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Her arm is going numb, pressed hard into the crux of Eliot’s elbow, but it is a small price to pay to have him back and be able to alleviate even a sliver of the pain she is responsible for. She takes a deep breath as she prepares to step back into the cottage for the first time since they passed through in a haze the day everything happened. With a sharp exhale, they step over the threshold of what was once home. The busy wallpaper, warm lighting, and ironic posters feel incongruous with the current mood to an almost comedic degree. The enormous ‘TADA’ marquee hangs on the wall caked in rust she’s never noticed before; the now-lightless bulbs taunt her with memories of a time when magic was fun and no one was dead.
“Home sweet home,” Eliot coughs after getting the words out. It’s still hard for him only a few days out from the surgery. Margo brings her other hand to his chest as if trying to rid his body of the reminders of their ordeal.
“Yeah, home,” the words come out so much harsher than she meant them to. Margo has long turned her back on the notion of home. Looking up at Eliot, she allows her eyes to soften, almost to the point of welling up, the small display of emotional vulnerability is the only sufficient apology she can think of. Eliot’s lips turn up into a half smile she knows is difficult for him to manage on so many levels. They’re trying. That’s all they can do right now.
Making their way deeper into the cottage, Margo helps Eliot lower himself onto a couch. It takes every last shred of her resolve to not let it show how heavy he is in her arms. Part of her wants to plop down next to him, curl around him like a lazy cat, trying desperately to recreate what they had here before, but she knows she is only seconds away from having a meltdown she has no business subjecting him to. He’s already going through so goddamn much, the last thing he needs is to try to pick up her pieces too.
Margo’s fingers fidget nervously as she tries to find a reason to excuse herself. Once she settles on her alibi, the fidgeting stops. “I’m gonna find something to torch at the—” Eliot’s eyes slam shut and his body trembles as he anticipates the words. “Yeah,” she whispers instead, bringing her hand to his face just long enough to . . . apologize? Console? She has no idea at this point. As soon as he leans into her touch, she withdraws her hand, giving him a soft pout in place of an apology for leaving, but she needs some fucking air. “Think you can stay put or do I have to take your cane?” she says, half hoping the quip will pull a smile out of Eliot. Margo sets the cane aside, but still within his reach, with a forced smile.
“I’m . . .” it sounds like he might say ‘okay’ but quickly thinks better of it. His mouth hangs open, his tongue curling behind his lips as he carefully selects his words. “I’ll be right here,” he sighs, smoothing his hands over his legs. “Don’t take too long or I’ll have to assume you’re—” the realization of what he nearly said takes the wind out of them both. Margo can’t bear to see the look on his face and bolts up the stairs before they both break.
At the top of the staircase, Margo’s knees buckle as if all the weight she’s been trying to carry is finally too much. Gripping the railing hard, she hoists herself back upright. There is only so much she can take. She slams her eyes shut, taking in a deep breath to try to fight back the tears. This is too much.
“Stupid fucking sacrifice,” she mutters beneath her breath. The thing about everyone seeing you as strong is that no one gives you space to need, to hurt. Everything has its breaking point, it’s simple fucking physics. The last bit of control leaves her body in a loud groan as she stands before the wooden door that used to lead to her bedroom. “Why does someone always have to be a goddamn hero?” The door is cracked open, so she kicks it to give herself room to enter.
