Marina hadn’t cared too much about the happenings of everyone except to point out things that seemed still unrealistic or stupid. It was her showing up on screen that made her still. Was she surprised that she was the one that stole a depository? No. Was she surprised she’d used memory magic to keep people away from it? A bit of both columns. She didn’t like it all the same. Memory magic was something she still knew how to do, but didn’t do. She’d had her memories taken from her and she was less inclined because of it to take others’ memories. “I mean, sounds like me,” she said when she noted the lack of concern with the lives of others and seemed more concerned with using the convergence to do some big magic. She would have done something like that.
But the moon explosion...that was a big bag of ‘oh shit’ which was exactly what she’d said when she saw the cracks forming on the moon. Okay, so she and Eliot (because it was both of them that did it. It wasn’t her fault alone) exploded the moon. That was...not as surprising as she thought it should be, though she was pretty sure that happened in a different show and that was a weird thing.
But then there was all the stuff with whales and the time loop and she just didn’t really even want to understand that. And when she got back on the screen, Margo punched her. “That was probably a smart move, honestly. Like same.” Cause if they were gonna blow up the moon, it was probably better not to let that happen, but then she still thought she should have been able to see what happened with the heist with the magical convergence. Unfair, really.
"Why whales?" Eleanor asked, so confused about pretty much the entire season, which had been lacking in Marina. But when she finally had shown up, the moon had blown up so that was something. Eleanor had appreciated the entire apocalypse time loop arc the first few times, but she was sad they never returned to Marina during it.
"What do you think you were doing while waiting on the apocalypse?" It was rather unfair that she no longer had the penthouse, because the balcony would have been a good view if one was going to accept the earth's impending destruction while sipping at a glass of wine.
Which is what Eleanor would have done, lacking magic or any means of stopping it herself. Apparently no one did judging by the amount of times the loop reset. Until, of course, Eliot managed to work it out due to the whales. And then Margo punched Marina out and Eleanor couldn't help but laugh.
"Yeah, or else we'd have another episode of the time loop," she pointed out. "And no one wants that."
Marina shrugged at her question. She had no idea why whales. It didn’t make sense. What was the fucking point of the whales? But it wasn’t her show to write, she guessed. And they wrote completely ridiculous things for them.
“I don’t know. Hopefully having a lot of sex.” Because that’s what she’d prefer than anything emotional or weird. “Potentially cursing my moon breaking powers...or trying to plan something, I guess.” She might have also been getting drunk off her ass. That was a definite possibility. Still hoping for the sex, though, but Anna definitely wouldn’t have been down for that.
“I mean, it’s not like I’d know I was trapped in a time loop. But I guess it would be a boring story.”
"It was better when Margo was still in the loop," Eleanor pointed out. "Anyway I wish they'd had shown what you were up to after helping to bring about the apocalypse."
She shrugged slightly. “I’m not a main character in this story, which is stupid, but not really news.” It would have been more interesting if she’d been a bigger part of everything, but it seemed like a lot of things were happening already.
Marina still took a moment to give Eleanor a quick eyebrow raise at the mention of Margo. She just wanted to get past all the rest of the weird episodes, knowing from looking that there wasn’t much more of her in the show and she wasn’t sure she was prepared for whatever else came up.
By the time Marina's name was mentioned again, Eleanor had grown bored with the show. There were only so many times one could reasonably believe everything was going to hell, and the Magicians had surpassed that point at least three storylines ago. But when Pete mentioned Marina's name, Eleanor had started paying closer attention again.
And then Marina was on screen. Smiling. Talking about baking cookies. And… church? Even with her explanation on screen, it seemed inconceivable that that was Marina. After an initial, "What the…" Eleanor had at least managed to keep her commentary to herself, but she stole a glance at her friend wondering what Marina was thinking, watching this version of herself on television.
Marina was not exactly excited about most of the plotlines. She was already over creepy romcom guy and Julia’s relationship and why it was something that had happened. She still didn’t understand Margo and Josh. Why did that happen? Did Margo also fuck Josh? She wasn’t sure she wanted to ask.
