There was something incredibly satisfying about burgers, fries and milkshakes. Part of it was the grease and sugar factor, combined to bring out even greater flavors, but mostly it was because it reminded Sabrina of home. Not back at the mortuary, but Saturday afternoons at Dr. Cerberus’ with her friends, eating burgers and fries, sharing milkshakes before everything in her life had been turned upside down. And even after all of the revelations she’d been able to go there with her mortal friends and eventually with Nick, share fries and a shake, and the world had seemed a little more possible to handle.
She would have headed home after such an occasion to find Ambrose on the porch, looking bored during another day of captivity and waiting for her to regale him with the latest bit of teen drama. Simpler times that she knew were never really going to happen again.
But she didn’t want to talk about any of that or the fact that she’d died or that everyone she knew and loved had died and that the world had been basically destroyed because she’d chosen wrong. It didn’t matter that she’d fixed it and they were alive and the world had gone back to semi-normal. It was better to pile more and more things on her plate so she had no time to think about any of it.
So she kept her thoughts on lockdown and sipped at her milkshake as she looked across the booth at Dan. “I think the oreo one works best with this burger but the peanut butter one is still my favorite.”
Diners were great, and Dan wasn’t surprised that even Vallo had its fair share. Such an icon of American culture, right? They first began as cars on large wheels, with nothing more than a stove and an icebox and frosted lettering on the glass windows. Now, they still maintained that retro appeal - chrome countertops and cherry pie. Dan had to admit there was something quaint and charming about the whole idea - he didn't mind coming to a place to scratch an itch for checkered floors and milkshakes with a side of jukebox music.
He had a burger and fries and a peanut butter shake too (though it had chocolate and banana in it also, because why not) - not his typical lunch fare, since because of his schedule breakfast was usually lunch, but it would do. A pleasant switch from oatmeal though of course he wouldn’t advocate for this sort of thing every day.
But if it got Sabrina to open up a little, he’d take it. And realized he’d have better luck with greasy junk food than anything healthy - that was already difficult enough. Sure, she’d live for a long time, but hardening her arteries before she even reached what was the witch equivalent of middle age was depressing. He never directly tried to read her mind or poke very deeply (mostly just pinged in on her location sometimes, so he could be assured she wasn’t dead in a ditch) but he worried, and while he couldn’t fix things for her, she carried too much on her shoulders and he just wanted to ease the burden a little.
“I haven’t really found a milkshake I didn’t like,” he chuckled, poking his straw in the glass. “Except maybe...bubblegum.” Was that a thing? Probably.
Leaning back on his side of the booth a little, he fixed a cottony blue gaze on her. “Is your cousin settling in okay?” he asked, and he’d work up to other topics. It just took some finesse.
She eyed him carefully. “Have you ever even tried bubblegum?” She hadn’t, but it was now a flavor she wanted to have. There was bubblegum ice cream and that was alright, but definitely not her favorite. It probably wouldn’t be that great as a milkshake either. Also didn’t hurt that she wasn’t a big fan of blowing bubbles anyway.
But okay, Ambrose. She could talk about Ambrose. “I think it's pretty good. The party helped him meet some people. Even if it did happen after that crazy day.” But who could have expected geese to kidnap Stan and the others? It wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened in Vallo, but it was pretty up there. “And he’s looking into the magic and stuff so I think he’ll be okay here.”
And if not then she’d help him out with finding stuff to do and fit in where he wanted to do so. Because maybe that was why people ended up leaving? They hadn’t made a life for themselves or found a place to carve out as their own. Getting Ambrose and losing him again would suck. Losing her aunt had cut deeply, losing Ambrose would be unbearable. “I’m sure the job thing will come up eventually.”
Dan honestly didn’t know why certain people left, and certain people got taken away - he doubted there was anything specific about it. Abra believed it was some kind of mission fulfillment, like when your purpose was achieved you were sent back to where you came from - but if you came from being dead, that didn’t add up. Mostly, he just thought it was random. There was no rhyme or reason to it - everyone wanted to understand how it worked, because having those gaps didn’t sit well with the human mind, but sometimes things just were how they were.
He hoped Ambrose stuck around, though. For Sabrina’s sake. “Job thing? Are you going to get him one at the shop too?” Dan wanted to know, dipping a French fry in ranch dressing. If he was going to give himself a heart attack, may as well go all the way.
“I don’t know if he’d like working at the shop.” Possibly, but she wasn’t entirely too sure about that. He had helped run the mortuary for as long as she’d known him, even once he’d been released from his sentence. “But I’m sure he can find something to do. There’s so many different options here. He might like working at Lux.”
Or maybe Dorian’s grey room would show up. The possibilities were endless. She wasn’t going to worry about it yet, deliberately pushing it away, refusing to take on one more thing to worry about for the moment.
