Every so often Vallo allowed for a breather. No ridiculous monsters, no unnecessary drama, just time to live and grow. April seemed to be one of those months, and while it wasn’t necessarily insanity free, it didn’t seem to be as heavy as the previous three had been. Ever since the snow globe, Sabrina was sure it had been one thing after another, each event colliding with the other and barely allowing any of them a chance to breathe. While it was infinitely better than what had happened inside that damnable thing, she’d been hoping Vallo would show Roz and Nick how good it could be. Instead they’d gotten to see how crazy the place was outside of the globe as well.
So she was trying to get some normalness into their lives while she could, focusing a bit on Nick because she knew normal was a much more foreign concept for him. And a regular, teenage date seemed like it would be nice for the both of them. It had taken her several days to figure out which kind of date she wanted to try and pull off for them but a classic seemed to be the way to go.
Movie--not a horror one--and then dinner afterward at Cerberus. The romantic comedy had been ridiculous and to the point, but it was hard to say anything bad about a teen classic like ‘10 Things I hate about you’.
She grinned as they walked hand in hand down the street toward the diner/bookstore, feeling lighter than she had in ages. “It wasn’t exactly a cinematic masterpiece but its entertaining and based on a Shakespeare play.”
"It was cute," Nick said. "And fun. And if I ever mess up really bad I know to win you over by singing it out in a very public manner." He cocked his head toward Sabrina and grinned, because hopefully they could just avoid the part where she ever got mad at him like that and the rest of the plot which may have been a bit sketch.
He gave Sabrina's hand a squeeze as they walked, glad they were actually out on a proper date. He hadn't realized how much he needed something like this. It was decidedly normal and really, decidedly mortal, which was a nice change of pace from the magical stuff that kept happening since none of it had seemed particularly good as of late.
"You know, you have some really good ideas," he told Sabrina.
Sabrina snorted at the idea of singing it out in a very public manner. “I will hex you.” Okay, probably not, but that sort of big scene was really not necessary. And would hopefully not be needed anyway. She couldn’t think of anything that Nick could do which would earn him that level of distance anyway. There weren’t any secrets between them, or at least not ones like there had been in that film. Not anymore at least.
“But yeah, I know I do.” Sabrina Spellman was not humble. She winked at him. “There were some coven things going on too that we could have done, but a movie and dinner just seemed...less dramatic?” And less dramatic sounded good.
“We can go somewhere other than Cerberus’ though if you’re wanting something besides diner food.” Even if the milkshakes were delicious.
"If I poured out my love for you in front of everyone, you would repay me by hexing me?" Nick asked, feigning hurt. "Does that mean I shouldn't start singing right here, Spellman?" he teased, conveying just how relaxed he was feeling.
"No, let's go to Cerberus. It's perfect, like something we could have done more often at home if home wasn't so apocalyptic all the time."
Sabrina was certain that he was right about that. If their world didn’t keep having one insane thing happen after another they would have gone to Cerberus and the movies and a hundred other simple activities so much more. She’d done so with her friends before her sixteenth birthday. Hopefully, back home they’d manage to stop the Eldritch Terrors and the two of them would get that chance to do ridiculously normal dates there as well. At least they could do them in Vallo.
“As much as I like your voice, the big romantic gestures from movies are a little too over the top. I prefer things like this,” Sabrina told him as she curled her fingers around the necklace he’d given her. “Or like when you snuck my dad’s journal out of the library for me.” Things that actually meant something.
The very scenario Sabrina was imagining had been on Nick's mind too. He hoped that if he ever got sent home it could be a continuation of here, because his relationship with Sabrina was stronger than ever, and something he wanted to keep building upon.
"Oh yeah?" Nick asked. It was almost like he was nailing the boyfriend thing, except he really wasn't sure because this really was new to him. That and he didn't want to jinx himself and screw things up spectacularly because that seemed to have been easy to do before. Of course, before he'd kept the Dark Lord entrapped inside him so maybe the situation had changed.
"This feels new, even though we've been through a lot together," he commented.
It did feel different than before. She felt more connected to him, stronger with him and no longer unsure of her own feelings for him. Going through everything they had been through inside and outside of Greendale added into that. “It feels new to me too,” she told him as she stopped walking and tugged on his hand to get him to stop as well.
Sabrina took hold of his other hand as well. “Probably because we talk about stuff now and while Vallo can be crazy, it’s not as insane as home can be. I like what we’re becoming here.”
