Pick Your Poison, Thursday

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Okay. Margo had a location. (A bank, to be specific.)

Now she needed a plan.

How had she gotten her hands on those plans? It was probably better not to ask. They were sitting in the corner of the shop, and every now and again she'd come out of the aisles or the back room, leave the shop-related work behind, and poke through it.

Sometimes a plan needed time to percolate.

Anyway, the shop was open, and the bath bombs were humming.

[[ open ]]

Comments

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Oh, look, it was another latte! Along with Jon to deliver it.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Is this going to be it from now on, Jon?" Margo asked, half-turning to shoot him a dry look. "Bribes?"

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I...er. Well, I didn't want you to shoot the messenger. I, um. I tried again to see Eliot, but nothing." All he'd gotten was a headache.

And look, Margo, he was a friend and this was your latte. "But, um. If you don't want it or you want something else, I could...I could do that."

Maybe. He was bad at doing nothing.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

Margo rolled her eye and extended her hand.

"I didn't say bribes didn't work," she said dryly.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon handed her the latte and chanced a small smile. "I hope you've been well, apart from that."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"I'm still party planning, and you're still useless at that, so let's move past the 'how am I doing's," Margo said, sipping. "Eat anyone lately?"

Margo.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"What - no! Well, um. Not like that," Jon said. "I...well. Portals can go places and times when...when bad thing have happened. And there's a lot of fear."

The Titanic was a fear fest.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Oh, so we're taking culinary vacations now, huh," Margo said, raising an eyebrow.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I...well." Jon sighed. "If you want to call it that." It wasn't as though he could stop her. "It, um. It seemed better than leaving people with nightmares."

He didn't even have to traumatize them himself! He still felt awful about not helping them and feeding off them, but that was a him problem.

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"How does that even work?" Margo asked, squinting.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon fidgeted and wrapped his arms around himself, then uncrossed them so as not to look too pathetic.

"There's...there's a lot of fear there. A-and fear of being found or not, fear of not knowing what comes next. That's...that's a lot of it. And the Eye can eat that."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"You know, it's almost a miracle a guy as soft as you is still standing after, what, a decade of being one with that thing?"

From someone else, that might have sounded emphatic. Margo sounded more matter-of-fact. Maybe with a hint of wary.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Only about half that," Jon corrected. "And I'm not...I'm not soft. I just...I...I want to stay as human as I can."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"You ever shot anyone point blank in the face and not given a shit, Jon?" Margo drawled.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Wh- no!" Jon protested. "That's not soft, that's just normal!" He grimaced. "I...I did pull someone's mind apart and kill them. That was the first person I killed. But he, um. He really deserved it."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"Oh, really?" Margo said, and crossed her arms. "Why?"

She was just going to shuffle away that reminder that Jon was a dangerous thing to somewhere private to be fretted about later.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"Well, he, um. He was really bad."

So descriptive, Jon.

"Um. He was an avatar of the Lonely. And he threw Martin in there, and I found him, and then I would have just gone, but he was there, and he wouldn't tell me what Magnus wanted, and I tried to make him, but he was really stubborn, and...well, it sort of...it wasn't pleasant. And it killed him."

[not_a_goddamn_princess]

"You feel bad about it?" Margo asked.

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon immediately shook his head. "No. No, I...I probably saved some people, and he was really awful. I feel...I feel a little bad about calling on that much power. I, um. I don't think it helped in the long run. But I'm not sorry for killing him."