he had before him now. He couldn't even say that life was awful. It was a hell of a lot better than it had been for much of the last few years, even, but somehow things were still conspiring to keep him stuck, not really moving forward despite all appearances to the contrary.

The breakfast spread over the bar was from Sally's, but the coffee he'd made himself, carefully tinkered to each of their preferences and kept hot with the appropriate spells (even if it had taken him three tries to get it right). He was on the opposite side of the counter from Margo. It had been out of habit, initially, but as he gazed across at her, he thought maybe it was a smart idea for self preservation, too. "I know you have a reputation to uphold here, but can we just start with you promising that no matter what I have to say, there's going to be no destruction in your immediate future? Specifically of the murderous sort where my head is on your chopping block."

*

Despite it being before noon, Margo was in a pretty damn good mood thanks to the amazing sex the previous night with Henry. He managed to keep up with her surprisingly well and she hoped he’d be up for a repeat in the future. Of course, she had plans with Dick tonight and potentially Laura soon. If she was really lucky, those would both go as well.

Still, even in a post-coital haze with food and coffee, Eliot’s opening made her tense. “Jesus Christ, El,” she said. “What the fuck did you do?” There were very few things she could think of that would make her want to commit violence against her best friend and he damn well knew it which meant she wasn’t going to like whatever he said.

*

Eliot opened his mouth to rebut the question, one hand hanging in the air in front of him as the silence hung, too. He made a noise of frustration—at being in this situation, at needing to have this conversation, at the fact that he hadn't told her long before this—before putting both hands on the bar and leaning in.

"Alright, ripping off the band-aid it is. The Monster isn't gone." He said the words in a rush, looking away from Margo for a breath before he forced himself to make eye contact again. He was glad for the hard countertop, because he was sure his hands would be shaking otherwise. He could count the number of times he'd even made reference to it on one hand, and it wasn't getting any easier. "It's only...contained."

*

Margo wasn’t sure what she was expecting him to say, but it certainly wasn’t that. She stared at him across the counter, her coffee cup cradled in her hands, as she processed that bit of information. If whatever containment Eliot was using failed, the Monster could wreak a lot of havoc in this universe.

In silence, she lifted her mug to her lips and took a long sip, wishing desperately that there was booze in it. This was not a conversation she wanted to have sober. Well, it wasn’t one she wanted to have at all.

After letting the silence hang long enough to be uncomfortable, Margo let out a sigh. “Okay,” she said, her voice eerily calm. “How is he contained?”

*

Eliot's laugh was an equal mix of frazzled and bitter. He'd thought he was prepared for this, but it was far more raw in the talking than he'd expected. "If there was an instruction manual for this thing, believe me, I'd be looking for the return policy right about now."

He turned and grabbed a couple of liquor bottles, adding a generous splash of each to each of their cups. He took several large gulps before sighing. "Back home when I—" He pressed his fingers into the place between his eyes before shifting that same hand to the center of his chest. "I was locked up in here the whole time, and now he's in there instead. I can...feel it sometimes. But I don't know how I got out, much less how to keep him in." Or, if Quentin had his way, banished for good.

*

This kept getting better and better. Margo nodded in thanks for the addition of alcohol to her coffee though she wasn’t entirely sure there was enough in the entire state of New York to deal with this.

“So what you’re telling me is that at any given moment, he could take back control and we’d have no way of knowing.” Well, it wouldn’t be that hard to figure out given the flat affect and creepy blank expression, but he could do a lot of damage before they figured it out.

Margo was very tempted to leave the club, make a beeline for her room, grab her axes, and take care of the bastard once and for all. With all the advanced medical equipment around here, surely Eliot would survive her excising his tag along.

*

"Knowing what it took for me to get about thirty seconds of control of my own fucking body? Unlikely." That was making about a million assumptions—including the Monster not knowing the loopholes of its own prison—but considering how long he'd been in this world without it wresting control already, Eliot thought that, at least, was a fairly safe one.

"I guess it wouldn't help if I told you Quentin had a plan?" He paused for a second and corrected, "Well, more of a research hard-on, but there's bound to be a plan eventually."