She stared at herself for a moment once she showed up again, eyes slightly narrowed and nose scrunched up. Church?! Ugh. She hated this already. She’d gotten trance healing? Seriously? She really hated this. She knew why but she didn’t like it. At least she sort of thought she knew, but she could be wrong. She was pretty sure she wasn’t, though. “Church.” It was the only thing she could even say. “They’re gonna fuck this up somehow, aren’t they?” Or she was. She didn’t like her on trance healing, but she couldn’t help the disappointment that lingered there all the same. It was complicated. She got it. Ugh.
When Anna showed up on screen, Eleanor started to put the pieces together. Though if there was ever a definition of an unhealthy relationship, Anna and Marina seemed to be writing it. Eleanor kept that quiet, because she understood where Marina was coming from. Or maybe future Marina.
But when Alice and Kady were leaving Marina and Anna alone, Eleanor finally glanced over. "That's a new side of you I haven't seen," she said quietly. Not the entranced "nice" version of her, but the "trying to make a broken relationship work" side, revealing how deeply she cared about Anna.
Marina’s jaw clenched slightly and she looked away. “Yeah, well…” She gestured vaguely. “I said I cared about her and as you can see, I fucked it up. Again.” She didn’t know why Anna was upset about the timeline stuff. Probably just the fact that she hadn’t mentioned it. Marina was sure there was plenty of reason to actually be upset with her about things. She couldn’t be too mad about Alice and Kady’s choice in a word as bond. It was really the only way to get her to do what they wanted her to do. But all the “fixing” wasn’t going to save shit.
“And then I was obsessed with church. Changed my whole personality. You know. It’s whatever.”
"Hey," Eleanor said, uncertain really of how to respond and wanting to see how everything played out first. "It's not just whatever. This can't be easy watching this whole lot of suckiness play out. Do you want to keep going or do you want to take a break?"
Marina wasn’t even sure how to respond at this point. She knew why they’d broken up and why she’d still tried it anyway, but it didn’t mean she was any happier about it. Someone had died and she knew that was bad. No one would really be happy about it. But it was hard to see the look on Anna’s face. And there was still so much that she hadn’t seen and, therefore, couldn’t know. “No. It’s fine. I want to get it over with. This whole thing’s almost over.”
Watching on turned out to be the right decision if only for the song and dance routine Eleanor was soon witnessing. That was absolutely fantastic, and she couldn't help but laugh at least once. If only things had stayed as light and entertaining, but when Anna showed back up, Eleanor knew things weren't going to go well.
And she was right.
Marina rolled her eyes at the musical number with the stupid annoying pig man. Whatever the fuck his name was. She had to give herself a point for the who in the Disney princess fuck are you line. It was a good one. She hated her hair, though. It was not good.
And then Anna showed up. She froze in place, having seen this in gif form. She watched the fight play out, Anna accusing her of cheating on her with Zelda of all people and then breaking the baton, which could have killed people just like she was upset with her actually doing the last time. She knew why she was upset, but throwing things in her face wasn’t the way to fight with Marina. Especially when everything she threw was a lie. It took a spell for you to care about anyone other than yourself. She looked away at that moment. She knew the truth about herself as much as she avoided it. I do care resonated in her and she hated the way that the scene was affecting her. She’d stood up for herself and basically yelled about caring about someone in front of Zelda.
She looked back up just in time to watch Anna storm out of the room, lips pressing together in a thin line. Then she promptly got up to make as strong a drink as she could and do a couple shots before coming back to the sofa. “Don’t,” she said quickly to avoid any potential hugging or sad looks or really anything that even resembled pity.
"You're really limiting my options here," Eleanor said, knowing what Marina meant without her having to spell it out.
It was definitely something to be sitting here watching this with Marina, because she knew what Anna said was a lie. That trance healing thing may have made Marina actually say how she felt, but it was obvious to Eleanor with actions that maybe didn't always line up with her words. And if that was the case with someone she'd known a couple months, Anna definitely should have known better. She knew what she was saying though as her words impacted both Marina on the screen and her friend who was sitting there watching.
