Did I really grow up with you guys and you knew I was a witch?
WHAT: archie andrews arrives in vallo. WHERE: spellman mortuary. WHEN: june 23. WARNINGS: mentions of zombie/horror violence. STATUS: completed; closed
Sabrina knew how confusing it was to suddenly end up in Vallo, but she’d done it so many months ago, carved out a really nice life for herself that it was difficult at times to remember just how hard suddenly appearing in the place could be. The fact that there was apparently a world where she was friends with Archie and his friends, where they seemed to know all about who she was and that Salem could actually talk was still mind blowing. She was going to need time to wrap her head around it, but for now she tried to focus on finding the boy who’d showed up. Everything else could wait.
After a quick location spell, Sabrina teleported over to where Archie was waiting in the woods. She offered up a small wave as she arrived. “So like hi in person? As opposed to on the little device that we all get when we get here. Which while they are useful are just kind of impersonal as well.”
That was why she didn’t have one back home. None of them did really in Greendale. It was small enough that it just never had seemed needed. Especially when she could teleport her way out of trouble.
He startled a little bit, but not because it was her, more because he’d grown used to having to respond to possible dangers every single moment of his life. Archie was smart enough to recognize that wasn’t normal, that the world he’d become used to was messed up on so many levels and maybe he could be safe here--if what everyone kept telling him about this place was even true--but the anxiety was constant now. It was as familiar to him as breathing, and being able to calm down was going to take a while.
It felt like years since he’d been able to just relax, and it hadn’t even been a year yet since the outbreak.
“Oh, hey, yeah that’s...yeah, hi,” Archie commented. He was actively resisting the urge to hug her, because she’d been missing back home, and the last time he’d really seen her was in some odd nightmare he didn’t want to think about.
Sabrina rolled back and forth a bit on the balls of her feet, tugging at the sleeves of her shirt as she watched him. Figuring out what to say wasn’t easy. There were so many questions she wanted to ask. When had she told them that she was a witch? Were they actually okay with it? What had happened to Jughead? How were there zombies? But she continued to bite them all back.
“Do you have questions? I mean you probably do.” Stupid question, Sabrina. “We can walk to the mortuary and you ask them and I can answer whatever the video didn’t really make clear. Or we can go to one of the late night diners and I buy you something to eat and we can do the question thing there. Or we can just go to the mortuary if you want to sleep.”
It was a lot. She talked a lot, and it ached because his Sabrina had too, but the more he thought back on it, the more he worried that something had happened to her. Maybe the zombies had gotten to her, and he and his friends had been too busy in their own battles to even consider going to Greendale to see. He wasn’t sure what option was worse--that she’d been killed outright, or that she’d been made into a zombie.
Archie didn’t voice either of those fears though.
“I mean, yeah, I’ve got a ton of questions but no real brain power to ask them right now,” he admitted. She was being so helpful, and he was more grateful for that than she knew. “The mortuary’s safe though?” he asked her. Probably a stupid question on the surface, but he was so used to constantly being on edge and never being able to relax. Still, if Sabrina took him somewhere and told him it was safe, Archie was gonna trust her.
“Probably better than a diner, though I’d love to visit that too,” he admitted. The truth was, after seeing someone who looked a lot like Jughead on the server network, going to a diner--one of Jughead’s favorite types of places--so quickly would just add to the grief he felt. So not tonight.
It broke her heart to see just how cautious he was being. She didn’t know him, had only known the previous Archie who had been around for a few weeks as well, but his emotions were just so raw. She knew that feeling all too well. The exhaustion that sunk deep into one’s bones after having to deal with misery and chaos day in and day out, no time for a reprieve. It broke people, tore them down until they were shells of themselves. Hopefully being in Vallo would help to repair some of that.
Though Sabrina knew all too well that it could only heal so much. The nightmares never really left.
“Its safe. I put wards up and my cousin and aunt have helped reinforce them. Nothing can get in that isn’t friendly to us,” she told him, as she extended a hand out for him to take. “I can teleport us there and we can get you set up with a room and stuff.” There should be leftovers she could heat up as well for him.
He took her hand without hesitation, almost second nature honestly, and that hurt too. Because he’d grown up with her, but she had no memory of him. Sabrina was being nice, she always would be--and Eddie had been right about people being the same across worlds, Archie figured (since he didn’t have much experience with it himself, but it sounded right)--but it broke his heart a little bit to think of his own Sabrina again.
Archie offered her a smile instead though, having learned to adopt the mask of it during all of the zombie stuff. He had to be brave for his friends, for his mom, for Betty. He could do it for Sabrina here too.
“That sounds good,” Archie replied. “Thank you again for letting me stay with you. Everyone here has been nice so far, but I don’t know that I trust anyone else.”
Sabrina squeezed his hand, trying to offer up some of her own strength at his words. Trust wasn’t so easily given after a while, especially once enough trauma had been endured. She strived to see the best in people, to think they wanted to do good more than bad, but she also knew that wasn’t always the case. Some people really did just want to watch the world burn.
Case in point: her father.
