WHO Sabrina & Thurvishar •
WHERE DoA Office of Magical Research•
WHEN Nebulously Last Week Sabrina and Thurvishar take a lunch break and gossip over recent arrivals, namely Bonnie's new beau.
WARNINGS N/A
Shortly after noon, a shadow fell over Sabrina’s desk. Thurvishar, who couldn’t help but loom given that his height was well over six feet and knocking on seven, cleared his throat in a polite sort of way.
“Care for a working lunch?” he asked. “I’ll order in from that sandwich place down the way.”
Thurvishar didn’t frequently socialize with his coworkers, but he and Sabrina had been working together for a while now, and she’d seen him at his smoothest and at his most irritated. It wasn’t that he wasn’t friendly with other DoA types, so much as he tended to bury himself in work, coming up for air when he’d thoroughly exhausted himself and the office was beginning to close up around him. He’d gotten a little better about it since he’d started dating Regina Mills; her departure had tempted him to return to bad habits, but he’d maintained an actual lunch break. Sadly, his wardrobe had returned to the all black he’d arrived in nearly two years before. Some things just stayed.
Sabrina was the opposite, socializing probably a bit too much with her coworkers and learning as much gossip as she could manage. She figured that was the fun part about an office job--though her position took her out into the field a lot to talk with the covens. She’d seen the changes in her boss since Regina left, but if Sabrina understood anything it was how much a loved one's departure from Vallo could affect someone. Especially one there was no guarantee would ever be seen again. Eventually people managed to move forward, but it took time.
She arched a brow at his question, though she wasn’t about to turn down the opportunity for one of the sandwiches from the shop everyone seemed to frequent. Somehow they managed to get just the right amount of ingredients on every bite, never too soggy or dry no matter what combination was ordered. Sabrina was certain that there was magic involved.
“I’m in as long as we order some of their cookies too.” Because every meal deserved dessert.
“I’ll ask for an assortment.” Thurvishar was never one to turn down cookies, having a sweet tooth well-cultivated from the excess of pumpkin spice lattes he consumed during fall. A half-hour later, he’d picked up their order and set it out on one of the office tables, along with a thick book on alternate dimension theory and a well-worn notebook. It looked very much like Thurvishar was preparing to do exactly what he said he was going to do: enjoy a working lunch.
But when Sabrina sat down across from him, with a flick of his hand sound grew muddled around them, a privacy charm. He leaned forward, corner of his mouth quirking: “So have you met Bonnie’s new friend yet?”
Oh. It was one of those kinds of lunches. She’d nearly been fooled by the books set up, so no one who passed by should be any wiser either. Well, unless they looked at her face because when not acting on a stage, Sabrina sucked at hiding her emotions. It was a lot easier when pretending to be someone else.
She fanned her fingers out around her soda cup before taking a long sip. Caffeine always helped with a good gossip session. “Okay, so obviously they know each other from back home and from her reaction and their complete flirting on that intro post he did, there’s obvious history there. But no.” She pouted. “I haven’t actually run into him yet here. I’ve spotted him but then poof--I’m pretty sure he’s quickly pulled into her office. Have you met him?”
“I haven’t,” Thurvishar admitted as he unwrapped his sandwich with careful fingers. “When he first arrived, she practically teleported out of the office; I didn’t have a chance to enquire. I did say hello over the network, however,” he added. “Enzo, his name was. I gathered that he was from her world but I haven’t actually pried any further than that.”
Thurvishar was nosy, all right, but he wasn’t rude. People left behind all manner of circumstances when they arrived in Vallo. True, he had researched other arrivals before, but that had only been the controversial ones. The ones that might one day prove to be dangerous. If Bonnie trusted Enzo, so would he.
“We’ve had vampires, witches, hybrids and humans from her world before and Bonnie has been friends with most of them.” Sabrina couldn’t remember what any of their relationships were like with Hope’s dad. He hadn’t talked to anyone much besides his daughter. “I’m not sure if he’s staying with her or at Morningside.”