She fought off the urge to get up and hug Marina but didn't hold back from saying, "Good for you."
Marina could still feel the words reverberating inside of her and she almost wished that she could make herself forget, but that would only fuck her over later if Anna ever showed up. She hoped she didn’t. She’d cared about Anna. Of course she’d cared. But Anna would never trust her and she understood that, but she wasn’t sure she could trust Anna either. Trance healing was one of the things on her list? That was something she had to do for Anna to want to be with her and she’d been stupid enough to accept it because she was an idiot that loved a girl that...wanted her to be someone she wasn’t. And she wanted to be that girl so she could be happy. Anna just couldn’t accept who she was and she knew it couldn’t work in the long run, but the pain of it was still real.
“Yeah...sure.” She took a sip of her drink, waiting for the time to continue. And it did...with more singing and eventually Kady holding a knife to someone’s throat while they made demands. She chose to focus more so on the fact that Fen shoved the world seed in her vag. She really hoped she wasn’t handling that later.
The heist ended up being successful and then Santa Claus showed up to save the day because why the hell not. Eleanor was just sort of left staring at the screen as the next episode started playing, and she didn't stop it. They'd made it this far and they were finally at the end. Which showed her no more of Marina and a whole lot of plot she wasn't so much concerned with. Margo being willing to die to save the world was pretty cool. Zelda dying wasn't. Kady seemed to get out unscathed and Julia had her baby then immediately let Penny go traveling with the kid into the middle of collapsing Fillory to save Margo was either extremely reckless and dumb, or a monumental display of trust that Eleanor wasn't sure she'd have had. And then there was a new world with fields of bacon that almost put Eleanor's shrimp dispenser to shame, but who wanted to eat bacon straight out of a field?
That seemed weird.
And then it was over, and Eleanor turned the tv off and looked over at Marina, who'd been given an episode-long reprieve from any further discussion. "So…" she said. "That was definitely something."
The rest of the show was just a lot of stuff that didn’t make sense. She at least felt okay hating Henry still at the end of this. He was a giant asshole all the time. Though, Henry!17 was a real bitch of a version of him. She wasn’t really sure what to think about Julia with a kid now, but...she knew that Julia waas happy about it and content and that was...somehow oddly enough for her. She wasn’t sure what to do with everything as it was, but at least she didn’t have to think about Anna for a minute because it was a very distracting episode.
“Yeah. That’s...definitely something. You think they know that dude’s gonna spirit watch them fucking in his body? Cause...I feel like I’d know that.” And it was kind of weird. But at least the creepy peeping tom guy got to live his creepy peeping tom dreams and that other guy got to actually live??
"Yeaaahhh," Eleanor replied. "I'm just going to block that bit from my mind."
It was her turn to go to the bar, and she returned with a bottle of bourbon, knowing it could be shared. Sitting back down, she was careful to leave space between them, even though again, she was fighting off that urge to hug her friend.
"So how are you doing, hot stuff?"
“I don’t think you can, but good luck with that.” She couldn’t forget it.
And she’d hoped that she could avoid further discussion about her feelings. Really, she wanted to just wait for Eleanor to leave before putting up wards to keep people from hearing anything before she screamed until she felt better. She might need to find a place to explode something. She missed Holland. If he’d been here, they could have done something. He probably wouldn’t have let her do this. It was probably for the best.
“I’m fine. Really.” She wasn’t fine and she was sure that Eleanor knew that, but she didn’t really want to talk about it and she hoped Eleanor would go against her natural instincts and not press more.
Yeah, no way was Marina fine and they both knew that. Not wanting to talk about it, Eleanor would believe. Fine? No.
She gave Marina a look and then downed her glass, reminded once again that Marina stocked the good stuff. "Say I pretended to believe that," she said. "Are you really going to be better off on your own?"
