If there was one thing Sabrina despised about the apocalypse, it was the lack of privacy. Of course the death, disappearance and everything else that happened to her friends and others was top tier, but that was more big picture stuff. Overwhelming, leading to depressing if she tried to hold onto those thoughts for too long. Like trying to cling to any stray string of optimism that flew by. Some new plan made by those in charge, hope buzzing about the Outpost for a few weeks.
Inevitably it didn’t work. More people died. More disappeared. Some lost to the madness. Those that didn’t kept working to survive.
Not that she wanted to not survive. Been there, done that. Sabrina would rather not get that stamp on her card again. But privacy? It could only be accomplished in small bits. Like when she was out at Sutton Cottage and busy in the garden. Even if she hated gardening. She’d never been the one with a green thumb in her family.
Not as easily done at the Outpost.
At least the sleeping bag in the corner of the room she shared with Callum was clean and whole. She sat down on the floor beside it and tossed Callum her bag. He’d find two small bottles and a carefully wrapped up fruit inside. “That’s going to be the last moonshine for a couple of weeks, but also, first strawberries of the season.”
Win some, lose some.
Callum pulled out the items in her bag, giving them a lookover as he did so. The moonshine he tucked away for later; the strawberries he selected two of. One he nibbled carefully around the greens, and the other he wordlessly held out to her to enjoy.
It was sour, like most things early in the season were, but it’d been a solid ten years since he’d had a proper French pastry. His standards these days were appallingly low.
“Now Sab, don’t give all the berries to your friends,” he advised with wasted breath, knowing that she’d do exactly as she pleased and no less anyway. “Even if they give you moon eyes.” Moon eyes were utterly ineffectual on Callum. He’d both softened and hardened over the years in different ways - still cold, still sharp, still prone to selfishness. But his appetite for self-destruction had waned. He supposed that happened, when everything else was tripping over itself to kill you. Why add to it?
Whatever, he was a cockroach. Callum survived, when better people had perished. The thought didn’t bother him any.
Sabrina snorted. Moon eyes worked extremely well on her depending on who was the one giving them. “These ones are ours,” she assured, taking a bite of her own. She’d already doled out another bag to Keith to give to Kipp. Everyone else would need to wait until the rest started to come in. If the plants managed to make it anyway. It was always a toss up on whether or not that would happen with the strawberries. The beans and potatoes never seemed to fail, but any type of berry was annoying. Either by struggling to survive or it attempted to take over the whole garden.
They might be able to barter a few of the strawberries for chocolate or something though.
Sabrina undid her shoes and set them to the side before shrugging out of her jacket. “How many times did you annoy Peter today?”
He didn’t inch over so much as open an arm up toward her so she could curl up with him. “Countless, unending legions of times,” he answered in a deadpan, if smug sort of voice. “One of these days he’s going to change the locks.”
God, Callum loved annoying people. Particularly people that kept hoping that he’d improve for the best. Sure, he had, but he didn’t want them to rest too easy thinking he was a nice person or whatever.
Sabrina chuckled as she curled up with him, effectively using him as a pillow as she got herself comfortable. It was a wonder that Peter Parker didn’t have any gray hair yet. Or that Catra hadn’t strangled Callum by then.
This was her favorite part of the day. If she closed her eyes and didn’t think about the cold, hard ground, Sabrina could almost imagine they were back in Callum’s apartment. Lazing about or sleeping in after a late night out. If nothing else she needed the chance to be pressed up against him, to feel him breathing and hear him talking. Gardening had become a solo venture with Edwin locked away in the cottage, furiously researching, and Sabrina thrived on interactions.
“What did you guys do today?” she asked, guiding one of her hands to his hair.
“Suffer, mostly.” He closed his eyes, a sucker for someone playing with his hair. “Agonized. Around noon, I languished.” A typical day, all said and done. Was childcare something Callum had ever seen himself doing? No. Was childcare something Callum saw himself doing now? …also no. Sure, there were children around, and he supposed he occasionally provided care, but was anyone dumb enough to actively leave their child with him and no one else at the daycare? Absolutely not. And thank goodness for that.
“Quiet day for you, then?” he asked, turning to regard her. She’d had companions with her garden before all the death. For as little as he appreciated the trajectory his life had taken, he’d only been all flash. Sabrina had actually been the heir to Lucifer and all that. And here she was, just like the rest of them - crushed under Inheritus’s bootheel.
Sabrina tucked her hands under her chin as she looked at him. “Every day is a quiet one.” Not necessarily a bad thing. It wasn’t like she wanted the craziness of raids or dealing with anyone trying to kill her. She missed talking to people though. Had she stuck with gardening as her own personal punishment for not keeping Hell up? Probably. Would she admit it? Probably not.
“I’d ask if you want to come join me but we both know that would never work.” The garden would never be tended and Callum was a lot safer with the children than he would have been at Sutton Cottage. Protecting the daycare was everyone’s top priority.