It’d be easy enough to look up but that felt like overstepping bounds a little too much. Though they had both talked about the crossword puzzle or something on Enzo’s initial post so Sabrina was pretty sure he was staying at her place. She took one of the double chocolate chunk cookies to start with, brushing crumbs off onto a napkin. “What’s your reading on him?”
Thurvishar exhaled, thinking back. “He’s very determined to be pithy, from what I can tell.” He shrugged, and delicately removed a pickle from his sandwich (he was Not a Fan of sweet pickles). “That sort - the jokey sort - is either exactly what they appear to be or they’ve got caverns beneath the good humor.”
He didn’t say it with any sort of judgment. Thurvishar knew the virtues of seeming. He’d presented an airtight depiction of being a dangerous lackey to a necromancer for most of his life, after all, all the while working against the monster. He trusted Bonnie to know a person’s true nature. “You?” he asked, turning her question back to Sabrina. Sabrina too certainly had had her run of her own monsters, after all.
She nodded, agreeing with at least part of his assessment as she took a bite of her cookie. It was the perfect balance of cookie dough and chocolate and still warm. Sabrina was certain every time she’d had one of their cookies it was like they were always fresh out of the oven, even when she knew that wasn’t possible.
“I think everyone who shows up here has dozens of caverns beneath their good humor. Or at least most people who end up in Vallo do.” There were a handful that seemed to not really come from a world that had a lot of supernatural sorts of craziness but even they had layers upon layers to them. “I’ve never doubted Bonnie’s assessment of anyone so that’s what I’m going with. I also think they dated at some point because he seems like her type.”
“Oh yes. They absolutely dated.” Thurvishar had definitely picked up on that vibe. He followed Sabrina’s example and grabbed a cookie to munch. “Is it too much to hope that this one works out? She’s been through so much.”
Sure, he was nosy, and he’d never say as much to Bonnie because he had a feeling that she’d take the statement as pity, but dammit. Thurvishar was really hoping she got a win, as he hoped all his friends did. Vallo was fickle - he knew that as well as anyone - but there was a chance that things would all work out for the best. He knew Sabrina, at least, understood the impulse to hope that perhaps this time, Bonnie’s luck would hold.
Sabrina wanted to agree with that sentiment, but she’d lost too many loved ones to Vallo’s whims to think that anything lasted for long. All anyone got was a brief bit of time and then they had to move onward as best they could. She’d watched hundreds of Outlanders come and go since her arrival and was fairly certain she was one of the handfuls that had been around the longest, with only a few around even longer than her.
“Maybe she’ll be one of the lucky ones,” she settled for saying, picking at her cookie. “I think Bonnie knows to enjoy the time she has for as long as she can.”
Sabrina’s hedging of an answer didn’t go unnoticed. “It’s uniquely depressing when I’m the optimistic romantic in the room,” he said dryly, but not without fondness. Sabrina’s own horrors with Vallo’s whims were known to him, after all, at least somewhat. For as much as Thurvishar missed home, he didn’t envy getting people back only to lose them.
Still. One never knew what Vallo would get up to. “How goes things for you, Sabrina?” he asked, and then clarified: “I mean, is this job/life balance going well? I’d hoped you were enjoying yourself in this position, as much as I’ve enjoyed having you.” Thurvishar had always been a solitary creature, but he had to admit that working with Sabrina was now something he couldn’t imagine not doing. The closest he’d had to a coworker back home had been Senera, and they mostly had co-worked by annoying one another with dueling footnotes.
Vallo made romance an extremely fickle thing, but Sabrina had cookies and a delicious sandwich so she wasn’t going to focus on that nonsense for too long. She arched a brow at his question. “Oh it's going great,” she told him. “This might be the best life balance to anything that I’ve ever had since I turned sixteen and this is the best job I’ve had. Well, so far.”
