dǫçţǫŗ şɭęęƥ (shone) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-10-31 09:20:00 |
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First, her aunt had been sent home. It wasn’t the first time it had happened and considering that her birthday had been right around the corner, Sabrina had been waiting for something like that to happen. She’d done her wallowing when the announcement had happened, but unlike when losing Ambrose had picked herself back up again and kept on going. There wasn’t anything else to do when people disappeared. Aunt Zelda was a strong, formidable witch so Sabrina knew she’d be okay. Whatever was happening back home was something her aunt could handle. But then things had started to get a little weird in the days leading up to Halloween. Plastic skeletons coming to life and dancing in the middle of the city, pixie decorations turning into actual pixies and trying to pull at people’s hair when they went under the tree where the decorations had once been. There had been more than that, but Sabrina was certain that it meant Halloween was going to be a ridiculous day. She was kind of waiting for people to start turning into their costumes at any minute--considering how often it happened on tv shows she knew it was bound to happen there. Somehow she was going to push all of that to the side though and enjoy this ridiculously greasy lunch with Dan at their favorite diner--the Grease Bucket. The Reese’s cup milkshake was already easing her nerves as she tried to remind herself that even if everyone went crazy that this birthday was bound to be better than the last one when she’d turned down signing the Book of the Beast and set everything into motion. Hopefully this forest wouldn’t try to attack her like the Greendale woods had. Maybe she could stay at Lux tonight once the party was over? “I bet if you ask you could get a carrot cake milkshake put onto the menu.” Considering how often they came to the diner, she thought there was a good chance they’d take the suggestion seriously. Even if Dan was the only one who drank it. “Most likely. I’ll give it a try next time the waitress comes around - maybe there’s a comment card,” Dan chuckled, straw swished in his own shake (this one was just a black forest shake, normally on the menu - he liked the cherry chocolate combo). But it was true, he and Sabrina came here a lot - shit went sideways pretty often, and when it did sometimes a nice cheeseburger-and-fries combo really helped ease the ache of it all (or in Dan’s case, added a new ache in the form of heartburn but oh well). He was just glad she was eating, and seemed to be willing to give the waypoints the finger and carry on - after Zelda disappeared (again), he made sure to do that complicated dance of giving her space to wallow and also ensuring that she was taking care of herself. By now he liked to think he was pretty good at this - it was a shame he even had to be good at it at all. Sabrina was a vivacious person though, she made friends easily and had people who cared about her well-being. Hunkering down and not getting close to anyone might be safer, but it just wasn’t in the cards for her. Dan admired that. And he wanted to help make her birthday as good as possible - sure, Halloween decorations were dancing around and wandering the streets but that was just very Vallo for you. He wasn’t planning to attend the party at Lux tonight, so he took her to lunch beforehand. The Grease Bucket was a throwback to old-school diners, with wood panels and bespeckled with barstools, a jukebox on the wall where a quarter got you two songs - the burgers were technically nothing fancy, just cooked on an age-old griddle, American cheese, and slapped between a bun that looked like it had been smuggled into the place in someone’s back pocket. Damn if they weren’t amazingly tasty burgers, however. “Happy birthday,” he added, with a warm smile that crinkled laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. “I might have a gift for you.” Besides paying for lunch. If waking up in her world and finding out everyone she loved (except for her cousin) had died a horrible death wasn’t going to break her and leave her cold, unfeeling and closed off then some random Vallo disappearances weren’t going to do it. The only thing she could do was go forward or in the case of back home backwards, but that had been a step forward as well. Life was too short--or too long in her case--to let the bad parts completely bulldoze over her. And she wanted Vallo to be her chance of having something semi-normal because while she danced in between back in Greendale, it wasn’t ever going to be like in this place with magic being known about by everyone. Not