Nick was restless, staring at the clock because he couldn't fall asleep. But that was only making him count the time until he needed to be awake, and making it less likely that he could fall asleep easily.
Eventually he gave up. Not wanting to risk waking Sabrina, he climbed out of bed and headed downstairs, surprised to see the light on. He'd run into Dan a couple of mornings, but later on. It was earlier than usual. It wasn't Dan in the kitchen this time though. Instead he found Roz, reminding him of more than one occasion in dark Vallo.
"Hey," he said, announcing his presence. "You can't sleep either?"
Sleep had been a concept she’d given up on about fifteen minutes ago. Though Phoebe wasn’t sharing the same problems as Roz was, and was probably still curled up in bed the same way she had been when Roz had left the bedroom. Wrapping herself in a warm housecoat and slippers, Roz had taken up a seat at the kitchen island while she waited for the kettle to boil.
She sat leaning on her elbows, head propped up on one hand, eyes half-closed. She probably looked as tired as she felt, but sleep was not happening. When she heard someone coming down the stairs she looked over to Nick, and turned to look at him as he entered the kitchen. “I feel like I could probably sleep for a day, but for whatever reason, it’s just not happening.”
Roz leaned back against the counter. “So I figured I'd be miserable in the kitchen. At least there’s food here.”
"Good food at that," Nick pointed out. "Not just canned beans." He grabbed himself a mug, and then asked, "Did you want anything to eat? Pancakes? Eggs? Grilled cheese?" None of which sounded particularly good with hot cocoa in the middle of the night, but he was too tired to really care.
Roz tilted her head and considered the options he presented in combination with the hot chocolate that was going to be made once the water boiled. “I don’t think I’m interested in exploring the combination of hot chocolate and grilled cheese. Sounds sketchy, at best. How about pancakes?”
She probably didn’t need to be eating something as heavy as pancakes this late at night, but what else was she going to do? Maybe it would help put her in a food induced coma.
Nick just wanted something to do with the restlessness he was feeling, so he was quickly channeling that into making pancakes, pulling ingredients out and bowls out. "Hey, so, I know you talked to Sabrina, but I'm sorry your search history got spilled like that."
He didn't have a recipe on hand, but he had made pancakes more than once before.
The thought of her search history on display caused her to cringe. She wasn’t surprised that Nick knew it was her, she supposed it was probably obvious to people who knew her. Even Dr. Strange had likely pinpointed her easily. It hadn’t been terrible, but it had been private. “Yeah, that...sucked.” she said with a sigh as the kettle began to show signs of the water reaching a boiling point.
Roz got up to go to the cupboard, pulling down a second mug for Nick and then started searching for some marshmallows. She was slightly anxious to see where Nick was going to go with this, and she kept her eyes focused on the content of the cupboards rather than looking at him. “But at least it seems to be fixed now. Never trust technology.”
Sabrina had to force Nick onto the network, essentially and he still used their paired markers to communicate on a regular basis, but he still used the network liberally. "Yeah, well… still sucks." He'd recognized her search history instantly from the questions she'd voiced in dark Vallo, coupled with everything else.
He mixed everything in a bowl, not realizing he'd substituted salt for sugar, not exactly alert. Really, he'd had plenty of sleepless nights before, this one just felt worse, somehow. "Just checking in. Even if there's not much I can do."
She was so wrapped up in her own sleep-deprived thoughts, now mixed with the internet search history drama, that she also didn’t notice the salt mix up. She did, however, find the marshmallows. Success.
“Sabrina thinks I should speak to someone.” she said after a moment. Like a therapist. Roz didn’t know how she felt about that, if she was even ready to consider something like that. She didn’t really know what to say passed that, so she waited to see if Nick had an opinion on it while she added the hot chocolate mix and marshmallows to the two mugs.
Nick nodded. "Yeah, I started," he admitted. "Not the same one she's seeing. I couldn't really tell you one way or the other yet, but I figure I'll give her a try. We'd talked about it in the snow globe, but after finding out about dying…"
He shrugged, mixing the contents of the bowl thoroughly, salt and all. "I want a chance at a normal life, you know? Whatever that is," he added with a smirk.
Roz had no idea what was normal, she had to figure that out from here. So Nick was talking to someone. Which, honestly, kind of surprised Roz. But with Sabrina’s influence, maybe not as surprising as her initial reaction.
She was silent for a moment as she watched the kettle boil, and she took it off the heat as it started to shrill from the steam rising up. She added the water slowly, taking care to mix everything carefully. “Maybe I should consider it then.” she said with a shrug. “My first thought was finding a priest here to talk to. But maybe that’s not enough.”
Nick moved over to the griddle, but glanced at Roz when she mentioned finding a priest. "That seems like it has the potential to go sideways really quickly." He was thinking of Father Blackwood, but outside of Zelda didn't really trust many people in any sort of religious leadership. "A neutral voice might be helpful?" he asked as he started ladling out the mix.
“Yeah not a priest like Blackwood.” She didn’t need to be a seer to see where his thoughts went. But maybe he was right. What was her chance of finding a Christian priest who was also magic? Even in this place, probably not high.
Once the hot chocolate was good to go, she set the spoon in the sink, and nudged his mug toward the stove, so he could easily reach it. “Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t know if a neutral voice will help me figure out a crisis of faith.”
Now was the waiting game, so he reached for the mug Roz had pushed toward him, waiting for it to cool for a bit before taking a sip. "This is good," he mentioned. Worth the late night trip to the kitchen, at least.
