Library, Saturday, October 2nd

[talentforlying]

John had finally -- finally -- realized he was out of minions. So here he was in the library, on a Saturday, digging around in his office for the hiring sign.

Look, usually he came in in the morning, unlocked the library door, and then went to his office to get research done. APPARENTLY the books had been reshelving themselves, so he hadn't noticed that no one had been coming in to work the desk.

The circulation desk had a bell on it, with a 'Ring Me for Help' sign, while John was in his office, trying to find all the paperwork and shit to get new minions.

At least this meant Shellstrop wasn't going to be stealing his booze anymore.


[OOC: Open library, OCD freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.]

Comments

[existencemisspent]

Eliot was not going to be ringing any bells.

Eliot was going to haunt the shit out of anyone who might ring any bells.

And in the meantime, he and his best friend for life and after it were going to relive the circumstances of their untimely, horrible deaths over and over and over again. Like good little ghosts should.

[hello yes, it's Eliot and Margo from timeline 23. Aka the one where Eliot fucked up a spell and got them both killed. There's, uh. Gonna be gore. Fair warning.]

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

“I told you we need to get our shit together, Eliot.”

Margo flickered into existence between two shelves of books, holding a heavy tome. She wore a colorful jacket, and a hair band held back her caramel locks. She flicked a page. Read it. Flicked to another page.

[existencemisspent]

"I have my shit together," Eliot said, walking up behind her, wearing his usual dress shirt and waistcoat, his floral tie almost, but not quite, matching her jacket. He wobbled faintly, having upped his daily alcohol intake significantly since the whole Fillory and the Beast shit became real.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo lowered the book and whipped around. All the shit with the Beast had made her more focused, even as she’d watched Eliot vanish down that bottle. She was keeping both of them going. She knew that.

So.

“No, you’re holding your shit together. Barely,” she said, practically willing him to stand up straighter. “There’s a difference.” She leaned in. “Don’t let that pixie twat Bigby get in your head.”

[existencemisspent]

"She called me a lush," Eliot said, his speech slurring faintly. "Which is basically just a nice way of saying alcoholic."

He lifted his flask, ever in his hand these days, with a scoff.

"And she said I couldn't handle that spell."

He took a long drink.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Yeah. Yeah, Margo wasn’t gonna comment on the lush thing.

“Why don’t you prove her wrong and help me, okay?” she said, flicking to the next page.

[existencemisspent]

Eliot swallowed and nodded. "What are we doing?"

He was perfectly happy to let Margo be in charge. She had drive. Ambition. Far less liver damage.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Finally.

Margo looked down at the page. “Well, before we can do the Rhinemann, we need a power-up,” she said. She turned the book around and held it up for Eliot to see. “Here is a co-operative spell. Now if we can cast this together—” She didn’t mean to sound like a school teacher lecturing a small child, but with Eliot in the state he was in, it was hard not to. “—It might just give us enough juice to kill the Beast.”

[existencemisspent]

Eliot couldn't even blame her. He looked at the spell, frowning.

"And if we cast it wrong . . . kaboom."

He was . . . mostly against going kaboom. Mostly.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo’s voice dipped into its sweetest register.

“So let’s not cast it wrong,” she said.

[existencemisspent]

Eliot looked at the spell again, spotting all the ways it could go horribly wrong. "What if Bigby was right?" He clenched his hand on his flask. "Wh-w-what if I am too drunk? What if I screw it up?!"

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Oh for fuck’s sake, Eliot. Weeks of this bullshit. Drinking and feeling sorry for himself while the world around them burned. The rest of them didn’t have that kind of luxury, who the hell was Eliot to think that he did?

Just like that, the cork came off Margo’s proverbial emotion bottle. She slapped Eliot across the face hard, the noise echoing through the library.

“You are not going to cock out on me.”

[existencemisspent]

Eliot squawked, pressing the hand that was holding the flask to his face.

It did effectively snap him out of his spiral of despair though.