She hadn’t really ever had any jobs. Saving the world and running Hell didn’t count on resumes. Sabrina couldn’t get out of the Hell part, but she’d quit the reserves and was trying to stay mostly to taking the calls when things got weird in Vallo instead of rushing out to help, so she thought she was doing pretty good on the whole ‘enjoy normality’ bit. Or at least as normal as anything got for her.
She leveled her cookie at him. “But don’t tell Bonnie this was the best job I’ve had because the last one I worked was for her.”
“I would never,” he pledged, innocence itself, “but I’m glad to hear it’s going well. One of my concerns when expanding the Department was to make certain that it would be imbued with people to keep the work from stalling in the event of any of us returning home. No single point of failure.” It was strange, realizing that he was content not to return home, as he said it. He hadn’t been like some - itching to return, desperate to claw himself back to the reality he knew - but he had gone through periods of loneliness, like anyone.
“I’m glad to have you, Bonnie and the rest around. It’s..” he took a bite of cookie, and chewed it, “novel to have people I can rely on. To know will see things through, both effectively and to a certain standard of morals. Back home, I worked alone for most of my life.”
“It’s smart to do it that way considering everything.” She waved one hand around. Blink and people could be gone, but that was depressing talk. No point in continuing down that thought path when there was nothing anyone could do about it. Plus there were cookies to enjoy.
She snagged another one--peanut butter with chocolate chips this time--before asking, “Did people yell at you for that? Working alone, I mean. Whenever I would go off to do things on my own I got a lot of lectures. From everyone.”
“Once I started working with the side that wasn’t a snake pit of evil magic-users, yes,” Thurvishar answered, rolling his eyes fondly. “I wasn’t exactly trusted, not at first. But they didn’t want me to work alone either, and when I did, it was cause for alarm. It was quite nice when that alarm turned from suspicion to concern, although it’s admittedly something I’m still getting used to.” Thurvishar could sympathize with wanting to just handle a problem on one’s own. Sabrina was in a unique position, he knew, given her abilities and lineage. Still. No good friend liked being left behind when she was in danger. His own back home had felt much the same way.
“And no one from your world has ever shown up here too, have they?” she asked, finally picking up her sandwich. Sabrina couldn’t remember anyone else from his world being around but she didn’t pay attention to the comings and goings of everyone. Her aunts had come and gone several times over, Nick as well, and Roz had managed to stay for over a year now. She could never quite tell if it was a blessing or a curse to have people from home show up. Probably a bit of both.
“No.” Thurvishar took a delicate bite of his sandwich and finished chewing it and swallowing it before continuing. “Some days that bothers me. Other times, I’m grateful for it.” He doubted he needed to expand on the reasons for either impulse. Truly a double-edged sword, living in Vallo was. “But as long as I don’t get another memory dump from home, I’ll call it even.” The last one had drained him of his magic for a solid week and a half - not to mention the recovery time involved after fighting a giant squid.
“I suspect,” he said, and wrapped his sandwich up to continue eating later, “you agree with me on that one.”
Oh, she definitely agreed with that. Sabrina had more than her fair share of the memory dumps and while the last one had at least been a happy one and aged her five years--technically four considering she’d been dead for one of them--she was still rather tired of them in general.
“I never understood the point of them. It's not like we can do anything about our new memories when we’re here. We can’t help people, we can’t fix things, can’t make amends.” It seemed like a cruel joke that Vallo enjoyed playing every so often, one that it only doled out on some of them. “If I die saving the world again, home!me can deal with it and leave Vallo!me out of it.”
She held up her cup. “To no memory dumps.”
He lifted his cup and clinked it against hers with a solemnity so assured it was almost satire. “No memory dumps, and to giving all of us - the ones here, and the ones at home - a rest. And to Bonnie’s new whatever-he-is,” Thurvishar added cheerfully, after a moment.
“Right then. After lunch, I’d like to ask you a few questions about the latest out of Saferra…”