Sabrina was right. They were far more open and honest with each other. They were no longer letting things slide between them for fear that bringing them up would turn the spotlight in the other direction. And Nick still had space to work out who he was, what he wanted, and to deal with everything that he'd been through. He just wasn't insisting that he be isolated in the process.
"I can't imagine going through everything, dealing with… everything, without knowing you were there for me." It was such a simple change, but one he'd resisted for too long. "I like what we're becoming here too, Spellman. I like that we're getting a chance to figure ourselves out."
“I do too.” Sabrina loved her aunts but they hadn’t been the best at helping to handle and understand how much their lives had been upturned since her sixteenth. None of them had tried helping her get Nick out of Hell either and she didn’t think they understood how much that had hurt. Ambrose had been working to deal with Blackwood and sure, there had been a coven to heal, but they had been all too willing to simply abandon Nick to his fate.
She hadn’t realized how much them being able to do so had twisted inside of her until she’d been in Vallo for some time. Having Dan and Lucifer around, who were both big on giving therapy a chance, had been a huge help for her being able to deal with everything. She was glad that Nick was giving it a try too. She hoped it worked for him like it was for her. And if not they’d find something else.
“Plus it's pretty cool to learn all of this new magic that we’d never get to try out back home. Together.”
"The magic is incredible," Nick agreed. He dropped Sabrina's hands, and then draped his arm around her shoulders so they could continue on to the bookstore. "I love having the chance to learn magic from here and then all these other worlds and the theory behind it when I can. I love that we can practice together, and that Roz is here and getting to properly study it for the first time." Home had been too much of a mess for that.
"Honestly, the first month was the worst but that was in the snow globe." Everything had improved once he found Roz, and then when Sabrina had showed up and they got out of there. But that first month had been him, on his own. And it had been rough.
"That's not exactly talk for a date, though," he said. Not that he really knew what date talk consisted of, but they had made it to the bookstore.
She wrapped her arm around his waist as they continued to walk. “Date talk is whatever you want it to be. Funny stuff, sad stuff, romantic stuff. It’s everything that you’re comfortable talking to your date about,” Sabrina assured him. “It can’t always be happy things. That’s not real.”
And she much preferred how real things were with Nick. Relationships could be hard at times, but they had weathered much worse. When things got rough with Harvey everything had fallen apart and there hadn’t been any way to put it back together. That had hurt, but it had led to what she had now and Sabrina wouldn’t change anything about what she had with Nick.
They had arrived in front of Cerberus’ though and Sabrina tugged to stop him again. “Eating and then we can look at books.” Because she knew if they did it the other way around they might not actually get around to eating.
"It's like you know me," Nick teased, leaning in and kissing Sabrina before he held the door open for her. Because her thought process was correct, they'd never eat. Instead, they slid into a booth, with Nick considering what she'd said about what constituted a date conversation. The fact that he had no idea, at age nineteen, spoke volumes to him about how abnormal his life had been and even how life at the Academy had been. Technically, he'd dated the Weird Sisters before. All three of them. At once. But it's not like they went on dates or had anything remotely resembling dating going on.
What he had now was decidedly normal and he absolutely preferred it.
He deferred to Sabrina when it came to ordering, letting her choose for him since she knew the menu well. And then he said, because apparently any sort of conversation was allowed, "This is night and day compared to the snow globe."
Sabrina was going all in on ridiculous couple things and had chosen to sit next to Nick at the booth instead of on the opposite side of it. It could be hard to hear one another from across it with everyone else trying to have their own conversations and thankfully Cerberus seemed to be doing well in Vallo, the booths usually all taken up most nights. Plus she liked that she could lean against Nick if she wanted while they waited for their orders to be prepared.
“It’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that you were both there for so long.” And it worried her too. Were there other small worlds within worlds around Vallo that were waiting to be discovered? Were more people trapped in those ones as well?
“We have monsters but its not a constant threat to our lives like that place was.” They didn’t have to constantly watch their backs here.
"Did Roz ever tell you about the time I abandoned her at the grocery store?" Nick asked, looking both amused and sheepish at the same time.
“No!” She poked him in the side at that question. “I need to hear this story.”
Nick glanced over at her apologetically and then started telling Sabrina how after nearly a month alone, he ran into Roz at the store, and they decided that she would move into the mortuary rather than the academy or university so after she was done shopping, they were going to go the academy and get her stuff.