having to hide a part of herself was always going to be a breath of fresh air even on the gloomiest of days. “Oooh is it a pony?” Not that she ever actually wanted one of those, but it seemed like it was supposed to be every girl’s dream to get one at some point in their lives. “You really didn’t need to get me anything. I already know you’re paying for lunch.” A pony, huh? Dan replied with something of a deadpan, “Yeah, I have one in my pocket,” but the twinkle in his eye gave him away. “Maybe not as good as a pony, but I think I can do a little better than lunch.” He almost always paid for the two of them when they came here, and Sabrina deserved an actual gift for her birthday. He supposed he could have bought her something, wandered into Uncommon Goods and picked up whatever she needed for her magic - or went out into the forest and gathered the right type of mushrooms or moss or whatever was necessary, so she didn’t have to (though doing so was probably therapeutic for her, in its own way). But he wanted to give her something personal, after everything they’d been through. A card (it was stupid but cute, and Dan was still old school enough to want to give paper cards with ‘I love you’ scrawled inside) and a rectangle velvet box were both passed over to her, across the table. Inside was a necklace, gold medallion attached to a delicate gold chain - but the medallion was his AA chip, one day at a time engraved on there, along with a triangle and ‘unity, service, recovery,’ one word on each side of the shape. The token had shown up on his pillow one morning and since he’d gotten so used to not having it with him in Vallo, he thought that maybe he didn’t need it after all. He was running the NA/AA meetings just fine without having the comfort of the chip in his pocket, so he was ready. To pass it on to someone else. And even if he didn’t say it, he also wanted her to have a piece of him - should he ever be taken away from this world. The card was ridiculously cute, Sabrina was certain he’d picked it out himself. It screamed dad joke and Dan was really good at making those. She took her time opening the box and then taking out the chip that had been turned into a necklace. Sabrina wasn’t entirely certain what it was at first, taking in the words and triangle, realization slowly dawning on her. At one point she’d worn a different necklace every day for a few weeks, a gift from Harvey Kinkle, her first love. But she’d taken it off when she’d realized it was time to move on, that holding onto the past only hurt her in the long run. This was something she wouldn’t mind wearing every day again, liking that she had a piece of Dan even if--nope she wasn’t going to think about that. “I love it,” Sabrina told him, wiping away a stray tear as she took it out of the box, wanting to put it on right then and there. “Is this one you got here or is this from your home?” “It’s the AA chip from home,” Dan confirmed, smile softening as he took in Sabrina’s reaction. He hadn’t meant to make her cry but he presumed those were ‘overwhelmed with emotion’ tears and not necessarily sad tears. Or ‘wow, what a terrible gift’ tears. “It wasn’t on me when I arrived here. Oddly enough, it just showed up on my pillow a little bit ago.” Almost like it was time - sometimes Vallo did things that made sense, sometimes it didn’t. This was one of the few things that seemed right to him. He poured more from the silver canister into his milkshake glass, all that chocolatey goodness. Since he was here, he’d finish it all - and just hope that when he went for his final wedding tux fitting, he actually still, uh. Fit into it. “I used to keep it in my pocket all the time, but I guess - I thought it made for a better gift these days,” he said, sipping on the shake. “I love it,” she repeated, not sure she could accurately articulate just how much she appreciated the gift. She knew Dan could pick up on how she was feeling and if he really wanted what she was thinking too, so she was confident that he knew just how much it meant to her to receive that from him. She hadn’t really thought much of it when they first had met, aside from trying not to fangirl over the fact that she was sitting across from the guy from two of her favorite horror novels. It was impossible to see him that way now. He wasn’t that little kid in The Shining anymore to her, hadn’t been for months now. He was Dan, the guy who always had her back, and while she might not call him ‘dad’ like Stan had used to, he’d definitely fit into that role in more ways than one. “I think it should fit in nicely with practically all of my wardrobe too.” Which was good because she wasn’t ever taking it off. Dan thought it might fit nicely