"Cock out?"

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Thank fuck.

Margo put her hands on her hips. “I’d say ‘pussy’, but let’s be honest,” she said. “Which one’s tougher?”

[existencemisspent]

"Point made," Eliot said.

The lights flickered, and the two of them vanished into the darkness.

When Eliot appeared again, he was walking slowly, stiffly. the right sleeve of his shirt was coated in blood and gore.

"Ohhhhh my god," he mumbled. He stumbled into a shelf and slid to the floor with a sob. "I screwed it up I screwed it up I screwed it up. . . ." The mantra dissolved into whimpers as he noticed one of Margo's earrings stuck to his shoulder.

One of Margo's earrings. With part of Margo's ear still attached.

"Oh-ho-ho-hoooo my gooood I screwed it up I screwed it up I screwed it up I screwed it up. . . ."

This time, it faded into mumbles as he crumpled into himself.

The lights flickered again, fizzing and buzzing dramatically.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

A few feet away, as a librarian opened a door and yelled, the other ghost reappeared. The half-or-so of her mind that remained within her body could only latch onto a single word.

“Cocks?”

She kept mumbling it through the remains of her mouth until the loop started again, wiping away the yawning chasm that was the left side of her face.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo flickered through the library all day. Sometimes her face was entirely whole.

Sometimes it very much. . . wasn’t.

If you were very unlucky, you might even catch her reliving the moment she lost half of that face.

[talentforlying]

Oh for fuck's sake, were those ghosts pinging against his wards?

"Oi!" he yelled, sticking his head out of his office door. "Whatever's haunting us today, there's two rules! One! No possessions! Two! Stay the fuck out of Special Collections!"

Then he was absolutely going to go back to digging through his fucking piles of paperwork, trying to find student application forms. Look, as long as they weren't possessing the unwilling, trying to enter Special Collections, or covering the library in ectoplasm, he didn't care.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

The ghost-with-half-a-face flickered into being a bare few feet from his office door.

“Cock,” she responded. Perplexed? Was Margo even capable of that any more?

It didn’t matter. She retreated into her memory-loop moments later.

[talentforlying]

"Yeah yeah, I've been called worse," he said, rolling his eyes. "By women with a half-face, no less."

Maze always had colorful language.

"Just stay out of the living people, sunshine."

[existencemisspent]

"Bambi?" Eliot asked, sounding small. "Where's my Bambi?"

The innocent tone was a fine contrast to all the blood covering him.

[talentforlying]

What the ever loving fuck was going on today? One ghost breezing through for a weekend wasn't unusual. Two? Was.

"Haven't seen any animated deer around here, sunshine," he said dryly, eyeing the blood. "What slaughterhouse spat you out again?"

[existencemisspent]

Eliot's voice deepened into a growl and he grabbed for Constantine's collar.

"Where's my Bambi?"

[talentforlying]

Constantine side-stepped that easily enough. "Probably on your face, squire," he said evenly. "You seem like you're having a shitty afterlife, but watch those hands of yours. My dates need to buy me dinner before I let them get physical."

The last part was absolutely a lie.

He loosened his tie a bit more, and Eliot might be able to see some of the edges of John's tattoos peeking out. "Now, we play nicely in my library. You want to spook, go ahead. You want to pass on, just say so. But no getting rough with the living."

[existencemisspent]

Eliot looked at his hands, which started to shake.

"I screwed it up I screwed it up I screwed it up. . . ."

The lights flickered, and he vanished again, his babble lingering to echo through the stacks.

"I screwed it up I screwed it up. . . ."

[talentforlying]

"Fucking hell."

John made his way over to the circulation desk, digging around for a moment before finding the drawer with the arts and crafts supplies.

A few moments later, there was a sign on the door to the library;

Library's haunted today.
Proceed at own risk.

