Title: the fine print
Fandom: the magicians
Rating: teen
Length: ~600 words


Penny’s been sitting on a near stranger’s bed for the past fifteen minutes, getting increasingly worried that he’s going to pop away or they won’t be able to do the magic. (Last time was to some desolate winter-y place, sleet soaking him before he could leave; his toes are still cold.)

“Maybe I should get a teacher?” he asks, and Margo glares at him.

“Listen jumpy, no one knows more sex magic than me, and teachers aren’t allowed to use this kinda stuff on students.”

“What’s the hold up then?”

“My Romanian isn’t as fluent as I’d like okay? Usually I’d make Todd do some extra research, but Eliot’s debauching him this weekend.”

“Right… how much Romanian are we talking?”

Rolling her eyes, Margo turns the book around and hands it to him, pointing at a sentence hand written in the margins. “The Hungarian is clear enough, ‘to keep one grounded’, the cute story about the two princesses doing bondage. The only word I recognize in the Romanian is object, which doesn’t help much.”

Penny shrugs, “Whatever, let’s do it before I teleport myself into a volcano.”

“Alright mimic my hand movements,” Margo says, switching to the Hungarian chant. The movements are easy enough to copy- hands coming together vertically, then apart horizontally, middle fingers down, twist, then repeat backwards, with the hands coming together horizontally to start the cycle.

He can feel the magic growing in the room, breathes slowly. He isn’t going anywhere, he’s calm and in control. He’s calm and- fuck. His stomach flips, the way it tends to before he pops away, and Margo’s chanting faster, and right before he’s certain it’ll happen- everything stops.

Time itself seems to freeze for a moment, the air still, Margo silent, and he blinks, the motion seemingly triggering reality.

“Well?” Margo says, “Did it work?”

Right. Penny goes to get off the bed- because if it does work, thinking about being in Margo’s bed is gonna teleport him somewhere he’ll get in trouble- when he can’t.

It’s like there’s an invisible force field all around the bed. “What the fuck Margo.”

“Huh, I guess it bound you to the bed instead of ground. Probably the Romanian bit,” she says, stretching her arms.

Penny rolls his eyes, “No please, take your time.”

“You’re the one that didn’t- fuck!”

Penny looks over to see Margo slamming her fist against an invisible barrier. He can’t help laughing, and she joins in after a moment.

“Fuckin’ magic.”

“Silver lining- at least you aren’t in a volcano right now,” Margo says.

“Cheers to that.” Pulling out his cell he sees the battery died again, another problem magic should be able to fix. “Tell me your phone is on you.”

“Nope,” she says, looking over to a desk outside of the bubble they’re trapped in.

“Cool, so uh how long until someone comes in here? Should we start yelling?”

Margo grimaces, “Eliot should be back by tomorrow morning. The door is soundproofed.”

“Okay. You wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of whiskey under your pillow would you?”

She shakes her head, “Mini-fridge under the desk. We got…” Margo drifts off as her hand searches under the excessive pillows (there’s like seven of them). “Cards, you play push?”

“Eh, anything else?”

“Condoms.”

A grin slides onto his face, “I’m down.”

Margo smiles sharply, like a conquering queen- and he is so very down for anything. Her fingers grasp his chin, and she leans in for the kiss, keeping his face still. It sends a new tingle down his spine, her nails chasing it when they slip beneath his shirt.

Silver fucking lining, indeed.