“I’m glad you can at least trust me,” she told him, and she’d do whatever was needed to keep that trust. She knew how fragile it could be, how easily lost and broken it could get, and the consequences that could happen once it was gone.
“Lanuae magicae,” she murmured next, teleporting the two of them to the front steps of the mortuary. “The house should have made you a room by now. It’ll have a bed and dresser in it but we’ll need to get you the rest of the stuff tomorrow or whenever you’re up for some shopping. Or there’s just going through the bits and pieces in the basement.”
Salem appeared, moving between her legs and demanding attention. Sabrina let go of Archie’s hand to pick up the familiar. “Do you want to eat something or just go to your room?”
He’d never been teleported by Sabrina back home, and even with everything weird that had happened to him it was a bit startling, so Archie had to take a moment to catch his breath once they were there. His racing heart was more from the anxiety of being separated from his friends back home than present company, and he looked around the place for a moment before his gaze shifted back to her.
“Made me a room?” he asked.
He supposed it made sense that a house like this could just create rooms, but it was still a bit mind blowing in a way. Still, Salem was an old comfort, and Archie smiled at the animal, wanting to reach out to pet him but stopping himself to answer Sabrina’s question instead.
“What kind of food you got?” Archie asked her.
Salem stared at him, curious about this new presence. There had been a lot of new people in the mortuary lately. He didn’t mind them too badly as long as they didn’t take delight in pulling on his tail and were sufficient cushions to laze about on from time to time.
“We should have lasagna unless someone else decided to have a late night snack, but if that’s gone then we can make sandwiches. Or there’s Lucky Charms and that weird raisin cereal Dan and Allison eat.” Why anyone would willingly eat raisins was beyond her.
The door opened on its own for the two of them as she headed up the stairs, Salem jumping out of her arms to lead the way.
“I haven’t had Lucky Charms in so dang long,” he told her. It was weird how something so simple could be a comfort--something that had been normal once upon a time that was now gone from his life. In fact he hadn’t had any processed food in months. When you were being constantly hunted down by zombies, you didn’t really have the luxury of trying to stop and shop, and they’d stayed away from bigger cities where stores might be.
Archie followed Sabrina without question, and took note of how comfortable this place already was. He didn’t know a lot about magic, but he knew that places with magic could sometimes be alive, and if this one was at all it didn’t seem to mind him.
“So you didn’t know anyone from Riverdale then? But, apparently there was a Jughead and Archie here before in Vallo?” he asked, trying to keep everything he’d learned over the network straight.
Sabrina set out the bowls, silverware and pitcher of milk before grabbing the Lucky Charms box from its place in the cupboard. They were going to need to invest in more Lucky Charms if everyone that wasn’t Dan, Allison and Hilda was going to be eating the cereal. She’d need to make note of it on the grocery shopping list.
“I’ve never really been to Riverdale.” She’d gone once to retrieve Herod’s crown but that didn’t seem like it counted. It was kind of funny though that they hadn’t really gone to the other town at all considering it was just a few miles away, separated by the forest. “I think next year we would have with the cheerleading team.” If her and Roz were even still doing that once Fall hit.
“But yeah,” Sabrina continued, pouring herself some cereal and then handing the box over to him. “There’s was a version of you and Jughead around when I first got here. They weren’t here really long but they were nice.” The fake rivalry they’d had over their two schools had been fun.
“Did I really grow up with you guys and you knew I was a witch?” Because that was mind blowing. How long had they known? Had they always known? Was it fairly new? What all did they know about her being a witch? She didn’t ask any of the other questions, not wanting to be too overwhelming.
It was so weird to him to learn there was another version of himself that people had known here. But then this entire place was weird. Archie was going to have to quit trying to make sense of the things going on in his life, he’d realized that a while ago but it was easier said than done.
“Yeah,” he replied, smiling a bit sadly as he thought about it. “At first you were closer to Betty, but she introduced us all. I think we learned you were a witch in junior high? But it feels like forever ago.” And talking about Betty ached in a way he hadn’t expected, especially when he remembered he’d had a crush on Sabrina when they’d all first met.
“Our towns were close enough to hang out, but far enough away that we all had our own things going on sometimes,” Archie went on to explain. “I don’t really...I think the zombies largely avoided Greendale which makes sense in a way. They were probably afraid of you and your aunts.”
He paused there, wondering how much he should tell her about what little he knew about the zombies’ origin. “Your aunts always kind of scared us,” he settled for instead.
“I think my aunts kind of scare everyone at first. Or at least Zelda does. Hilda kind of exudes harmlessness.” Though she was anything but that, just far more subtle with her poisons. What he said made sense to her though. She could see it working out like that in some other reality. Were Roz, Theo, Harvey and Nick in that one too? How did her going to witch school work? Did she even?
But zombies. Something bad had to have happened to her if she wasn’t helping her friends deal with zombies. Which probably meant trapped in Hell, unable to help like she wanted to. Sabrina nearly brought that up, but quickly pushed the idea aside.
“How long have you been dealing with zombies?” That was one monster she never really wanted to deal with. Tommy Kinkle had been her closest experience and the plant beings that the pagans had turned some humans into. Neither had been pleasant and she’d at least had magic to deal with them.