"Strength in numbers, after all. Given where we were," Nick continued. "So we're at the front of the store and I just looked at her and said, 'Meet you there' or something and teleported away. Only she never showed up because…"
Sabrina snorted, knowing exactly where that had been headed. Roz wouldn’t have known how to teleport back then so Nick had unwittingly left her behind. “That had to have been a big surprise for both of you.” It was amusing to look back on it, but she knew it must have been a bit terrifying at the time.
“I’m glad the two of you eventually had one another there.” She’d noticed that the two seemed a lot closer than they had been in Greendale and Sabrina knew their time together in the snow globe had a lot to do with that. Even if she still wished it had never happened, that Roz and him had simply arrived in regular Vallo like almost everyone else did. “Had to make it a little more bearable to have someone from home.”
"Yeah, it was," Nick replied, grinning. "I went back and got her, then that was the first thing I taught her. And she did make it more bearable, differently." For one, she had given him something to focus on when it came to making sure she could teleport, or defend herself. But then they'd become friends.
"I don't know if I like that we got so close she keeps teasing me about salty pancakes, though," he protested. Though really, he didn't care, and he didn't mind that Sabrina had joined in. "I'm just reminded of how relieved I was when you arrived." He'd trusted her to get them out of there, and she hadn't let him down.
“The teasing is a sign of true friendship,” Sabrina assured him before tugging at his arm to drape around her shoulders so she could snuggle up against him in the booth. Her heart tugged at his last words, remembering that fateful morning that they’d woken up in her bed together and confused the Heaven out of one another.
“I’ll always find you.” Her voice was soft then as she tapped his necklace. It was probably a promise she shouldn’t make but she did anyway. It might take some time but Sabrina didn’t doubt for a second that she would be able to do so. She’d gone to Hell for him once already and he’d gone there for her as well. There really wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to keep Nick safe.
Nick obliged, as he was never going to complain about having Sabrina even closer to him. Especially since he was thinking of those two long months without her, or how they'd danced around back home.
"Do you think the people who embrace this place have a better chance of lasting here?" he asked. Because he already was learning to do that, and thinking about home made him realize that he also considered the mortuary home. In the months since the snowglobe it would have been more unusual not to wake up next to Sabrina.
Not completely though, she woke up so early most mornings.
“I think so? Putting down roots here seems to give Vallo more of a reason to let you stay.” She’d never left. Neither had Dan or Allison or a lot of her other friends who had made themselves a place in the community. Sometimes people who did that still did end up disappearing, but it did kind of seem like the ones who didn’t start building a life for themselves were more likely to be the ones to leave next.
“Do you want to stay?” she asked. Because she thought he did most days but she also understood that pull toward their home world. Sabrina knew that Roz wasn’t completely happy with being in Vallo and there were people all of them missed, but if given the choice, Sabrina was pretty certain she’d choose staying in Vallo.
"I want to be with you," Nick replied. "We were headed in that direction at home, but it would be hard to give this up. Especially if I had no memory of it. I want to stay, but at least I know that we do work well together. If I ended up leaving, I know I'd figure that out back home too."
He frowned. "I don't want to leave though. Staying just seems like too much to hope for." Things never worked out that well.
“Hey.” Sabrina shifted so she could face him better. She didn’t like the defeated nature of his comment even if she understood the outlook. “Our streak with luck kind of sucks but I have been here over a year now. You’ve been here for over five months if you add in the snow globe time. That’s already a lot longer than so many others who blip in and out of here.”
“But we take it one day at a time, okay?” she offered up, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “We enjoy the time we have together. Plus you’re my official pillow now so I’m pretty sure that means you’re stuck here as long as I’m around.”
Nick leaned in and softly placed a kiss on Sabrina's lips and then nodded. "Okay, I'll stick around," he said teasingly, like it was a chore. "You know, I used to dream about this… going on a date here with you."
He'd mentioned that he'd dreamt about her early on, but not that it had been so innocent. "I think it was your insistence on doing such mortal things, made me wonder what it would be like."
She scrunched her nose at that, shifting away from him a little as their food and drinks were delivered. “Is it everything you dreamed it would be?”
"Better," Nick said with a smirk. "In my dreams back then you kept comparing me to Harvey."
Sabrina let out a snort at that. “There is no comparison between you and Harvey, Nick. You are worlds better in every single way.”
"Yeah, I was right," Nick said, "this date is much better than I could have imagined." And hopefully it was just the first of many.