“I’m sure he would, yeah.” Lux was a little too hedonistic for the likes of Dan - he’d have avoided it anyway, even if he wasn’t on the wagon. But it was upscale hedonism, and the hurricane that was his past self was something else entirely, pretty low class - it was him walking into a dive bar carrying invisible baggage and sporting a rage fueled by coke that meant he either needed to fight or to fuck and then barely remembering it all the next morning, no matter which option he went with (it was usually both though). Temptations like that weren’t necessary.
It was why he didn’t go to bars or clubs much at all - they said that if you sat for awhile in the barber’s chair, eventually you’d get a haircut. And he didn’t want to eventually give in to a drink.
He focused on the food that remained on his plate - part of a burger, a few fries; slowly, he was getting through it since he didn’t have anything else planned for today save for support group meetings. But he wouldn’t take too long - he knew Sabrina had to get back to work. Speaking of that... “You’ve been working a lot lately yourself though, huh?” he observed. “I think I can guess why but I want to hear your take on it.”
“School is over and Bonnie’s like really pregnant. So she needs some extra help at the shop and I’ve got the time for that.” Simple. Easy. Sabrina sipped at her milkshake not bothering to expand on that. That was her reasoning and she was sticking to it.
She dipped her french fry into the shake. Not quite as good as the ones from Dr. Cerberus’ but it would do the trick. “Oh, right. I’m not going to be around on Sunday.” She should probably let him know that before she disappeared for the day and sat out by the lake until the day turned into Monday. Her plan was to go to sleep out there Saturday night and just exist until Monday morning, ignoring the day until it went away.
It was in theory a solid reasoning but Dan didn’t necessarily believe it - however, he wouldn’t shred through it like a kitten’s claws through tissue paper, not at this juncture. “Father’s Day?” he amended, because that’s what Sunday was. For him, he usually didn’t give a shit - the whole purpose was to celebrate the love you had for your father, and love was the last thing Dan had for Jack Torrance.
A creeping evil had destroyed his family, and forced Dan back to it - the literal ghosts of his past demanded that he follow in his father’s footsteps, and had dragged him screaming into an eerie reenactment of Jack’s final moments, telling him that history repeated itself - you’ll never escape this maze.
“Sabrina, it’s - “ He paused, setting down his milkshake glass. “It’s okay. I know what it’s like to wish a day like that didn’t exist. I couldn’t save my father, even when I tried. And toward the end I didn’t love him either. But I do love you and - I can’t watch you go on like this anymore.”
Though she was a great actress, he’d give her that.
Sabrina kept her focus on her milkshake, working to make sure she didn’t get any of it anywhere else as she continued to dip her fries into her milkshake. She wouldn’t look at him, knowing if she did that she might crack and she wasn’t allowing that to happen. “Go on like what?”
Because everything was fine, absolutely fine. She didn’t know what he was talking about. She really should have just not said anything else on his post the other day. That seemed to have been her downfall. She’d revealed a lot more than she had meant to do and it was coming to bite her in the ass. Less sharing was definitely going onto her list of things to ensure she did going forward.
“Like if you handle everyone else’s problems, you won’t have to think about your own,” Dan replied - and he knew what had happened in Sabrina’s world, the destruction and the death and the time travel to correct the mistake. They already had that talk, and he hated that she was so young and blaming herself for all of it. It shouldn’t be like that.
And yet it was. “You can’t change the past - at least not from here,” he said; maybe she could fuck around with time where she was from, it was just that there was no changing the things she had to face and the things she had to do, and what she saw before she did fix it. Those things were already burned in the brain. “But you have to figure out a way to reckon with it - a way that will bring you peace.”
Long fingers fidgeted with the milkshake straw, swirling it in what remained of his ice cream and banana blend. There was still some left in the silver cup, the extras brought, but he wasn’t sure if he’d finish it. “My father was never able to reckon with it. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
Sabrina stared at the space in between them, fixated on the salt and pepper shakers, so that she wouldn’t need to look at him or let him see the expressions playing out on her face. She wrung her hands under the table, going through a multitude of emotions as she took in everything he said. It shouldn’t have surprised her that he saw right through all of the tasks she had taken on and why she had done it. Dan was smart. Dan saw things that a lot of others didn’t pay attention to.
It was annoying and comforting all at once.
“Maybe I don’t deserve peace.”
Because why did she get peace when her job was to dole out punishments on people who had sold their souls? And maybe some of those people really deserved those punishments because they did vile, reprehensible things, but there were so many others who had sold it to save someone else or a million other harmless things.
Slowly, she picked up her burger again and forced herself to take another bite of it, ignoring the fact that it didn’t taste as good as it had.
That sort of thing hurt to hear - because Dan wasn’t just bullshitting when he said he loved her, he did. Like a daughter. And when your child was hurting, you hurt too - he assumed it was that way for his mother, when he was growing up. Silent and alone, traumatized, but not talking. The worry must have burrowed into her like a tick. That’s how Dan felt now.