The clothes they wore the day they saved Eliot, the day they lost Q, still lie strewn about the bedroom, one that hasn’t belonged to her in years; she sorely longs for the blissful ignorance that came with it. “So much fucking blood,” she says to no one in particular. They’ve been covered in so much blood lately. “When the fuck will it end?“ she asks, kicking the blood-soaked t-shirt they cut off of Eliot’s struggling body when they took him into surgery. The quiet ‘plop’ of the fabric hitting the floor isn’t the catharsis she hoped for. This entire situation isn’t what she hoped for when she mysteriously found herself in an exam room instead of the exclusive nightclub her and friends had finessed their way into for the night. She knew Brakebills would be life-changing, but never in a million years did she think it would be this. Not when her heart pounded between her ears and her blood ran hot when that first burst of magic shattered through her in a fit of rage. Not when she genuinely smiled for the first time in years when she met a gorgeous but shy farm boy in an encounter that would change them both forever. Not when that same boy raced into her room to gush over the adorab—
She can’t even think the thought. Before she has the chance to break down, the clank of metal hitting the floor jolts her cold composure back into place. “Goddammit,” is all she can say to the cruel jab from the universe that knocked the silver crown she once gently placed upon Quentin’s head to the ground. “The fuck?” How long has it been at the cottage? Quentin must have accidentally worn it back and left it here; the thought of him awkwardly realizing he’s forgotten to take off and anxiously worrying of the fact that he never returned it to Fillory fills her chest with a warmth that she isn’t ready to embrace just yet. This isn’t fair. She picks the crown off the floor, meaning to return it to its place on the dresser, but instead hurls it across the room, scuffing the wall with a loud ‘slam’. God fucking dammit is she sick of losing. She’s sick of hurting. This was supposed to be better . This was supposed to be everything, but it’s so much worse. This is what she gets for having the audacity to think they could be happy.
The door slowly creaks open and a heavy, grief-worn Eliot stumbles into the room, barely catching himself on the cane he is so clearly still adjusting to. The sight of him steeped in agony and pain melts all the anger off her. She takes a deep breath and softens her edges before rushing over to prop him up.
“Hey.”
“El,” she says, half startled, half worried as she links her arm around him to help him keep his balance. “What are you doing up here?”
Eliot’s lips turn up in a smile that fails to reach his eyes. “We deserve a break, Bambi,” he sighs, deliberately not acknowledging all the noise she’s been making.
“How does that get worse every time we say it?” Eliot’s shoulders rise unevenly in a shaky shrug that takes all of his strength to manage.
Seemingly at just as big of a loss as she is, Eliot pulls her closer to place a kiss on her forehead as his only consolation. The small movement throws him off balance, the sudden weight of him causing Margo to stumble a bit before bracing herself on the dresser. “Let’s get you to the bathroom,” she says, a bit resigned, and she allows him to put some of his weight on her. The first few steps are always really shaky, so she braces herself as he settles into his rhythm. “You know, you’re eventually going to need to learn to walk on your own,” she says, feigning annoyance. “I won’t be your cane forever,” she laughs and they both know she’s lying. She will pick him up and carry him across the earth if she has to.
One step at a time, a shaky foot in front of another, Eliot trying to split his weight between Margo and his cane, they make their way down the hall to the bathroom. The short trip feels like forever and they are both sorely missing the days when they would race up the stairs and around the corner, shattering glass and scuffing walls in their wake. Their baths used to be decadent and fun. They’d waste hours in the tub, drinking and hogging the bathroom. Tonight is quite literally a funeral procession, complete with Eliot's labored breaths serving as their dirge.
Arm still wrapped around Eliot, Margo makes her way to the doorframe a step behind him. He groans, she can feel him tense in her arms and she digs her heels into the ground, preparing to catch his full weight if she needs to. “Almost there,” she says, rubbing soft circles on his side in the only comfort she knows how to offer right now. They pause in the doorway, letting Eliot lean against it to catch his breath. The staggered sound of his breathing is the only thing keeping them from pure silence. She can’t remember the last time quiet was this unsettling.
When Eliot’s ready, he nods a few times, mentally willing himself to keep going, and Margo braces herself to receive him yet again. They can get used to this. They can do this. In a few days time, it’ll be easy.
Who is she kidding?
This is hard enough just managing the scars and mobility. She should be sitting here having complicated feelings about getting him back and severely wounding him in the same stroke. Instead, she is trying not to think about the fact that Quentin—
This isn’t the first time they’ve found themselves in this bathroom under less than pleasant circumstances, but it is by far the worst. It feels like a lifetime passes between the moment Margo flips the light switch and the moment the bulbs actually illuminate the room. The bright white light is simultaneously overwhelming and lifelessly dull; everything feels muted like it’s coated with a strange film.