He thought on that for a moment, because it had felt like a lifetime to him, but only because time wasn’t really something he had to measure anymore like before. There was no school or job to set alarms for. They were just constantly moving when they could.
“Less than a year,” Archie told her. “It started at the Halloween dance. Everyone--at first we just thought Jughead had a really good costume.”
Archie reached for the box and finally poured himself some cereal as he thought on it more. “I lost track of the months, but I feel like we would have graduated. Mom remembered my birthday, but Betty’s hadn’t happened yet, so...I guess around like 10 months? Maybe? I don’t know.”
He looked a bit lost then, staring at his bowl, like not being able to give her an exact time because he hadn’t kept track of the days was a huge failure on his part.
Sabrina noticed the look and reached over to touch his arm. She hesitated for a moment, realizing that she didn’t really know him and hadn’t really known the version of him that had been around previously either. But he looked like he was hurting and if she could offer even a little bit of comfort then she was going to try. She settled her hand on his arm and gave it a small squeeze, hopeful that it helped just a little.
“I don’t think we really keep a great track of time when worlds are falling apart, you know?” She knew she hadn’t. She couldn’t even really say how old she was anymore. Was it sixteen, turning seventeen in a few months, or did all of those decades spent sleeping behind stone in Hell count now as well? Some days she felt like they did but others not so much. It just depended on how much the weight of everything weighed her down from day to day.
“When’s your birthday?” She almost regretted the question as soon as she asked it, but it was already out there for him to answer.
He didn’t quite startle at her touch, but it made him ache too and miss his friends back home--his Sabrina. Archie brought a hand over to place on top of hers gently to keep it there though, because no matter what universe they were in, she was a comfort to him. He wasn’t sure why he trusted that, but he did.
The idea that there might be a version of Sabrina out there he couldn’t trust was too much.
“December 22nd,” he replied quietly. “Everyone barely remembered Christmas, so I let them focus on that back home, but mom and Betty remembered.”
“Around the time of the Winter Solstice.” Sabrina made a mental note of that, filing the information away for later. “I think we all need to focus on something good when our lives are steeped in so much darkness. So it's good that they remembered.”
If everything was awful, hope could get lost, and she knew that without any hope life just didn’t seem worth it any longer.
“You ready for me to show you where your room is?” It shouldn’t be too difficult to find. It would be the newest door on the second floor. “I can get some of Ambrose’s clothes for you to wear too until you’re up for going out and getting some new ones.”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” Archie replied. He’d never really thought about it that way, and he feels kind of silly for not considering other holidays around that time now. Objectively he’d always known there were others, but he knows he forgets Sabrina’s sometimes.
Still, she doesn’t seem to mind too much.
“Yeah,” he repeated, bringing his bowl over to the sink to rinse it out. “You don’t think he’ll mind?” Archie asked. He didn’t really feel like shopping, but he knew he’d have to at some point. It would be weird to be in clean clothes, let alone new ones.
Sabrina’s heart panged a bit, her thoughts moving to Nick after she’d rescued him from Hell and he’d started staying in her room. They had used Ambrose’s clothes at first before he’d moved back into the Academy right before their breakup. “Nah, I’ve had to snag clothes from his room for others before. It’ll be fine.”
She nearly told Archie that he didn’t need to clean the dishes, that she could just snap her fingers and they would be done, but Sabrina knew that sometimes being able to do the simplest things on one’s own helped. So she waited until he was finished before nodding to head upstairs. “Just remember that I have no idea what the room will look like. The house will probably fashion it a little to what it feels you might want,” she told him.
Or at least that’s how it had been explained to her once by Zelda.
He followed after her quietly, taking in the sight of the house. It was exactly the kind of layout he might have expected from a mortuary, but still somehow vastly different than the one Sabrina had lived in back home. Maybe some constants weren’t always constant after all, and it pained him for a moment to be reminded she wasn’t the Sabrina who had grown up with him.
He’d forgotten for a minute there, she was just that comforting.
“That’s weird it does that,” Archie told her as he followed. “But also really neat.” It was like something out of a comic book, really, once he paused to think about it. And when he opened the door she’d indicated and found it looked just like his room back home--with a few minor differences the house probably just couldn’t accommodate--he had to blink away tears.
“Thank you, Brina,” Archie whispered.
The house seemed to have done a good job from what she could see. It has shifted her own throughout the years as she'd grown up, getting sightly larger, changing the color as she desired and then staying the same once she'd been through with the changes.
She reached over to give his arm a comforting squeeze before nodding in the direction of her room. "I'm right down there. Last door. Just knock if you need anything." It wasn't like she was going to be getting any sleep anyway.
He smiled at her, and resisted the urge to pull her into a hug. Back home it would have been second nature, but here she didn’t know him well enough for that, and even if it would have been a comfort he wasn’t selfish enough to ask for it. “Thanks for everything,” he told her again.
Making his way over to the bed, the redhead kicked his shoes off and shrugged out of his letterman jacket and flopped down. Sleep usually didn’t come easy for him, but maybe the interdimensional travel was doing him favors now, because he crashed pretty hard.