It was a combination of Youtube searches and a little bit of magic that had Roz securely dressed in a quality toga outfit for the party being thrown in a couple of hours. She was standing in front of a full length mirror by the windows of the condo, checking her reflection in the natural light and fussing with her hair for a moment, making sure the gold olive leaf crown was securely fastened to her curls.
Satisfied it wasn’t going to be moving without intent, spun on her heel and headed toward the kitchen, carefully stepping over Phoebe basking in a patch of light. There were a number of items spread out on their island. Wine bottles, glasses, and ingredients for a charcuterie board they were going to bring to the party. As far as Roz knew it wasn’t required, but it was nice to not come to a party empty handed, and the Gangsey didn’t drink that much. If at all. So they’d wine while they were home, and arrive with food.
Roz uncorked one of the wine bottles, pouring two generous glasses for herself and Sabrina, before turning to look at the door to Sabrina’s room. “Wine’s poured!” she called to her, before dropping her gaze to the food on the island. Roz eyed one of the grape bunches, before reaching over and pulling one of the stems, popping it into her mouth. “And I’m dangerously close to digging into the cheese.”
Sabrina pinned the last ruby into place in her hair and turned back and forth in front of her mirror, wanting to see the full effect. They ended up looking like little pomegranates woven into the laurel leaf crown she’d already plopped on top. Perfect. She’d cheated with the toga, spinning around in front of her lengthy mirror until she was wearing one that suited her best. There was a reason it was her most used spell. Who had time for constantly trying on outfits?
Turning at the sound of Roz’s voice, she quickly patted Salem on the head before striding out of the room to join her. “I’ll just tell them you’re the reason why the board is lacking any yellow in the palette.” Grabbing a bottle of alcohol from their shelves was Sabrina’s usual go to for party attendance, but the board seemed more in line with what everyone at the Barns would appreciate. “And the greens and purples too apparently.”
At this rate, Sabrina was certain putting their own board together was going to cost more than picking up a premade one. Oh well. “How was your date with Zuko?” Because whatever Roz said spying on the competition was a date.
Roz paused with a second grape just short of touching her lips, glancing down at the supplies they had on the counter, the board they had to cover, and then ultimately shrugged before popping it into her mouth. “Worth it.” She said, going along with the idea that she’d demolish all the carefully planned food aesthetics.
“Not a date.” she replied immediately, handing Sabrina her glass of wine, before taking a sip of her own. “Reconnaissance and comparisons.” she said with a shrug. Roz put her glass down to begin unwrapping the items they needed to arrange on the charcuterie board. “I will call it a date if and when we both agree that’s what it is.” Call her somewhat old fashioned, but she liked a date to actually be called a date. Did she hang out with Zuko? Yes. Did she like him? Yeah, she kind of did, but also had no idea what he thought of her. Nothing had been discussed or brought up, so, not a date.
“But it was fun.” she said, finally answering. “Funny, we laughed, critiqued the competition.” as a side note she added, “Still haven’t found a chocolate cherry milkshake that tops Dr. Cerberus, but maybe that’s the nostalgia.”
It was definitely nostalgia, but they all needed that from time to time. Thankfully places didn’t seem to disappear as much as people did. The shop had shown up for her aunt, but it had stuck around after Hilda had left. It had been a headache and a half at first, but after figuring out management the place had been doing fine. Sabrina enjoyed heading to it every so often for a burger and shake, even if she was always looking over her shoulder for someone else to walk through the door from home.
“Do you want it to be a date?” Sabrina asked. Because that was an important part of the equation. She wasn’t sure Zuko would come out and ask for a date right away. He hadn’t seemed all that sure how to go about asking Roz to her opening night at first either. The less she thought about his failed attempt to ask her out to the buffet, the better.
She started situating the grapes onto the board and out of Roz’s reach. “You might need to be the one who makes the first move if you do.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a date.” If that was something he was interested in as well. “I’m not afraid to make the first move, I just need to figure out if he’s interested, without psychic cheating.” That had worked for her once, but she didn’t want to repeat. Roz had asked Zuko to the ball, though her original intention had not been romantic. “Which I will figure out.” How she would do it was another story. If he wasn’t interested like that, she still liked him as a person too, and you could never have too many friends in Vallo.
Roz worked on unwrapping the various cheese slices they had picked up, pretending not to notice the grapes were becoming out of her reach as Sabrina worked. When she unwrapped one, she set it aside until they were all unwrapped and she could eye where they would all fit best.
“If he’s not interested, I’d rather keep him as a friend. Even if I will immediately question his taste.” she added with a smirk and a shrug.
And speaking of questionable taste, though she left that part out, “What about you and Callum. How’s that situationship?”
