Chapter seven : Todd
Todd knocks tentatively on the door.
"Margo?" he calls. His arms are draped with garment bags, but he doesn't put any of them down: he's found it surprisingly hard to get creases out of silk without burn marks, and he's pretty sure that Margo would rather have crumpled clothes to burnt ones. Having cool fire powers is actually harder than Zuko makes it look, even if his are more the gently-warm-tea type rather than the redirect-lightning-type.
(Being able to redirect lightning would be so awesome though. Or generate lightning! Best party trick ever. He definitely knows that Eliot can make a little lightning ball, but all his attempts so far have ended with only with the occasional spark, and Margo laughing at him. He bets Margo can make lightning. If she had been hunting the Avatar instead of Azula, that kid would have been caught like two series earlier).
He's kind of worried though. I mean, don't get him wrong, Ibiza was totally amazing, not just because of the orgies (actually maybe in spite of the orgies) but because he got to hang out with Margo, someone he though would never notice him. Sure, it was mostly bringing her drinks but what the hell! But only a few days into the planned week-long holiday, that scary Traveller-Penny-had shown up, and Margo had promptly made herself a portal back to Brakebills.
She'd left all her clothes and belongings, as well as at least three planned dinner dates.
(Todd knows that they weren't really dinner dates, or at least dinner wasn't the thing that was going to be eaten on them, but he didn't really want to know).
Todd decided to finish the holiday as planned-
(What? He's never going to get a chance like this again! Plus, he feels like he kind of owes to Margo to finish the week with a bang, and there were in fact many bangs by the end of the week)
-but he's back now, and he brought all of Margo's stuff back with him. He was coming back to Brakebills anyway! And he was the one who had carried it to Ibiza in the first place, so it wasn't like he hadn't known how to unpack and pack it all.
The Cottage is strangely quiet. Even if there isn't a party on (and let's be honest, there's always a party on) Eliot at least is usually draped artistically over one of the couches, or Quentin is having some sort of break down in the common area. But the silence Todd hears is eerie: it makes him feel like he's stepped into an abandoned temple, or a cemetery. Where the hell is everyone? The first years definitely should have got back from Brakebills South by now. And Margo should have sorted whatever problem had forced her to return early: she should be here stroking Eliot's hair, both of them as languid as cats, mocking Todd as he struggles to get the bags in.
"Margo?" he calls again. Silence. No, wait. A muffled sound.
Todd knows that sound. He's lived that sound. He drops everything. If Margo's going to kill him for anything, it's going to be for seeing her vulnerable: hopefully she won't even see the clothes until he can beg Eliot to help him press them.
(And yes this means potential humiliation, but there's also a 40% chance that it leads to Eliot carefully coaching him through a new spell because: "I'm not going to do it, you're the idiot that fucked up Todd," but also because it's for Margo, and Eliot is strangely sweet when it comes to her and when nobody is watching.)
Todd runs up the stairs.
Margo is curled on her bed, making small choked sounds. In that moment she looks vulnerable, and fragile and everything that Margo isn't. As Todd enters, Margo looks up with puffy eyes.
For a moment she looks hopeful, but then she registers Todd's face.
She visibly hardens (and did the room literally get colder? Definitely colder, there's a thin patina of frost on the walls) and she screams:
"Get out Todd!"
Todd doesn't run out of the room, and he thinks that it might be the bravest thing he's ever done. Definitely up there in the top five. Instead he steps further into the room, surreptitiously raising his core temperature slightly.
"Hey Margo," he says carefully, "Are you ok?"
Margo lets out a hysterical laugh.
"Do I look ok?" she demands.
Todd moves to sit on the bed, carefully broadcasting his intentions, giving Margo plenty of time to freeze him solid, or rip out his entrails, or whatever she wants to do. He wants to reach out and run his hands through her hair like he's seen Eliot do, but he knows that he can't. He's not Eliot, and Margo doesn't really like him on a good day. Instead he just sits there.
"Hey, uh," he starts eloquently, "Can I go and get Eliot for you then? I mean I know that you probably don't want to see him, otherwise I mean he'd already be here. But I think that he'd want to be here for you."
Margo looks devastated, and Todd doesn't know what he's done wrong. Of course Margo would want Eliot, because beneath his insouciance and his drink-to-dull-the-pain-of-existence façade Eliot would do anything for Margo. Hell, Eliot and Margo are the definition of soulmates, and Todd is deeply, deeply jealous. So, if Eliot isn't here, that must mean…
"Oh shit," he whispers to himself. He looks down. Fuck. He always half thought that one day he'd find Eliot had OD-ed, but a larger part of him saw the older boy as untouchable. Mostly because Margo would eviscerate anything that put him in danger, including Eliot's self-destructive tendencies themselves.
"I can't even drink myself into oblivion, because that's his fucking coping method," Margo says.
Todd slumps a bit more onto the bed, and Margo shifts until they are lying side by side.
"He's not dead," Margo says to the ceiling. "He's been fucking kidnapped by the ghosts of childhood past, and once we get him back, I am never going to let the twat forget it. He owes me big time for this. He owes me spa days until we're both seventy and decrepit."
She sits up abruptly.
"So I am going to stop throwing myself a pity party, fucking master battle magic, and go get myself some new goatskin shoes."
Her voice wobbles slightly, but the frost disappears from the room.
"Hey Todd?" she says.
"Yeah?"
"You weren't useless. I expect you out of my room before I get back. And if you ever tell anyone you were in my bed, I'll make you wish I'd turned you into a pig and eaten you."
She leaves, but Todd doesn't get up for a long while. Finally, he rouses himself, and unsteadily makes his way to Eliot's room. It looks like a dump, clothes uncharacteristically tossed everywhere: their owner had evidentially been digging through them for the perfect outfit. There's one of Eliot's vests by Todd's feet: he stares at it.
Eliot is coming back, he is.
Todd bends down and picks up the vest.
And until he does, Todd will take care of take care of the Cottage for him, so that he has somewhere to return to.
