Julia was headed down the stairs when she heard Margo swear. She took the rest two at a time only to find her staring at the cottage's alcohol supply. Or what was left of the alcohol supply as it was still there but only faintly visible.
"What's going on?" she asked, looking from the alcohol to Margo and back, trying to hide her amusement, but not entirely succeeding.
“Motherfucking Vallo, is what’s going on,” Margo spat out, as she tried to, once again, reach for a bottle of vodka, and watched her hand go through it like it wasn’t even there. She cursed under her breath again, before throwing her hands up and collapsing on a nearby armchair. “I’m real sick of this shit, y’know.” Couldn’t even enjoy a proper vodka martini without something happening.
She didn’t have any real reason to drink, but sometimes you needed to kick back and enjoy yourself. Especially when one of your housemates showed up with the real life version of Garfield the fucking Cat without warning and declared it their new pet.
Curious, Julia reached for the vodka herself but also came away with nothing. Oh well. It was worth a shot seeing if her goddess powers could make disappearing alcohol materialize again. She debated retrieving a mini bottle from upstairs, but decided to wait on that.
"Want something else to drink?" she asked, cause she was on her way to the kitchen anyway.
“Can you see if any of the white wine in the wine cooler is tangible?” Margo called out, laying her head back against the cushion behind her and huffing. “Because mama needs something boozy to start her weekend off right.” She had actually completed grading homework earlier that day, so she had the next two days for herself, for once. Maybe she would go check up on Man-wol that weekend or see if vampire!Eliot wanted to hang out.
Or maybe she would hit up Tag! and see if anyone was up for some mutual entertainment. It really did streamline the process nicely.
"Yeah, I can check," Julia offered. "Or I can snag a couple mini bottles of vodka from my room, if you prefer that?" There, she was offering. "They were pretty tangible a few minutes ago." She declined to say why she had mini bottles of alcohol up in her room though.
Though that would taste good in orange juice.
"You holding out on us, Wicker?" Margo asked, the amusement obvious in her tone of voice. "Or is it for sad, alcoholic reasons? Which, in that case, lie to me."
She made no effort to get up and actually go to Julia to talk, content in yelling her side of the conversation.
"Just holding out," Julia replied, heading back from the kitchen and up the stairs. "Wine's gone too, by the way. Well, not completely gone," she shouted as she moved out of hearing range. When she came back down, she had three mini bottles of vodka, two of which she handed to Margo. She was going to make a screwdriver with the third.
So it was back to the kitchen, except she paused on the way. "Hey, have you met the cat yet?"
"Not yet, but I know it's going to be on sight when I meet the furball." Cats, for whatever reason, didn't care much for Margo. And in turn, she didn't care for them much either.
Taking one of the shots, she drank it down in one go and finally got up, gesturing for Julia to continue so she could follow her to the kitchen. "Why? Have you met it?"
Julia had already spotted the orange fluff that made up Garfield's hefty form, and so she answered Margo simply by setting the vodka bottle down on the counter and then lifting the cat up in her arms. "Meet Margo, Garfield."
She wasn't necessarily a cat person, but Garfield would tolerate about a minute of human interaction so that worked for her. "He's something," she grinned. And yet it didn't surprise her that this was the cat Fen had come home with.
"Well, fuck me sideways, that little shit actually looks like Garfield," Margo huffed in surprise, one hand on her hip and her head tilted to the side. "Where the hell did she get the floofball anyway?" She hadn't asked too many questions when she had heard about it, knowing that there had been no point in questioning Fen and her choices.
"I don't know, I didn't ask," Julia replied as Garfield started squirming, making it clear social time was over. She set him back down on the floor, then turned her attention back to finding orange juice. "I was just working on something when I saw him walk by and thought I was seeing things for a second."
She shrugged. "He's cute. I kind of like that he's here."
As the cat walked away from Julia, it approached Margo to pass her by. It hissed at her for a couple of seconds, causing Margo to hiss at it in turn. She didn’t wait around to see what it would do next, instead going over to look over Julia’s shoulder to see what else was in the fridge. Catching sight of a Spite can, she reached under Julia’s arm to grab it, as she said, “You say that now, but wait until the little shit starts leaving hair on your clothes.”
Pouring her soda and vodka into a glass, she sipped at it. “Got any plans for the weekend?”
Julia heard the hissing but had spotted the orange juice and started rearranging the fridge to get to it so she didn't turn around. "Margo, what are you doing to that cat?" she asked, before trying to move out of the way as Margo reached in for the Sprite. And then she finally set about making her own drink, leaving the rest of the orange juice out because she'd probably just finish it off.
"And not for tonight. Tomorrow I'm going to the last performance of Wicked though." Sure she'd already gone opening night, and last night. Though last night had been more that Kady had been willing to go, and it had been a refreshing step toward normalcy without any real pressure attached to it.
"You?"