Considering how tongue tied he’d seem over asking Roz to Les Mis, Sabrina highly doubted that Zuko would say he wasn’t interested. But who knew. Stranger things had happened. “His taste is deplorable if he’s not,” Sabrina agreed.
She started putting the cheeses onto the board, making patterns with them, alternating crackers and meats along it. The meat she tried curling into cute little flowers but gave up on that after one. It seemed like too much effort for something that would be picked apart in seconds.
“Well, he’s coming as my date to my ‘let’s kill half my demons’ soiree that I’m going to hold in Hell like next week so I’d say we’re still doing well.” She popped one of the grapes into her mouth. Okay, maybe Roz was onto something. More grapes now, less grapes later wouldn’t hurt.
Sabrina had absolutely no complaints. He’d come to her musical--even if it’d only been for the first act. She’d absolved him from seeing the second act. Helped her pick out some new demon minions from Demonikea. They hung out, went out for dinner or lunch, occasionally brunch. The sex was still amazing. Not that she’d ever doubted that. He’d told her about his update back in December and hadn’t pushed her away when everything was overwhelming with everyone’s emotions being extra haywire when Lucifer’s Hell had been around.
“I like what we have.” Whatever it was. Nothing like any of her other relationships but Sabrina didn’t see that as a bad thing.
The corner of Roz’s mouth hitched up in a smile that she aimed at Sabrina. Dating as an Outlander was infuriatingly more difficult than it was in her own reality, if she hadn’t been in any sort of serious relationship there either. There was just less hesitation to have to worry about when you didn’t have to worry about being yanked to a different reality.
“He didn’t have to ask me to go see your play. I’m sure any of his friends would have gone if he just wanted to go see it. He was sweet. Can’t blame him too much for being nervous.”
Roz worked on adding little dishes of dips and spreads, random piles of nuts, olives, and dried fruit to compliment the patterns that sabrina was building. She’d never really considered how much detail was put into these things. It was a hell of a lot easier to destroy them then build them.
“I saw that.” she said, not looking up from the board as Sabrina ate one of the grapes she had put out of Roz’s reach. “Wait, you’re holding a Demon Purge Soiree in hell? Who’s on the invite list?” She knew Sabrina was making big, much needed changes in her hell. It was a good thing, and it sounded like the demons she’d found here were at least somewhat less terrible than the ones from their world.
Roz nodded and Sabrina’s answer. She didn’t have to get it, she just had to accept it was what made Sabrina happy right now, and nothing was hurting her. “Have you decided to tell him how you feel, or are you keeping that under wraps?” Or did he already know because of his powers?
In some ways Vallo’s demons were nastier than the one’s from their home world. They were also much more malleable and came without any of the baggage of the others. Plus Hell wouldn’t listen to any of them. Not that it’d listen to any of her usual gaggle of demons either, but they were still enough of a pain in the ass that Sabrina was over the arguments. If she wanted to pardon some souls then she would do it. Without all the needless back and forth from advisors that she didn’t listen to anyway.
“Everyone who thinks it's their job to give me advice, plus their closest allies. And Callum.” Maybe she should invite Lucifer, but the less he had to do with Hell the better really. “Let them dance, be irritable, and then Maze and her crew are going to eat them all. While the new ones and some other higher ups that I’m allowing to live get to watch.” Sabrina dotted some olives along the board before plucking another grape. “Should be a decent show for them.” Keeping demons entertained equaled less rebellions.
“But no. I haven’t told Callum anything. I don’t really need to.” He easily picked up on any surface level feelings and it wasn’t like Sabrina was trying to hide how she felt from him. “Not when it comes to emotions.”
Roz paused for a moment, before mentally shrugging. It was odd in some ways to hear about other witches headed into hell and not be involved herself. But this wasn’t their home world, and there was no reason for her to go down there. Purging demons wasn’t exactly at the top of her recreational list. She didn’t know if it was on Callum’s either, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
“Be careful.” she said with a sigh, “I don’t care if you are the Queen.” She already knew loyalty down there was fleeting, and frankly, she wouldn’t trust those demons to not react terribly even if it was the lesser ones getting taken out.
“I thought as much.” As long as he wasn't hurting her best friend, Roz would keep her own feelings to herself unless provoked. It was why she did her best to stay out of his path as often as possible without others around to talk to, and appreciated that Sabrina worked to keep that balance too. “About his powers, I mean. Was curious about the rest.”
Roz reached for her wine, taking another drink and observing their work thus far, trying to see what else it might need. Fruit, she noticed, remembering they had some berries around here somewhere. She turned to check the fridge so they didn’t miss it. “There’s something to be said about charcuterie boards though. We should eat these more often.”
“Maze and the others will deal with anyone who tries to start something and Callum said he’ll manipulate them as needed too.” Sabrina wasn’t going to bring up the fact that she was excited to see him in action. Roz would have ‘opinions’.