She wasn’t fully sure if Eleanor meant in the immediate future, back home, or in general. “What else is new? The fact that I can only trust myself has just been reinforced.” Which wasn’t true. She could trust Julia - her Julia. The Julia from Texas - and she’d trusted Tony. Again her Tony. The Tony from Texas. She’d trusted Holland enough not to kill her or let her die...and he’d done neither of those things. He’d embarrassed her, sure, but that wasn’t the worst thing someone had done to her. Now she was pissed she cared about something - someone - that just ended up thrown in her face. Of course she wasn’t going to get some happy ending. That wasn’t really a surprise.
“And I’m on my own most of the time. I’ve made it this far, haven’t I?” Because she had. Mostly because dying just was not on her To Do list and she wasn’t going to give up on years worth of self built self preservation for one person who just so happened to break her stupid heart.
Whatever.
“Thank the gods that’s over.” And now she was just going to drink more because the concept of dealing with her feelings was not what she felt like doing...only she probably shouldn’t drink more because then she’d be more vulnerable to actually discussing her feelings. She paused mid sip to stare at her glass suspiciously before putting it down. Stupid Julia. Stupid Tony. Stupid Holland. And...fuck Anna.
"That's not true, is it?" Eleanor asked. "I mean, you can trust me but even if you don't, I'm still here. Dorian's here. You had Julia and Tony in Tumbleweed. And your world is pretty messed up so being here isn't the worst place you could be."
She paused, leaning forward to refill her drink even as Marina set hers down. "I know that's not the same. And I know that had to have sucked to watch." She didn't know if Marina actually trusted her or not, but Marina had known that the break up was coming, and had allowed her to be there. She figured that meant something but wasn't going to mention it specifically.
Marina knew she had all those people. She just felt raw and exposed in that moment. “Everywhere has its own version of fucked up.” Here had still trapped people in a snowglobe and fucked things up for them. Tumbleweed had the cruises and the various other things. Nowhere had real breaks. It was just circumstances that changed.
“It’s whatever. Anna clearly wasn’t going to choose me after everything else. She wanted the other version of me without the flaws. I was just fooling myself if I ever believed anything else.” She stared ahead of herself. There wasn’t a point in entertaining anything else. She probably should have known better, been upfront from the start. But she wasn’t. That just wasn’t who she was. She was secretive and protective of every part of her. So of course she wasn’t honest about everything.
"Yeah well, she didn't deserve you," Eleanor said bluntly. Maybe she should have been gentler, but her words seemed so obvious there wasn't any holding them back. "I mean… you take out everything negative out of anyone and you lose who they are. And that shit she said about you not caring? Fork… fuck… whatever… that. I mean you may hate to admit it, but you obviously do. And if she couldn't see that, or didn't want to see that…"
Yeah, maybe she should lay off the alcohol for a bit. Talking to Marina about anything involving feelings was a proceed with caution type of endeavor, and Eleanor had drunk just enough to lose some of that filter.
Marina could feel herself bristling slightly. She knew it was true because she’d been mad about it before. But to see it and to feel what she knew the show version of her was feeling made it complicated. Being her wasn’t just going to change. But she thought maybe she wasn’t probably as bad. She hadn’t stolen anything or fucked anyone over in so long. It had to have earned her points somewhere. I mean, no, she didn’t care about everyone or overthink hurting someone’s feelings, but she at least was slacking on the sociopathic tendencies.
Still, letting herself get to the point where she was talking about something in the general area of feelings made her uncomfortable. “I can’t believe she thought I was having sex with Zelda.” Because that seemed easier to focus on.
"You wouldn't?" Eleanor asked, knowing Marina was deflecting, but not pushing further. "Maybe I just have a thing for nerds in glasses." She missed one particular nerd, and Vallo had recently gifted her with the calendar Chidi had left for her, Bearimy time and everything, but this hardly seemed the moment to mention that. Her story had ended on a much better note, even with the entire oblivion thing at the end.