“Yes, you do,” he insisted. “You’re here and no one’s asking you to bear the burdens that you would have to bear back home. Here, you won’t eat your vegetables and you give me grey hair and you have your friends and that’s great, that’s perfect. I wouldn’t change anything about making you stealthy pancakes,” he smiled a little. “I know it seems like it’s dangerous to get too comfortable and believe me, I’ve thought about that too.”
He’d be devastated if he lost Allison - he was pretty sure he wanted to marry her, but that was a whole other discussion for a whole other day. And Abra. Sabrina too - being without her would be painful, probably even every time he breathed. “But it’s - you reach a point of acceptance of what is, and needing to have what you have while you do have it. All this worrying - time is still marching forward here. It’s not going to stop for anyone. That’s why you can’t live with your head in the past.”
So yes, Sabrina deserved peace. She deserved to be fully present in Vallo, while she could.
“They don’t just go away though, Dan.” She couldn’t lock them away and forget about them because Vallo was safe and nice and there wasn’t anyone she had to punish. It didn’t negate that she had to do that back home, that she had already done it to people before she’d come. Or while she’d been there. The whole update thing was difficult. “Especially not when Vallo keeps sending me stupid things from home that have to do with it.”
She’d gotten the damn Book of the Beast with all of the witches and warlocks signatures, every single one of them had signed away their soul to the Dark Lord, and now it was hers and she hated it. Along with the throne and the dress and Sabrina worried constantly what might show up next. Salem had been good and the mortuary had been good, but everything since that had sucked.
Well, he wouldn’t dispute that - there were certain things that didn’t go away. Fears didn’t, guilt didn’t (at least not very easily), and when he’d tried to drown the Shining that hadn’t gone away either. “No, they don’t,” Dan said. “But what choice do you have? Try to reckon with it, like I said. Or let it destroy you here. Because you can’t ignore it. And you can’t pile more things on top of it, like you mean to bury it.”
Folding his arms on the table, he watched the girl across from him - and was surprised she wasn’t a hunchback, given everything she carried. “It’s possible you might be good talking to someone who’s unbiased? There are therapy resources here. And it’s not like I’m trying to brush it off - I just want to do whatever it takes to help you.” Of course she could always talk to him, or she could come to any support group meeting - but people benefited from different things, was all. He just cared about things improving for her, that was the main point.
“It’s been working just fine to bury it up until now,” she muttered, pushing at her fries. Nothing seemed all that appetizing any longer. Even her milkshake, which she’s only drunk half of, was no longer being touched.
Sabrina didn’t want to go to therapy and try to get someone else to understand what she was going through. She didn’t want to talk about everything that had happened and relive it over and over again. It was easier to just relive it in her dreams and stuff it back down once daylight came, dive into the life she’d created, and deal with it again when night fell.
“It’s fine, Dan. I’ll just like work less hours or something.” There. That was a step forward. One less thing off her plate. See improvement.
“No, it hasn’t been working, Sabrina.”
May as well be point blank about that - he wasn’t about to lie or placate her, buy her a present to smooth things over and pretend like everything was great. It wasn’t great. “Will you try one session - please? Just one?” Dan asked, hoping to negotiate. “If you don’t like it, if you’re uncomfortable, fine. But at least you can say you tried.”
He wasn’t sure what else to do - in good conscience, he just couldn’t keep putting a bandaid over the wound without actually treating it. In all honesty, it would probably be a combination of things that would help, and they’d all work on it together - but she was sixteen, and saddled with nightmares that were so pervasive they sank into bone marrow, and maybe she’d resent him for not just letting it go but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.
Or maybe she’d thank him later.
Sabrina sunk back against the booth, crossing her arms as she stared up at the ceiling, acting every bit like the petulant teenager. She wanted to tell him no, to get up from the table and simply go back to work, ignoring everything that had been talked about. But that just meant it would come up at dinner or breakfast or the next time they were in the mortuary together.
Or she could just go move in with Lucifer. He probably wouldn’t make her do things like talk about her feelings.
It was tempting and she was seriously considering doing just that, but the idea left her feeling cold, so she buried it deep.
“One session.” Just one. She could go, sit in it, not talk and then say she’d tried it and things could go back to how they were. That was doable.
He hoped that she got something from it, Dan really did. He hoped that maybe she’d decide to stick with it, and her nightmares would taper off, that she’d learn to lucid dream and take control back, something like that - because Sabrina had severe PTSD, and while he was familiar with some of the treatments he just wasn’t equipped to treat it in the way it needed to be dealt with. He was a would-be nurse, an orderly, not a psychologist - and right now, he was okay with that and willing to admit that he needed to tap out and let someone else take over. She’d fight him every step of the way but he could handle that part, at least.