All in all, Sabrina wasn’t too worried about it. None of them would expect her to lead a culling, but they weren’t open to discussions and she was tired of dealing with their endless prattling and debating. Her version of the Sweet Hereafter had already been created and was slowly being used. The demons could either get in line and deal with that or they could die.
She had more than enough of them to run the pieces of Hell that were currently in Vallo. And there were plenty more she could recruit from. It was high time the ones from home realized she needed them a lot less than they needed her.
“They’re the perfect snack,” Sabrina agreed, taking an olive to munch on. “I’ve seen some really creative ones on youtube that are theme based and have drink boards to go along with them.” They could try one out another time.
“Maze really is the best,” an annoyed chirp from Phoebe that soon followed had Roz staring hard at the board, refusing to look over at her familiar so she didn’t deal with the glare coming from the dramatic creature. “...hound.” she said after a beat or two, then busied her hands with the fruit she had brought out.
She made a mental note to look up some ideas of these boards later on, wondering if they could start making this a thing, one way or another. Once a month snack boards, or something.
“Hey, Brina.” she said, as she placed the last of the blue berries, on the board. “I really am happy that you’re happy.” With Callum, though, she figured Sabrina would figure that out. Roz didn’t care for him, but it didn’t matter, because she wasn’t the one dating Callum. “Actually. As long as he’s treating you right, I’m happy for you. Your happiness is important to me.”
Sabrina chuckled at Phoebe’s side eye. Salem got the same way when Maze was praised. Thankfully he was napping in her bedroom and not bothering with this conversation. She looked up from the board at the rest of what Roz said.
“I am and he is, but it really does mean a lot to hear you say that.” She was well aware that her best friend and most of her friends couldn’t stand the guy. She also knew that Callum enjoyed needling them whenever he could. Especially because he didn’t need to do much to do so. It was easy enough to keep them all apart. He wasn’t on the network much and she did different activities with everyone. But she really was happy.
“Hopefully Zuko will get his act together soon.”
Roz laughed, shaking her head, “Let's give him a little bit more time before acts need getting together.” Especially when she didn’t know where any of this was going.
Reaching for the wine bottle, she topped off their wine glasses while looking down at their food creation. “Well, this definitely beats the cheese and cracker plates some people used to bring to Church socials.” By a landslide, and then some. “Now we just need to get it there in one piece.” But they still had a little time before they had to leave.
“Anything outside the restructure of Hell happening? Anything exciting cast-member wise.”
Magic would be how they got it there in one piece. Especially if they ended up finishing off the bottle of wine. Sabrina was pretty sure they could manage that. She hummed at the Zuko comment. He’d get a little bit of time, but she hoped Roz and him would figure stuff out soon. They both deserved some happiness in the middle of Vallo. Who knew when the next bit of crazy would sneak up on them.
“Not really. If I’m not at the show, I’m finalizing Hell things or hanging out with people.” She had her weekly check-ins with different covens to do, friends to see. The usual sort of stuff. “How’s school?”
School was survivable, she was doing okay, but part of her had to wonder if she was insane for going with it. “Exams are soon, just a few weeks away. Then I’ll be back at the firm full time for the summer, but this time as a law school intern.” She’d debated taking a spring and summer course to make second year a bit easier, but she wanted to be able to enjoy some aspect of summer. Exams were never something Roz had much trouble with. She’d always done well on tests, and she was going to make sure she was prepared for these ones as well.
“Though in about three weeks, please expect two weeks of my sanity being at risk of snapping.” Soon, but not yet. “But until then, only a few more weeks of classes and competition.” Because most days did feel like a competition between all the students, even more so than any of her other classes. Even the magic ones.
Sabrina did not miss juggling school along with everything else. She did miss her friends at it and the classes were a lot more interesting than anything she’d learned at Greendale High (Geliara Academy had been better). It was nice to have some breathing room. “We’ll have to plan a spa day or trip then. Maybe some time on the yacht after you finish.” Her time as Fantine would be wrapping up around when Roz’s finals ended.
“Plus make some summer plans.” That Vallo would probably screw with but it was the thought that counted.
“Gives me something to look forward to.” she had no idea what her new internship schedule would look like, but she’d figure out some sort of mini break after finals. “But I definitely need a solid stretch of days - at least four, I think - where no one wants anything from me.” No assignments, no tests, no debates, no alarm clocks or stressing over simulated legal situations for training.
“Should we gather up our stuff and get ready to go?” Finishing touches, Roz wanted to check her makeup after the wine, and possibly switch out her shoe choice.
“You deserve it.” Everyone needed breaks. Especially after putting in the hours that Roz did.
Sabrina snapped her fingers and the board was neatly wrapped up and ready to go. “Let’s meet out here in five.”