But thinking of the Good Place, the actual one at that, reinforced the idea that the Marina she'd watched on television wasn't the same as the one she knew now. Which then reinforced her belief that Anna wasn't worthy of her, because she didn't need trance healing to become a better person, she was doing that in a way that was honest.
None of this she was going to mention right then, faulty filter or not.
Marina made a face at her question. “No.” It was nothing to do with Zelda, really, and everything to do with the fact that she’d wanted Anna to be her future wife, which was just...dumb to think about now. “I had a future wife. Sort of.” But now she didn’t. The concept of trying to find someone willing to tolerate who she was was exhausting.
She wished she’d had a different future wife. She sighed, picking her drink up again to drink away the feeling settling over her. She wanted to make another joke about something, but it all fell flat in her mind and she just sat quietly for a long moment instead. “I thought the depression key was a shitty time. Guess I’m glad I didn’t know about this then.”
For once, Eleanor didn't try to fill the silence and didn't even feel too uncomfortable with it. She just sat there, sipping at her drink, being there, because that was sort of the point, wasn't it? But then Marina spoke again, and brought up the depression key which Eleanor didn't even know Marina had held.
It was enough to prompt her to move closer, though she didn't attempt a hug. Instead Eleanor just nudged Marina, subtly (for her, at least) reminding her friend that she was there, and not leaving her on her own.
Marina glanced over at the feeling of Eleanor moving closer, preparing herself for what felt like the inevitable incoming hug. Only it didn’t. She just nudged her. She looked up at Eleanor quietly for a moment. She wasn’t sure what to say exactly. It was weird to have someone around for this. Normally she’d be by herself and it would probably end in some sort of destructive situation. Maybe she’d ask Dorian to throw stuff at her for her to destroy without explanation. It was normal. She wouldn’t need to think except to channel everything into the battle magic.
“Let’s never do this again. We should stick to RHONY.”
Eleanor couldn't help it, she smiled at that, and then complained, "You're making this impossible." And then she moved in with the inevitable hug, because whatever. Marina was having a shitty day already and talking about feelings which wasn't something she normally did but Eleanor considered it to be a good thing. Better than keeping everything bottled up, at least.
Marina made a face as she felt Eleanor’s arms wrapped around her. “I thought I told you no already.”
"That no wasn't very specific?" Eleanor questioned, thinking she almost sounded like Marina there. With a total of nine seasons of television watched over the last few weeks it wouldn't be surprising, really. But she loosened her hold so Marina could move away, not wanting to make her more uncomfortable, even if she was definitely comfortable herself. And she was pretty sure that wasn't just the alcohol. All that time in the afterlife had altered who she was, and she was fine with that.
But maybe it wasn't fair to expect that out of Marina… like ever.
Either way, they'd made it through the entirety of the show, and that was something in and of itself. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you let me watch that with you," she said.
“I’m still pretty sure you knew what it meant.” Because she’d always been vocal about the hugs. It was one of those things. Even Lucifer was a hugger. It was weird. She’d have figured the Devil wasn’t a hugger, but here she was having been hugged by him. It was gross.
She scooted over because it was the principle of it. She tucked her hair behind her ear on one side. “Yeah. Whatever. Don’t make it weird.” She took another sip of her drink. “I think I’m just going to go to sleep. I won’t die between today and tomorrow. The door should lock itself, but if you want to sleep on the couch, that’s fine.”
"You're right," Eleanor said. "No more hugs. I don't even know where that became a thing I do…" She shrugged, but she'd stick to that. She looked over the couch and added, "Your couch is comfortable and I'll order breakfast burritos in the morning."
She thought about adding that she'd be there, if needed. But that was implied enough with her willingness to sleep on the couch, without having to make things weird.
“Okay. Well…” She shrugged before standing up, placing her glass on the table. She’d deal with that tomorrow. At least it was over and she could deal with things in the privacy of her own room till tomorrow. She still wanted to make things explode, but that would wait for sobriety so she’d wait. “Goodnight, I guess.”