Sabrina headed into Dorian’s feeling a little lighter than she had in weeks. The grief was still there, like a weight that she couldn’t quite shake and wasn’t sure she ever would. But there were other things to focus on. Like apartments, what they wanted, and everything that entailed. She had a few things she needed to run by with Nick--like her dad’s offer for taking over a floor of his building and the fact that apparently her bank account had gotten a large deposit in it over the weekend.
It was the exact amount she knew she was supposed to have inherited from Edward Spellman when she graduated back home and far more than she could really even comprehend. But it would make figuring out the apartment and everything that needed to be bought for inside of it a little easier. She had no job and Nick wanted to turn Dorian’s into something, which meant it might take a bit before they were seeing any kind of profit with the club.
She called out for Nick, not quite sure where he was in the building as she headed down the stairs, keeping an ear out for which direction his voice would be coming from.
"Be right there!" Nick called back, as he jotted down a few numbers. After months, he was finally making headway on Dorian's and was officially taking inventory. If he and Sabrina were going to move out on their own, he needed to get serious about getting the club going, and so that had become his focus.
It was also a good way to drown out the noise whenever that surfaced again, a benefit Nick had noted.
He emerged from the stockroom and checked the time, seeing it had gotten away from him. "Hey, Spellman," he said, walking over to her. "Lost track of time, but I'm ready."
“I’m early so we’ve still got some time and I need to talk to you about something or well, two things before we get going.” She leaned against the couch that she’d stopped by, before hurriedly adding. “It’s nothing bad.”
Because it seemed like everything in the last few weeks had been that with their conversations. Or not bad, just heavy. And this was definitely not the case. “Apparently Dad is offering Ella a floor of his building for her to turn into an apartment of her own and he said we could do the same if we wanted. But like I figured we’d need to talk about that before I said yes or no.”
Sabrina was conflicted over the idea. It was definitely a generous offer, one that would set them up pretty nicely in Vallo because she seriously doubted that Lucifer would charge them rent. But moving out of the mortuary was supposed to be their big step toward their future and part of her wanted to run headfirst with that. To get something small, a starter place for a few years for the two of them to work with and grow into.
There was a moment, before Sabrina clarified, that Nick paused in anticipation of whatever bad news was coming his way before that faded away at Sabrina's reassurances. And then she told him of Lucifer's offer.
"Oh. Wow."
Lux was a tall building so any of the higher floors would offer fantastic views of the city. It was far beyond anything they could afford. Nick immediately saw the benefits. But he'd heard of places disappearing when whoever they were attached to left. Not everywhere, obviously, but if Lucifer disappeared that would be enough without their home also going.
Not to mention, that felt like they were just swapping one thing that had been given to them, or to Sabrina, for another. "That would be amazing, Sabrina. All of that space, the view… Lux." He paused. "I mean, if that's what you want to do, I'd support it." While hoping the building didn't disappear one day. "But I've kind of gotten this idea in my head of really stepping out on our own, too."
Sabrina pushed off from the couch and headed over to him, taking his hands in her own. “You support me enough in everything already.” Especially over the last few weeks when she knew he was still reeling from his own memory update. She’d been too much of a mess to offer him any mental or physical support and knew she still didn’t quite have the capacity to do so, no matter how much she wanted to. “Your opinion on this matters just as much as mine does. We’re doing this together. We need to decide together.”
“But I’m pretty much thinking the way you are. As great as the idea of a place in that building is...I wanted to do this new step with you. Pick out our place together. Struggle some together.” Though...maybe they wouldn’t be struggling too much considering the figure in her bank account. “Also...though. Apparently Vallo decided to be somewhat nice and sent me my inheritance from home. That I would have gotten from Edward at some point. So. Well. We’ve got money.”
"So we have some breathing room," Nick said, not at all upset about that. It would make finding a place easier if they could go with somewhere that felt right to them, without worrying about how much that was going to cost each month.
Still, he was going to pull his weight, and the club was his means of doing so. That was also tied to their world and he was just going to have to get over the odd feelings he had about that. For the most part, Dorian's had been somewhere he could relax, and that's what he wanted to focus on.
"That'll help," he mentioned. Especially since they needed to get out of the mortuary sooner rather than later.
Sabrina had a job when she first arrived in Vallo. She’d worked at Bonnie’s magic supply shop until it had been one too many responsibilities piled on top of one another. She wasn’t sure she wanted to head back down that road, not certain she could handle any sort of schedule when some days it took hours for her to actually force herself out of bed. As much as she hoped for that to change, she wasn’t sure it would in the next few weeks. Though maybe being out of the mortuary would help.
There were other things she wanted to do, especially with the Beketh coven, and there were some musical opportunities that she’d browsed popping up when she’d finally been online again. So the money would help until she was ready to do something more permanent.
“Lots of room.” She should probably look at investing the money so it’d only continue to grow for them. “Ready to go look at apartments?”
"Yeah," Nick agreed. He leaned in and kissed her before dropping her hands, slinging his arm around her shoulders instead. They were venturing out into the world in general, and he was feeling protective.
"Come on, Spellman. Let's go find a place to live."
*****
The ad on the website had really downplayed just how much bright orange there was in this apartment. From the walls to the floors to the appliances and windowtrim. Sabrina didn’t think she’d ever seen this much orange in her life. And she was a fan of the color. It was something she had a lot of in her wardrobe in various shades, but this was a little too out there for her tastes. It could be painted but well...considering even all of the bathroom fixtures and the pipes were also that color it looked like it would be a lot more work than they had wanted to do.