Callum wasn’t one for gardening, anyway. Something-something about watching plants grow and paint dry. At least the children were annoying, which meant they were rarely boring. “No no, that honor is all you,” he demured, making a face at the notion. Ugh, there was probably fertilizer involved. He’d had to relax his standards quite a bit in this apocalypse but some things he’d never cede.
Of course, so had she. Everyone was making do with less these days - and that included Sabrina and her magical abilities. “Any news of the mission?” he asked, flavoring that word with a bit of heft. Some were hopeful about returning to the past. Others were not. Callum… fell in the middle most days.
She turned onto her side so she was facing him better. “Thurvishar thinks it has a real chance of working.” Of course, that had been said about several other ideas that had been tried but this one felt different. Sabrina didn’t know all of the details but from what she’d heard it did seem like it had a better chance than anything else they’d tried.
“I’m just not sure about what it means if it does work. If we defeat Interitus everything isn’t going to suddenly go back to normal. Like…Edwin is still very much wanting vengeance for Nikolai. I doubt he’d stop trying to kill Darlington just because he’s unthralled.” And then there was Vorerra and a million other things. “But okay, that’s a big rabbit hole I don’t want to go down.”
Sabrina rested one hand on top of Callum’s, curling her fingers around his. “Say we win and the apocalypse is over, what do you want to do?”
He huffed under his breath, and gave her hand a squeeze. “You know I’m not one for engaging in cup-half-full hypotheticals.” Bully for Thurvishar, bully for Caleb, bully for anyone who had any hope that this plan was going to work. Callum thought along the same lines that Sabrina was desperate not to entertain: they were already screwed. It was called post traumatic stress for a reason; they weren’t post the trauma. They would be, though, if they could catch their breath for a moment and believe in the concept of hope again. Callum, not for the first time, was glad he couldn’t feel people’s emotions as acutely as he could have ten years before. All this hope and gutted desire would probably have killed him.
“The first time we won against him, everyone’s powers came back to them. I can’t remember if it was slow or what, and throw in how long he’s been draining ours I’m not sure how that factors in…” Her brow furrowed as she mused, trying to remember exactly what had happened over ten years ago. “But if ours do come back, we probably need a game plan.”
Sabrina poked his chest. “Because we did not survive ten years for me to need to set the world on fire because your brain exploded with the onslaught of emotions you can suddenly feel.” Who knew if she’d have the power level back to do so, but Sabrina knew she damn well would try.
“Years of drudgery beneath Inheritus’s heel, only for you to be the end-game big bad,” Callum muttered. “I don’t know that that’s thematically satisfying, Sabrina. But I do appreciate the offer. I very well might miss you.”
He rolled to lay on his back, tugging her with him - he may be useless in several regards these days, but Callum was still an expert at lolling aesthetically. “Remind me never to agree to live anywhere interesting again.” Callum was tired of this. He’d been tired of this. They all were tired of this. He supposed he couldn’t even blame people who still held onto hope, as dull as the concept was, because the alternative was what? Being more like him? Horrors.
Sabrina rolled her eyes. She’d come up with her own ‘just in case’ exit plan and drag him along with her if it needed to be used. She closed her eyes as she rested her head against his chest, finding peace in the only place she really could anymore. “We should have taken the yacht and left.”
Except they would have run out of food and she might have ended up strangling him by the end of the first month. Plus Sabrina had no clue how to actually sail the thing and she wouldn’t have been able to leave everyone else behind. It was difficult to shake the need to help others, to worry about her friends even when she was tired of everything.
Callum glanced down at her, an expression of utter incredulity on his face. “That would have lasted for all of five minutes before you’d start bringing people onto the yacht,” he pointed out. “Not to mention your animals. It would’ve turned straight into Sabrina’s Ark, and I know you’re not keen on repeating biblical history. Besides.”
He laid his head back down. “We would’ve eventually run out of food or water and would’ve had to resort to cannibalism. Interitus would thank us for doing the work for it.”
He knew her entirely too well. All of those things would have happened with additional madness thrown in. “It’s very annoying when you’re right,” she grumbled without much heat.
“Nap or dinner first?” she asked, fairly certain she knew what his answer would be. Sabrina tugged at their blanket, trying to get it up and over the two of them.
“You know me so well.” Callum knew what there was for dinner. No one was starving here, but food got monotonous. It was the same ol’, same ol’ - especially in winter, when canning things kept food fresh enough to last through the cold weather. Zagats would have little to do here; days of eating gourmet food and washing it down with wine that cost a private school education were done.
But napping - well, napping offered the possibility of nightmares, true, but it also could be comforting. He could dream of being back home, he could dream of setting Libby on fire, he could dream of Sabrina in gold back to her full power and smiting all his enemies, and sweet, nice things like all of that. And there was something to be said for waking up with someone too. Someone you felt comfortable with, that you took comfort in.
And so he helped her sort the blanket out, and pulled her against his chest. “Sweet dreams,” he said, and hoped that they were. Maybe luck would be on their side for once.