with the wardrobe too - and Sabrina definitely didn’t have to wear it all the time, but the fact that she wanted to was flattering. He could sense the way she felt without having to read her mind - warmth, the kind that wrapped you up in a snug quilt, a fire popping and crackling. That feeling deep inside your chest, every cell - it was how he felt too, when he thought about the family he’d built here. Her especially. “Well, happy birthday,” he said, a bit sheepish and bashful because emotion. It was drenching him from head to toe, figuratively - though that wasn’t a bad thing at all. “Are you looking forward to the party tonight?” Lux was a classy sort of place, and Dan always appreciated that Lucifer was mindful of the fact that he was a recovering alcoholic whenever he came around the mortuary, or brought things to share - but it wasn’t a dry place, so it was better that he just avoid it in order to subsequently avoid temptation. Sabrina always found it a little amusing when adults blushed because of the emotion they were feeling. It was just so odd to see, at least when she’d been raised around her Aunt Zelda who did a pretty stellar job of locking all of those emotions away. The question about the party had her sighing though. “Yes.” Sabrina scrunched her nose as she pushed her straw through her milkshake. “And no.” She wanted to celebrate with her friends that she’d made in Vallo, but her birthday coming around made her think of everyone that wasn’t there. It had been months since she’d seen her friends and she couldn’t help but miss each of them. There was also the added worry of wondering how they were all doing back home, knowing time somehow stopped and moved on at the same time. “I just want to make sure everyone else has a really good time. So I’m going to focus on that.” Yes and no made sense. The connections they made in Vallo were important, but Dan didn’t think people would ever stop missing those equally important folks from home, friends and family. He missed Abra something fierce, everyday. A part of him wished she would show up with her mom, here, so they could all be together (and he could actually get to know his sister) - but he realized that was too much to hope for. It would never happen. “I know everyone will - have a good time, that is,” he assured. “And if you need me for anything during the party, just give me a shout. I’ll be at home with Allison.” A telepathic shout, that is - he would hear her, because of how attuned to Sabrina he actually was. “Given the last couple of days, who knows - but hopefully nothing too crazy will happen in terms of...Halloween stuff.” “Ugh.” She was pretty sure something crazy would actually happen because of how the last few days had been. “I mean, if nothing else, it can’t be as bad as my sixteenth birthday.” No way to go but up. That was just how she needed to look at it. Try for that bright side. It did help to know that she could reach out to Dan if she did need anything. Though hopefully that wouldn’t be the case. Just some fun, dancing, drinking, eating too much cake and everything else she’d gotten Lucifer to get catered. Just a few hours of carefree fun. Was it really too much to ask, Vallo? Probably, but Sabrina was still trying to be a little hopeful. “But at least I’ll be seventeen no matter what happens.” Good Riddance to sixteen. “That’s true,” Dan agreed, reaching for the last few fries on his plate and popping them into his mouth. Sixteen was a rough age, maybe seventeen was too - but he knew that Sabrina had faced a lot during the past year, both in Vallo and at home. He didn’t blame her for wanting to put much of that behind her. You could linger on it for only so long before it just started to eat away at you. They both knew that pretty well, at this point. “It’ll be a good seventeen. Lots of new things to try, lots of fun to be had - and I figure we can handle pretty much anything,” he added. After Pandemonium and the Overlook showing up, what else was there? He wasn’t going to actually put that out there in the universe. It was mainly a rhetorical question, and a testament to how strong they truly were. And how used to Vallo’s bullshit they were. “I mean, that’s true.” Considering everything they had endured and overcome, whatever Vallo managed to throw at them next would be a piece of cake. Probably. If not they’d manage to carry on and grow from the experience. It was all there was to do. With an eternity stretched out in front of her, Sabrina knew that rolling with the punches was kind of a needed skill set to try and perfect. “To an exciting new year,” she suggested, raising her nearly empty milkshake up to tap his. “At least we have a wedding to look forward to and