With a heavy sigh, Margo helps Eliot take the last few steps to the tub. Eliot leans forward, putting more and more of his weight on his cane and reaches down for the tub.
“You got it or do you need me to help you?” she asks, trying not to sound too concerned.
Determination spreads across Eliot’s face, the first emotion to reach his eyes since he got the news . “I can do it,” he groans. “I want to.”
Margo nods, slowly relaxing her hold on him. She steps back just enough to give him space, but not so far that she wouldn’t be able to catch him if he needed it. Eliot grips the edge of the tub and winces at the pain. It takes everything in Margo not to tell him to be careful of the stitches. They need to do this. It’s the only way they know how to cope with such an impossible loss. The ache of the injuries will pass, but the pain of losing Q will last a lifetime. They deserve this tiny comfort.
Once Eliot is sitting on the edge of the tub, he brings his foot to his lap to untie his shoes. Margo places a comforting hand on his shoulder and forces a smile. “Hang tight and I’ll get everything ready,” she says before turning back to the sink to find something, anything to make this bath less pathetic. Crouching in front of the sink, she swings the cabinet open and starts to knock all the contents around. Cleaning spray, condoms, balloon animals? What the fuck? This must be how Fogg feels coming in here. Every new useless item fills her with more rage. The slams and rattles get louder and heavier with each new dissatisfying object.
“Someone in this godforsaken place has to have a stray bath bomb lying around,” she crumbles under her breath. She could just magic up some bubbles, Ember knows she has enough pain to level the city and then some, but doing magic knowing he’s gone feels almost blasphemous. She slams her fist on the sink and lets out a strained breath. “We deserve a break , and we can’t have a break if we don’t have any fucking bubbles.” It isn’t until she hears the echo of her voice that she realizes she has been screaming.
“It’s fine, Margo,” Eliot’s voice is hoarse, he sounds so exhausted. The shakiness of his words knocks the anger out of her. He doesn’t deserve this. Turning to face him, she can feel it, she’s giving him that look again. The one where she’s damn near crying because she doesn’t know how to apologize. She closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Returning to her position crouching in front of the sink, she grabs a bottle of shampoo she tossed aside in her rage.
“Looks like ‘Salty Breeze’ is gonna have to be good enough,” she sighs and pops the cap of the shampoo bottle with her thumb.
Eliot knows this is usually his cue to laugh and quip back, so pushes himself to do it, for both of them. “Not the salty I usually hope for, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess,” he fails to give it the usual tone of false superiority and snark, but he got the words out. It’s Margo’s turn to push through and force a laugh as she turns the knobs on the tub and pours a healthy helping of the shampoo into the tub. The loud of crash of water against the stone tub shatters the uncomfortable quiet they have been wading through all afternoon.
“Ready to get naked?” She tries her best to give the wicked smirk that question deserves, but she knows she falls short.
Eliot nods in response and Margo hands him his cane. His fingers wrap around the silver ram’s head and he puts as much of his weight as he can on the cane. Once he’s on his feet and steady, Margo begins to unfasten the buttons of his waistcoat starting at the bottom and working her way up. Every few buttons, Eliot wobbles a bit, so she pauses, steadying him with her hands. Eliot places his free hand on her shoulder for extra security. When he's ready again, she unfastens a few more until it’s completely open. “Right arm,” she commands, and he lets go of her shoulder just long enough for Margo to slip it through the arm hole in the garment. “Left arm,” she says, this time she waits a while before starting to tug at the fabric. He has most of his weight on his dominant arm, so he needs to adjust a bit before he can lift it up.
Finally ready, he allows Margo to slip the waistcoat off his body and he resumes his hold on his cane. “That was the easy part,” he sighs as Margo starts to unbutton his shirt, this time moving top down.