Sure, it’d be easy to take the simple road and put her to sleep every night - sleep that came swiftly, the falling of an ax, with no dreams. Or Allison could rumor Sabrina to feel better - but it’d be fake, something plastic and too shiny to be real.
“Thank you,” he exhaled, sliding out of the booth to come over to her side. Just to give her a hug, tentatively. “I’ll do some research. Maybe come up with a few names and you can pick someone you might like.” Then he pulled back, because he didn’t want to embarrass her any further.
The thank you was what undid her, ensuring she couldn’t just half-attempt trying it and shove it aside like she wanted to do. He was too sincere in his caring, in his wanting it to eventually be okay, and Sabrina knew then that if this way didn’t work then there would be other suggestions along the way until something did finally work.
She wanted Zelda, her aunt who didn’t dole out much physical comfort until she really needed it, to curl up in her aunt's arms and cry her heart out, but Zelda wasn’t there and it just wasn’t the same with Hilda, no matter how Sabrina might wish it could be. So instead she half leaned against Dan, trying to hold back the tears that were threatening to escape. If she kept her eyes tightly closed then she could hold them back long enough to get the onslaught of grief that wanted to overwhelm her under control.
All she could manage was a nod, not trusting herself to speak without sobbing.
Dan thought he maybe felt her tremble a little, he didn’t know - so he just went with the full-out hug then; at first he was trying to gauge if Sabrina needed a hug or not, but it really seemed like she did. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin in her hair.
“You can feel how much I care about you,” he said, and he used the Shining and he projected it - emotion that draped comfortingly like a blanket, happiness, it was warm like sunshine. Maple syrup settled on hot, hot pancakes. A mineral spring. Everything he always felt, whenever he looked at her.
It was like unstopping a dam then, all of her emotions spilling over one after the other as she curled into him, holding on tightly. She didn’t care that they were in a diner or that other people might be able to see and hear. Sensing how he saw her and how he cared was such a contrast to how she saw herself and how she felt most of the time. She wasn’t a spring and she didn’t deserve sunshine. She was darkness wrapped in hellfire, a monster in pretty packaging, and she didn’t know how to reconcile with any of that.
No matter how many people she helped, no matter how good she tried to be, how could she be any of those things when she was the Dark Lord’s daughter, when Hell was her birthright? When the only way for her to not be there was to create a double to take her place or be in a different world altogether. But she didn’t know how to verbalize any of that, didn’t really want to burden it on anyone else, and so Sabrina just cried.
Sometimes a good cry could help too - and Dan knew, he fucking knew, that Sabrina held it all in most of the time. So he didn’t stop her when everything just cracked open like ceramic pottery, and he didn’t say anything - what else was there to say anyway? He just held her like she really was his very own daughter, not caring about the tear stains on his shirt or the fact that they were in public (no one would bother them regardless - he had ways of keeping people away).
Fingers stroked her hair, even as she practically flooded the diner with tears. It was okay. It was going to be okay. And it was true - if therapy didn’t jive, they’d find something else. Dan wouldn’t give up on her; he wasn’t about to let Sabrina drift.
“Well, you know - if you wanted me to try a different vegetable in pancakes you could have just said so,” he quipped with soft gruffness after awhile. Mostly he used sweet potato and added some flaxseed for good measure, but carrots could work too.
She pulled away, groaning at his dad joke. It had worked though, helping to break the tension that had flowed and expanded in the room. “I’m still going to bathe them in syrup,” she muttered, picking up one of the napkins to wipe her face. She was going to need to redo her makeup before heading back to the shop.
“And add whipped cream for good measure now too.” Maybe add some chocolate chips or sprinkles too. Whatever she could to counter his disguised vegetables.
“You can’t even taste them,” Dan groaned too, so dramatic. He thought they were delicious. Besides, he found a new recipe online - one for chocolate pancakes that had carrots and some spinach in it; enough chocolate and not only could you not taste the veggies but you couldn’t see them either. That might work pretty well. He’d assess once he cooked up a batch.
Planting a kiss on the top of Sabrina’s head, he scooted over to his side of the booth. “Alright, get back to work,” he teased, grabbing the billfold that had been dropped off...at some point. “I’ll pay the check.” And he’d see her later, when they set up chairs for the AA meeting - Allison would help carry in the pastry and coffee supply, and it’d turn out to be a decent Wednesday all things considered.
“I know they’re there.” And that was enough, knowing that they were full of lies. At least her waffles were safe...probably. She was going to need to switch to those frozen ones if he messed with those, just to be stubborn about it.
Sabrina rose, collecting her purse. She considered snagging a few more fries but they were a cold, congealed mess by then and it just wasn’t as appealing anymore. “Thanks, Dan.” She gave him a little wave before heading out of the diner. A little more solemn, but also feeling a little more hopeful than she had in ages.