“Asserting my dominance,” Margo said, baring her teeth in the direction the cat was walking off in. The cat didn’t bother to turn around though. “Gotta start now or else it’ll think it runs this house.” That’s where she had gone wrong when she had started to collect friends. She hadn’t stepped on their necks hard enough and now they thought they could just bring cats to the cottage like it was nothing or have emotional meltdowns on her and expect her to make it better.
Ugh.
“How many times have you seen that play now? It can’t be that good.” She opened up her Tag! app on her phone though and started to flip through. “I was thinking about snagging someone off Tag! and taking them for a ride. Not sure though, I’m winging it this weekend.” She really needed to find something better to do and there was a little something something in the works at the back of her head, but it wasn’t a plan fully realized yet.
She watched Margo put on that display for the disinterested cat and shook her head. "Yeah, when I find him all snuggled up with you I'll know just how well you've asserted your dominance," she teased, before taking a drink.
"And twice," Julia said. "But I went with Kady last night. Otherwise I'm just going to support my friend, though it really is good. Maybe snag someone on Tag and take them to the show."
Margo rolled her eyes. “Julia, do I look like a person that’s trying to date?” She did try dating a couple of times, but that’s how the Margolem happened and she wasn’t looking for a messy situation like that again. “I’m going to be that rich wine aunt to everyone else’s kid. Single for life, babe.”
But she did coyly look over at the other Magician and asked, “Sooo, how are things with you and Kady? Kiss and make up yet? Is that why you two went together?”
"I don't know," Julia answered honestly. "When I last saw you I'm pretty sure you hated me, and then I showed up here and we're good. So anything's possible."
But Margo's question made her shake her head, though she was smiling. "We're friends. Who haven't really been talking to each other but now we have, and hopefully things are getting better."
She looked at Margo curiously. "How much do you know, exactly?"
"Honestly? I don't remember. Yours and Kady's thing was awhile ago and a lot has happened since." On top of that, they had no idea what lined up in their worlds. "So you gonna spill?"
"Yeah, let's just say we've been through some shit, which is pretty standard. Magic comes from pain, and all that bullshit." Talking to Dorian had only driven home how fucked up it was, really, given that magic existed from all sorts of sources here. "And then I wasn't there, when I should have been. Penny… her Penny, just got trapped at the library in the Underworld."
Really, she hoped their worlds didn't line up. The part where Q hadn't died in Margo's universe was obviously preferable, but Julia couldn't picture herself with any version of Penny, and it seemed really unlikely to her that she'd end up with one.
"I'm actually glad I can't see the future. Maybe this is it. I'm living it here."
She drank about half of her glass at that, though one shot of vodka wasn't going to do much. Especially since it wasn't the good stuff that Margo had bought. "I think it bothers Fen. That I don't remember everything she does."
Ah, yeah. Their Penny got trapped in the Underworld too. It had been awful. She had seriously thought they would have banged at least once before their time was up. Finishing her drink, she nodded, “Maybe this is it. Maybe it’s not. I try not to think of home too much because then I just get mad all over again about how not in control we are in this situation. What can we do? Just drink and carry on.”
She let her phone screen go dark, the app forgotten for now. “Fen’s going to have to get over it and she will. It’s not like you chose to be plucked from the past in the timeline you were pulled from. Whatever vibe she gives off, you know she knows that.”
"You don't strike me as angry," Julia replied then walked that back a bit. "Not at this, at least, so good job not thinking about it?" Since she first met Margo, the other woman seemed to have a bone to pick with the world. Not that she could blame her, really. Nothing about any of their lives seemed to resemble anything close to normal.
"Yeah, I guess Fen and I just got to know each other better as time went on?" Julia said. "I mean, I'm trying to do that here too so it should work out." She shrugged. Julia liked Fen, who she'd been with before she'd ended up in Vallo. She also appreciated this version of Margo too, who had been there from day one.
"This place is kind of a mindfuck," she admitted. Nothing more so than Marina being alive but also not being her Marina, yet who'd known some version of her. At least with Kady, things made sense. Her best friend was just getting over being mad at her but Julia could understand that.
“Oh, I did the angry thing the first time when I was here,” Margo said, smiling wryly, remembering how angry and wasted she had gotten. Eliot had been so busy reuniting with his boytoy, that she had gone and done a lot of stupid stuff on her own. She had only just started to pull it together toward the end and she had ended up back in their world, Vallo not remembered. “So this time, I’m just going with being resigned to whatever Vallo decides to do.”
Which was easier to do when Vallo wasn’t taking away her wet bar.
“Understatement, Wicker,” Margo said, pushing back from the island and going over to rinse out her glass. “Anyway, gonna go see Fakeliot now that the sun’s down and see if he wants to go out with me. Leaving in about fifteen if you want to tag along.” Wiggling her fingers over her shoulder as a goodbye, she added, “Toodles!”