my musical is only a few weeks after that!” The wedding was definitely the more exciting part, but she was still pretty excited for the musical. Cinderella was a fun role to get into, aside from the egotistical prince. “And then it’ll be Yule and a new year.” Lots of new things was kind of nice to look forward to. “To an exciting new year,” Dan echoed, milkshake glass clinking against milkshake glass. He always liked this part best, slurping up the rest of it from the bottom - maybe it wasn’t very dignified, but oh well. Slurping was one of those few joys in life so he’d take it. “You have your dress all set for the wedding and everything? Hair, makeup, uh - shoes?” Whatever went into that whole thing. Sabrina was Allison’s maid of honor, so he trusted that she was there every step of the way for fittings and tossing out ideas and the like. All Dan knew was that he needed a tux, and Dwight needed bulletproof clothes - so far, things were on track in that regard. And he too was looking forward to the musical, planning to be there for Sabrina’s opening night like he was for the last one - a shame her Prince was a right dick (a little apology would have gone a long way) but they didn’t have to spend any time together outside of rehearsals. “Yep! Allison and I got all of that together! And your best man will have bulletproof clothes as well.” Sabrina was fairly certain she’d perfected the spell for it. She just wanted to try it out one more time before giving Dwight the tux back. The last thing the wedding needed was a faulty suit that led to bloodshed. It was amazing how fast everything had come together. Time was funny like that. Some moments seemed to stretch out for an eternity while others just went by, rapid fire. Sometimes January seemed like it had happened a lifetime ago and other times like she’d only arrived in Vallo a few days ago. “You are going to have the best wedding possible. Also I think it’s the first here? Like out of the Outlanders?” Sabrina was pretty sure that was the case anyway. As far as Dan knew, it was the first one out of the Outlanders - kind of a fun distinction, in that case. Though he was sure others would eventually tie the knot, when they were ready - lots of love in the air, and all that. It was nice to see. “Well, I’m definitely excited about it - and the after part. We have a few days booked at the bed and breakfast where I proposed,” Dan said, and he was just pretty damn giddy about it overall. Not like they could jet off to a typical honeymoon destination since there was no leaving Vallo until Vallo decided it was your time (were they even on Earth anyway?) but they both liked Galdin Quay and it seemed just as good of a spot as any to celebrate their brand new nuptials. The waitress came by then, to clear any empty dishes, and Dan had cash to pay the bill (and a tip) all ready. “Any chance of adding a carrot cake shake to the menu?” he asked, which made her laugh but she promised to look into it. See, it wasn’t that bad of an idea. Sabrina shook her head, not at all surprised that he actually had offered up the idea. “She was humoring you,” Sabrina told him. They were pretty big tippers. “It’s like you and your bff Diego who are the only people who think carrot cake is delicious.” Who liked cream cheese as frosting anyway? It was barely okay on red velvet cakes and those were usually too dry for her liking anyway. “Thanks for the birthday lunch and the necklace.” She fingered it, liking the feel of having something around her neck again. It had felt barren for far too long. “But I think that counts as a pretty good place for a honeymoon. Unless you wanted to do Atlantis but I’m not sure how that would work for a honeymoon.” What if they didn’t get compatible parts? That would be awful. Look, carrot cake was mostly cinnamon and who didn’t like cinnamon? That was a hill Dan would die on. “Right,” he chuckled. “I had that same thought about Atlantis. So...pass.” The whole point of the honeymoon was to basically not come up for air and actually use those parts - and he didn’t want to do the do with fish parts, that just wasn’t on Dan’s list of things to try in the bedroom. Yikes. “But you’re welcome. Now let me get you back home so you can get ready for tonight,” he offered, getting at the very last drop of black forest shake and sliding out of the booth. “And I’ll probably take a nap.” Because that had been a lot of tasty sugar and carbs. Sabrina laughed at that. “You’re not that old, Dan,” she teased before scooting out of the booth. He was right though. It was time to get home and start getting ready for tonight. First some Samhain celebrations and then hopefully a birthday that party that didn’t end in tears. |