*

“Of fucking course Q has a plan,” Margo said, rolling her eyes and letting out an audible sigh. “And why the fuck did you tell him about this first? I know you want to bang him, but I’m your best friend.”

She took a long drink of her coffee and then reached over to grab one of the bottles of liquor and pour more of it into her cup.

*

"For one? He wasn't threatening to ax me." Eliot let out a sigh of his own and turned to put his back to the bar, leaning heavily against it. He drained the rest of his drink and reached blindly sideways to place it on the surface. He scrubbed both hands over his face. "And it's not—ugh, alright, we're going to talk emotions here for half a second, so hold onto your crown."

He turned back around to face her, leaning into hands clenched on the edge of the bar. "I want a lot more than to fuck him." He let that linger for a moment before he continued, "And I'm sorry I didn't tell you before, Bambi. Really. But this is my life and my body. One that was almost stolen from me in a very literal way, so can we cut me half an ounce of slack for wanting to enjoy my freedom and not fucking talk about it?"

*

Margo’s expression softened a smidge when Eliot started talking about feelings. It wasn’t something either of them particularly enjoyed discussing and when they did, that meant it was important.

“You do understand that it’s not you I want to ax, right, El?” she asked. “I want to get that fucking thing out of you so you can enjoy your freedom and your life. And if that involves marrying Q and adopting a bunch of babies that Auntie Margo gets to spoil, all the better.”

As long as he didn’t forget that she was his ride or die, she wasn’t going to object to him and Quentin being together.

*

"I know," Eliot said, reaching for her hand across the bar. It wasn't entirely that he craved the touch (though that was certainly part of it), but that he'd always been far better at physicality than emotions, and this was no exception. "I want it out, too, believe me. But I don't know what it means that it's in there, if the portal fucked me up when it did its thing, and magic is kind of sideways here." It worked for him, but some spells felt farther out of his reach than they had back home. He knew Quentin had thoughts about that, too, but Eliot wasn't so much caught up in the theory as the practical application. "I'm ready to not do nothing, but can we at least pretend to study for a little while before you go carving me up?"

He looked down at his hands for a few seconds before adding, "Technically speaking, we've already been married and had a kid once, so it's not as far-fetched as it might sound."

*

As she listened to him talk, Margo took his hand and squeezed it. “I guess we should learn more about the magic that is native to this place,” she said. “That would be a good place to start.” There had to be people here who could help them figure things out. “Just… keep me in the loop, okay? You and Q don’t have to do this alone.”

Worst case, she had the axes, so they could take down the monster if they had to. She hoped it wouldn’t come to that though.

“And keep the lovey dovey crap away from me,” she added, though her tone made it clear she was teasing him. “I don’t need to see that.”

*

"Are you volunteering for research? Because that sounds like you're volunteering for research." Even though the subject hadn't actually changed, it was a relief to stop talking about his specific nasty little problem. Oblique references sat much lighter on Eliot's tongue. He even managed a true, just-for-his-Bambi smile.

"Aww, come on. We love our little nerd boy." With the hand that wasn't clasped in hers, he pulled out two shot glasses and the bottle of the good stuff he kept under the counter for emergencies such as this. He topped them off and slid one over to her. "And I make no guarantees that I won't need a shoulder to cry on when I finally woman up and try to spend more than two seconds talking about my feelings, so I expect you to have the good stuff ready for me and my need for a little oblivion." He tapped his glass to hers. "To the best bitch in the world, no matter which one that might be."

*

“I had amazing sex last night, so I’m in a good mood,” Margo said. “Which means, yeah, I guess I am volunteering for research.” They both knew that she’d do anything for him though, even if it meant spending hours pouring through dusty books to find a solution to his problem. Hell, she’d trekked through the desert and gone through all that trouble to get the axes for him.

She smiled back at him as she picked up her shot glass. “I will fucking drink to that,” she said, knocking back the shot. “You’re lucky I love your dumb ass.”

*

"Yes I am," Eliot said emphatically as he poured them each one more shot and knocked it back just as quick as the first. He should have felt bad wasting the sipping liquor, but right now he needed the edge off more than anything. "Now eat your carefully-curated brunch. I feel pretty certain we're both going to need our strength."