Forcing the smiles gets a little easier as they start to settle into their ritual. “Whose fault is it that you’re wearing this many layers?” she scolds with a playful wink.
“I can’t let the situation compromise my aesthetic, Margo,” his tone is flat, and the lack of passions behind his words nearly breaks her heart.
After the final buttons are undone, she untucks his shirt from his pants. “Never,” she says, this time the smile is almost genuine.
With his shirt unbuttoned, she slides the garment off his torso without thinking. The sight of angry, red surgical scars catches her off guard. Nasty, mangled stitches holding together the place on his stomach where she stabbed him—no, the monster— turn her pale with guilt.
She closes her eyes trying to collect herself, but when she opens them, she can’t help but bring her hand over the site of the wound. Her fingers graze the scar ever so gently, careful not to cause any more damage or pain. Eliot’s hand slips over hers, dwarfing it. His thumb strokes the back of her hand in understanding, and his lips turn up in a sad smile. Margo lingers longer then she expects, there is that look again; she releases a heavy sigh Eliot brings her hand to his face, spreading her fingers out along his scruff. The height difference pulls her up onto her toes just so she can reach. She finds herself feeling small for the first time since the desert. “I’m right here, Bambi,” he says with a warmth she doesn’t deserve. Eliot falters a bit and has to brace himself by returning his hand to her shoulder.
“That’s my job,” she says in response to his words.
“Hey,” he sighs. “We’ve always had each other,” he makes a point to really emphasize the last words. He shrugs his shirt off his shoulders and allows Margo to slide it over his arms, they only get stuck for a moment, thankfully not long enough to be frustrating.
Margo nods, silently accepting his words and begins to unbuckle his belt and unfasten his pants. Once his fly is open, Margo brings her hands around his hips. “Brace yourself,” she says. Eliot puts his weight on the cane and tightens his grip on her shoulder. Margo slides his pants off his legs, slowly working her way to the floor to help him slip his feet out.
“Been a while since I’ve had this particular view,” he says, trying to banter through the emotions.
Margo fakes a laugh, and looks up at him, gripping his hips. “The last time we found ourselves in this position, I won a trophy,” she starts to laugh, but then it hits her all over again. Quentin was intertwined in everything they did, and now he’s just—
She shakes the thought out of her head and tried to move on before it hits Eliot too. The second he starts crying again, she isn’t going to be able to handle it.
Before she can say anything else, she sees the bubbles from the shampoo rising out of the tub. “Fuck,” she says. “Guess we should turn the water off.” She turns the knobs and the now quiet rumble of the water ceases. The comically large mountain of bubbles feels strangely imposing tonight. She can’t help but be taken back to the words of her Eliot-shaped reptilian hallucination in that dimly lit tent. ‘Are you stronger than a mountain?’
“Not tonight,” she whispers beneath her breath in defeat.
“Hmm?” Eliot asks, confused.
“Nothing,” she shakes the thought out of her head. “Do you want to get in first, or do you want me to?”
Eliot brings his free hand to his chin and takes a deep breath. His fingers stroke at his lips as he thinks.“You first,” he says after a moment of pondering. “I’ll sit on the edge and swing my legs around and you can catch me if I fall trying to slip my way in.”
Margo nods and is suddenly grateful she was feeling poorly enough this morning to simply throw on a cotton dress. Grabbing it by the hem, she slips it over her head before tossing it across the room into the pile with Eliot’s discarded clothes. She steps into the tub, reducing the mountain of bubbles to a small hill, and leans into the stone; she relaxes her legs to make room for Eliot. “Ready?” she asks, reaching an arm out for him. He nods, putting his weight onto the cane and grabbing her hand. Slowly, he lowers himself, turning his torso so he can take a seat on the edge of the tub. He props the cane on the far side of the tub, swinging his legs around much less smoothly than he hoped. The mound of bubbles splashes around them and some of the water runs over the side. Eliot grits his teeth, frustrated and in pain, and slides himself all the way into the tub. Margo catches him, as she always will, and helps him stay upright, reassuring him with a gentle hand on his back.