She glanced over at Nick, hoping to see the same look of horror she was feeling reflected in his features. “Pass?” She hoped it was a pass.
Nick did not look horrified. Nick looked in awe. This place was definitely a choice. "Are you telling me you don't want to live inside of a pumpkin, Spellman?" he asked, starting to wonder if they were cursed. The first place they had looked at had been pretty great. Enough space, nice windows, a good kitchen which he surprisingly found important. And then, fortunately, one of the neighbors had started blasting music and another neighbor had started shouting at the first. If not for that timing, Nick and Sabrina could have found themselves trapped.
They'd caught the angry neighbor, a minotaur, stomping down toward the music blaster's place on their way out, and no apartment since had matched the first, though admittedly they'd all been quieter.
Some more orange than others.
"So I'm going to take it that's a no from you?" he asked, amused.
Sabrina stuck her tongue out at him before bumping into him because of how amused he sounded with the whole thing. “Salem would hate it here.” And if Salem hated it he wouldn’t stop letting the two of them know how much he despised it. No one wanted to constantly deal with a pissed off familiar.
She pulled out her phone, scrolling through the list she’d made of the options they’d picked. “It looks like we’ve got three more to look at?” Hopefully one of them would be as good as the first place but without all of the noise. “Which do you want to try next?”
It felt a little like Russian roulette, never quite knowing what they were getting into with each choice.
"Let's check out the place with the balcony?" Nick asked. That was the only photo the listing had showed, but it was definitely a selling point as outdoor space was on their list of things they hoped for and the balcony had seemed spacious.
As they had learned, however, photos could be deceiving. This one hadn't been. The balcony was spacious. The rest of the apartment, on the other hand, was not.
"This second bedroom looks like a coat closet. And since there's no window, I'm pretty sure that's what it was meant to be?" He laughed. "Can you even imagine showing that to a guest?"
“I think we’d lose a lot of friendships.” She figured the draw of the place had to be the location. It was in a pretty good spot in the city, but considering the two of them could teleport, location wasn’t that big of a deal. Space definitely was though.
They headed to another one and Sabrina couldn’t help but make a face as they exited that one. “Who spells portraits to remain in place after they’re dead?”
Maybe if it had been a landscape painting it wouldn’t have been that bad. But no, it had been a portrait of the dead troll that was as tall as the wall and fairly wide too. Plus he’d been naked. It just wasn’t something she wanted to have breakfast in front of every morning.
"He was trolling," Nick replied with a smirk, ducking out of the way in case Sabrina wanted to hit him for that.
"Okay, we've got one more and if this isn't it, we'll try again in a couple of days," Nick said, because he was pretty much done. The last one on their list was on the smaller side, but it was close to a park which was good when you had a wolf as a familiar. Shadow didn't always appreciate teleporting. And there were supposed to be plenty of food options nearby which was a bonus for Nick.
"We should play a game like guess the fatal flaw. I'm going to go with carpeted walls." After some of the things they'd seen that day, it wasn't a completely out there guess.
“Black hole in the kitchen.” Knowing their luck that would be what ended up happening. Except they wouldn’t find out until after they had moved in. Okay, she needed to stop because it felt like they were jinxing themselves some.
It wasn’t a huge place, but so far Sabrina wasn’t finding any flaws with it. The second bedroom would fit at least a daybed inside of it and maybe a desk as well. Which would be helpful when they were both attending the university. The master bedroom was a decent size, leading out to a fairly big balcony that connected to the living room too.
Had they finally found the place? It felt right. Unlike the rest of the places, this one felt comfortable. No screaming neighbors. She didn’t even hear that much street noise. “What do you think?”
"What's the catch?" Nick said, barely above a whisper. He was waiting for music or yelling or worse to start up as he examined the kitchen. It wasn't large, but it was laid out well, giving him plenty of counter space. Two people could work in that space, carefully. Or less so, if it was him and Sabrina goofing around. And there was room to feed everyone, which was important. The mortuary may have been splitting up but they were going to need to get together.
"We need to check all the closets," he decided, to make sure a pile of bones or something didn't fall out. "All the drawers and cupboards. Or, will the animals hate it?" He could already picture them lounging out on the balcony.
"Because otherwise I would say this works. I can picture us here."
Sabrina laughed, moving to wrap her arms around him and settled her hands at the back of his neck. He probably had the right idea about checking everything to make sure there weren’t any nasty surprises, but it felt good. It wasn’t giving off any crazy vibes like some of the other ones had. “I think the animals will love it.”
Especially the balcony and Mal’s cat tree would work well in one of the corners, giving her a respite from the two familiars who could be overwhelming for a regular cat. “I want this one. I can picture us here too.”
Lounging outside with the animals, cooking in the kitchen together, going for walks in the park that was nearby. Plus there were all of the restaurants to try that were all along the street. It was like what they had talked about on his bed a week or so ago.
Moving into their own place would truly make it their place, and that was a step Nick was eager to take, leaning in as Sabrina wrapped her arms around him and kissing her. This was the happiest he'd seen her in weeks, which made sense.
They had a future in Vallo, and this was the first step toward solidifying that and making it a reality.
"Let's figure out how to get this paperwork done?" he asked.
Sabrina eagerly nodded at the idea. They needed to secure this place before anyone else swooped in and tried to rent it before them. She had very little desire to try and find something else after seeing this place. Nothing would compare to it.
“And then maybe go get lunch at one of the little shops downstairs and talk about decorating?” she suggested, ideas already whirling around inside her head.
Nick grinned at Sabrina's enthusiasm, but he was also eager to try out some of the nearby food options. "Sounds great. Lead the way."