What? Two confused ghosts weren't enough to close anything on this gods' forsaken island.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon had been meaning to drop by the library, since it was apparently the only one on the island, but now having seen what Margo and Eliot could do with magic, he was even more interested to see if it had anything about that (although hopefully not books shagging, thank you for that image, Margo).

So he stopped by, paused at the sign, looked around the library, didn't see anything at the moment, and reluctantly rang the bell, since he had no idea where in the Library of Congress or Dewey Decimal system "magic" fell.

[existencemisspent]

The lights flickered. If Jon looked towards the stacks he’d see a figure standing there for just a moment between blinks, smirking and coated in blood.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon glanced up, jumped, and stepped back, eyes wide. That...that was probably what the sign was warning about, wasn't it?

If it were dangerous, surely the library would be closed?

He cleared his throat, wondering if he should say something or pretend he wasn't even here and hope to be overlooked.

[existencemisspent]

“Where’s my Bambi?” A voice asked, sad and lost and faintly . . . hollow.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon's heart dropped to around his toes. "Eliot? What-" Eliot had been fine just yesterday! "Eliot, is...please tell me if that's you!"

[existencemisspent]

More flickering lights. A distant explosion. A suspiciously long silence.

Then Eliot staggered out of the dark, blood spattered down his right side. “Ohhh god,” he moaned. “Oh my god. . . .”

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Eliot!" Jon rushed over, not quite touching. "Eliot, are you...what..." Sod it. "What happened?"

[existencemisspent]

“I screwed it up,” Eliot said. Less in answer than because it was one of the few things left he ever said. “I screwed it up I screwed it up. . . .”

He sank to the floor with a sob.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon reached out to put a hand on Eliot's shoulder, trying to avoid the blood. "Eliot! Eliot, what's going on?" He looked around to try to figure it out. He was really no good at this.

Wait, there was someone who was. "Where's Margo?"

[existencemisspent]

"Margo?" Eliot echoed hopefully. He looked up at Jon, and his shocked, despairing expression shifted on a dime to something dark. "Where's my Bambi?" he growled, grabbing for Jon in return.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon put his own hands over Eliot's. The blood was less important than figuring this out. "I don't know! Eliot, where did you come from? Was Margo with you?"

[existencemisspent]

Eliot leaned in, baring his teeth. A wave of blood seemed to wash down him, soaking him from head to toe. He gripped Jon's shoulders tighter, his growl all but rattling the air this time.

"WHERE IS MY BAMBI?"

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I- I don't know, Eliot!" Jon looked around, finally just calling out, "Margo!? Are you here?" He tried to find where all the blood was coming from, but there was so much of it! "Oh, god."

[existencemisspent]

"I screwed it up," Eliot said again. And again. And again. "We needed the spell to fight the Beast and she said not to cock out but I did, I-I-I cocked out, I screwed it up, I screwed it up ohhhh goddddd I screwed it up!"

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Eliot, you're...you'll be okay. We'll figure this out." Only probably not, because Jon had no idea what the hell was going on here. If the library was haunted, was Eliot possessed or something? Was he a...well, he couldn't be a ghost, could he? He was tangible. But maybe some sort of monster? What had done this? Was it something related to breaking his connection to Jon? Was it something else entirely? "Where are you hurt?"

[existencemisspent]

The lights flickered in time to Eliot's sobs.

And then Eliot vanished.

Jon might need to reassess a little.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

...He might, yes.

Jon stood up and looked around. "Eliot? Eliot!"

In Eliot's absence, he wondered was going on. And immediately and helpfully knew Eliot was a ghost, so thank you for that, Beholding. How he'd gotten that way, though, the Eye either didn't know or wasn't saying.

[existencemisspent]

If Jon listened carefully, he might hear a distant voice calling for Margo. The loop has started up again, somewhere deep in the stacks.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon heard it, but had no idea what to do about it. Eliot barely seemed to register his presence, and Jon still had no idea what had killed him. Maybe he should go to their house. Maybe Margo would be there.

He nodded and headed off.