They settle into position, skin to skin, but this time Eliot is propped up against Margo. His back is against her chest as her arms wrap around his waist. Her fingers softly stroking his thigh beneath the water. That uncomfortable silence has returned, and the situation hangs thick in the air between them. They’re in a daze, shocked and unsure of how to proceed. Margo doesn’t know what to talk about or if they should talk at all. Every little thing seems to remind her of him , and it’s unbearable. She can’t imagine how it feels for Eliot.
Riffling through her memories, taking inventory of her time over the last few years, rarely does she encounter a memory that wasn’t somehow touched by him . Her lip begins to tremble, and she has to will her body not to shake with desperation. There has to be something that doesn’t involve—
“Oh!” she says, a little too loudly. Her outburst startles Eliot, he winces loudly and clutches his stitches. Margo silently curses herself for hurting him. Taking a deep breath, she tries to continue. “This one time, Josh and I—“ she stops mid-sentence, afraid talking about her new relationship-or-whatever will hit him too close to home. Fuck. She really fucking can’t do anything right. She nervously drums her fingers along the edge of the tub, unsure of what to say or do.
Eliot sighs and brings his hands over hers, pulling her arms back around her waist. “No, it’s fine,” he assures her, and she almost believes him. “It’s okay, Margo. Really. Talk about Josh.”
No. Fuck, here it comes. “It’s not fair,” she says in a voice so small it doesn’t sound like her own. “He was supposed to be here with us.”
“Josh?” Eliot asks, his tone sounds truly confused. Margo curses herself for having to slap him in the face with this realization.
All the muscles in Margo’s body tense up, and she has to will them to relax one by one before she can make herself say it. “No, dumbass,” she says with that callous tone she hides behind. “ Him .”
She feels him flinch in her arms and she is so grateful she can’t see the look in his eyes. She can’t bear to acknowledge it further, but he begins to shake in her arms. It’s too late. It’s been too late. The sobs rip through Eliot as they have been every so often since it happened. The fact that he has gone any time at all between the break downs is truly amazing. She wonders if he is trying to do the same thing for her that she's been doing for him. She pulls him as close as she can, careful not to press into his wounds. The sobs are silent at first, despite his mouth hanging open. That doesn’t last for long, as the quiet sobs morph into agonized wails. Margo wants nothing more than to return to the suffocating silence, but she cunts the fuck up, and holds Eliot and lets him pour it all out.
The shaking in his body spreads to hers, she doesn’t know how or when she started sobbing, she just knows she’s just as big of a mess as he is. This entire time she has been too busy trying to keep Eliot together to really let herself realize that she lost a friend too. Just because she doesn’t love him the way Eliot loves him doesn’t mean she isn’t hurting. The sobs pour out of her, rattling through her body to the point of sloshing the water around them out of sync with their convulsions. The porcelain and stone of the bathroom echo their sobs around them like some pathetic symphony. The sound of their grieving is so painfully humiliating.
Eliot’s sobs devolve into a coughing fit. Margo rubs his back as he heaves until his lungs clear.
“The worst part,” Eliot barely manages the words.
“The worst part was waking up this morning.” He takes in a slow, deep breath, wiping the tears away with wet hands. “Not only did I have to remember ,” another cough. “But I didn’t remember fast enough. This morning, the morning of his funeral,” he pauses. “His goddamn funeral , Bambi.” He spits the words out with a self loathing that Margo is all too familiar with. “I still had the urge to go find him. I got up to talk to him, tell him how I was feeling, and then I realized,” the words trail off and before Margo can even think about responding, he’s sobbing again, a puddle in her arms. She tries to pull it together, put on a strong face for him, but his words are too much. This is all too much.
“What the fuck are we supposed to do?” she’s alarmed to hear the words out loud. She didn’t mean to say them. Margo always wants to do something. To fix something. All she needs is a goal and her stubborn tenacity will do the rest. But there is no fixing this. How do you cheat death?