He looked over the mug at Roz, considering her for a moment. "Are you just looking for validation that being both things is okay? Or is there anything you've done as a witch that conflicts with your beliefs? Because if not, why shouldn't they coexist? Magic is what you make of it, after all."
They'd had this discussion before, but that was before Sabrina's influence combined with the vastness of magic in Vallo had caused Nick to question more deeply what he used as a source of power, and who or what he devoted himself to. "Anyway, I just think it might be helpful to sort that out for yourself. You may find a priest who agrees with you but if you don't, does that necessarily make it wrong?"
He yawned, and focused his attention back on the pancakes, not sure if something seemed slightly off about them or not.
“I don’t know what I’m looking for.” none of it really made sense to her. Her faith used to be so strong. It still was, now more than ever she absolutely believed in God, how could she not, with Lucifer, and angels? But now she knew there were other paths, and then in this place, there was just everything. It was all absolutely conflicted.
When she tried the hot chocolate herself, she was also surprised at how good it was. Trust anything in this kitchen to be good though, if this was here from when Hilda was in around. “Is it though? I get that seems to be a thing here, but back home when I first found out Sabrina was a witch, it was all about Lucifer, and then it wasn’t and that power was gone, right? Then it was all about Hecate. Is it what you make it, or is it what they decide to share? And if that’s the case, why the hell did I have any kind of powers at all?” Because she sure as hell didn’t worship Lucifer at any point, and Hecate was still a giant question mark.
“Or maybe being concerned about questioning faith should be concerning in itself. Every religion is filled with judgy assholes anyway.” And if that was the case, her entire life thus far was kind of questionable.
She turned to look at the pancakes cooking, suddenly finding herself getting hungry. Did they look odd, or was she sleep deprived?
"Those are all valid questions," Nick agreed. But he had no answers, as he had turned his attention to the weird looking pancakes and in his tired state that was all he could focus on.
"Do these look… off?" Both sides were done and he couldn't really place what looked weird, just something did, and as he flipped those onto a plate, it was enough to give him pause before he added more batter to the griddle.
Roz peered a little closer at the pancakes, rubbing her eyes slightly to make sure sleep wasn’t messing with her vision. “Kind of.” she said slowly. “...I guess try them. Maybe there’s something special with the flour or something.” There were different kinds of flour, she assumed each of them would make pancakes come out differently.
Nick retrieved the maple syrup and then flipped a couple pancakes to each plate, still uncertain. However, he doused his pancakes in syrup and then handed Roz her plate and syrup along with a fork.
And then, he took a bite of the saltiest pancake he had ever had in his life, and started coughing. "Don't…" he said, eyes wide.
‘Don’t’ came a bit too late, because Roz had already bit into the pancake and instantly regretted that last life choice. She instantly started coughing, she grabbed a napkin and instantly coughed the salt-cake into it, and reached for her hot chocolate. “Oh my god.” she finally said, wishing there was a way to scrape the first layer of her tongue off.
Nick made sure Roz was alright, then stared at the ingredients he hadn't put away.
"I think… I swapped the sugar and the salt measurements," he said sheepishly. He rubbed at the back of his neck. "Uh... sorry about that."
There was no sense in making the rest of the batter, but now he was stuck with clean up before he could attempt to sleep again. On a meal neither one of them were going to eat.
"At least the hot chocolate's delicious?"
Roz stared at the counter with the ingredients, and couldn’t help but laugh. “You really are exhausted.” They both were, she had been right there and hadn’t even noticed he was doing that. She glanced down at the remaining pancake she had zero intention of eating, before disposing of it, and bringing the dishes to the sink. “Maybe next time we’re up late we stick to things with fewer ingredients, or things that don’t need to be cooked.” There were fewer opportunities to salt themselves that way.
"As long as it's not canned beans," Nick said, offering Roz a tired smile. "I got this, by the way. It's my mess." Maybe Roz would be able to sleep after the hot cocoa. "I don't suppose I'll ever live the salty pancakes down, though?"
“I attempted to eat it too, I’ll help,” she said with a shake of her head. “It will get done faster with both of us.” She wasn’t just going to leave him to clean it by himself. “But no, you won’t. I’d actually take the beans again.”
He wasn't going to argue, because she was right. He also wasn't going to say that, no matter how tired he was. Nick made sure the stove was off, brought the bowl of batter over, and then started cleaning up with Roz's help. He appreciated her company.
"I'm not sure that's how it works, but thank you," he said. "It should be easy to sleep after this."
“I sure as hell hope so,” she muttered as she began to wash the dishes in the sink, not wanting to leave any kind of mess for whoever woke up first. Probably Dan. “If not, my next solution is going to see if there’s any kind of sleeping potion to knock me out because I’m not usually this bad for sleeping.” Sure, there were restless nights, but this was getting to a new level. With each dish she washed, she handed it over to Nick to dry, between the two of them the clean-up taking no time at all.
Together they finished the dishes, which did go much faster with the both of them. Then Nick pulled Roz into a hug, for no other reason than he knew she was going through enough already without sleepless nights factoring in. "Good luck?" he said, but it came out as more of a question.
A hug was not something she had been expecting. Not that it was totally unexpected from Nick following the events and survival of Dark Vallo, but still. She smiled into his shoulder and hugged him back tightly. “Thank you.” Sometimes you just needed a hug, and Roz hadn’t realized how badly she needed one. When she pulled back, she did a quick scan to make sure they hadn’t missed anything in their failed late-night snack and then reached for the light switch. “Good luck to you as well. May we both pass out cold.”