As if the question triggered something in him, Eliot begins to calm down, the shaking slowing and the sobs falling silent. Margo takes this as her cue to pull her own shit together; she can ask existential futile later. Eliot sniffles softly, slowly rising back up from the slumped over position he fell into. “Do you think we can get him back?” he asks, practically reading her mind. Margo is at a loss for words, there are no answers here. Shaky and tearstained, she wipes her face desperate to wash away the grief; she hates feeling this out of control. Eliot perks up, sloshing the bathwater around them. “We got Penny back. There has to be a way.” The small glimmer of hope in his voice is almost more painful than his sobs.
Despite her better judgement, Margo perks up at the idea. This is the closest she has come to excitement since it happened. She thinks hard on Penny and how they managed to save him from death, retracing the steps, and then it hits her. “No, El, we didn’t,” the thought is so painful that her voice is nearly inaudible. It never really occurred to her until now that Penny, the one she met a few years ago when she sauntered into Quentin’s bedroom for the first time, is dead too. They just had the luxury of having his twenty-third timeline stand-in to take the edge off. Sure, she knew he was from twenty-three, and even called him that to his face, but it never really set in that he wasn’t their Penny. The real Penny. The only person truly feeling that loss was Kady. Goddamn does Margo hate herself for thinking Kady was just being dramatic.
She feels the hope fall out of Eliot’s body, slumping him back over. She doesn’t know when the sobs will return, so she braces herself. They sit in that deep, suffocating silence, and it seems Eliot has exhausted his tear ducts for now. Margo allows herself to relax back into the tub, catching a handful of what remains of the bubble mountain and spreading it across her skin, desperate to feel anything else.
She watches the tiny bubbles as they crackle and pop against her skin. The room is so quiet, she can hear the fixing of soap as it dries in the air. Her fingers tense and relax over and over again as looks passed then, barely focusing her eyes on nothing in particular. She draws in a deep breath, as if taking in air for the first time, and it occurs to her that she’s been zoning out for a while. Eliot has been unsettlingly quiet. Even the weight of him against her body barely registered. How long have they been like that? She should check in.
“Hey,”
“Hey,” they speak simultaneously. In any other situation, the coincidence would have warranted a laugh.
Margo takes a deep breath. “You first,” she offers, knowing Eliot might never share what’s in his mind if he doesn’t go first.
“Turn around,” he says, softly. “I need to see your face . . . your eyes,” he sounds relieved to be able to use the plural. It’s easy to forget that he hasn’t had as much time with her eye back as she has.
“I mean I can pop this thing out if you want,” she deflects. She considers trying to laugh, but she knows her voice will still be stained with agony.
“Bambi,” he whines. He meant to be playful, she’s sure, but the strained breathiness of it rips her heart out of her chest. “I’m being serious.”
“You think I’m not?” she nearly croaks, hoarse from sobbing as she slips out from behind him to try to bring them face to face. The water sloshes, spilling over the edge and onto the floor. Trying not to further harm him, she swings a leg around him, terrified she’ll kick him in the face. Holding her breath, she maneuvers herself over him with a splash. Water and bubbles splatter across the tub, hitting him in face, pulling a genuine smile out of him for the first time. That little flicker of light almost outshines the red, puffiness of his grief, almost. Margo makes sure to commit the image to memory. The sight of it nearly brings more tears to her eyes. From here on out, she knows those smiles will be all too rare. Wiping the soap from his face, Eliot looks at Margo with so much affection it hurts. “Shoulda just let me do the eye thing,” she says, deflecting yet again.
“Probably,” he sighs, trying to keep up the banter, but he quickly runs out of steam. He slumps forward. He doesn’t fall, but Margo instinctively reaches out to catch him anyway, like she always will. She knows every day is going to be a fight. A fight to keep herself strong, a fight to keep Eliot here with her, but she is going to do what she can. She hopes it will be good enough.