Sabrina knew something was off as soon as she started to stir. The link between her mind and Dan’s seemed to be nonexistent and yet somehow it was still there, just not quite as tangible as she was used to it being. Maybe he’d headed off early or she’d managed to sleep in. She wouldn’t put it past him to allow her to do so for one more day after the onslaught of memories she’d been barraged with a few days ago. She couldn’t hear Claire or Allison moving around yet either and the sun didn’t seem to be shining through her window, leading her to believe it was probably earlier rather than later.
Something had probably come up at the clinic. Or someone needed some sleep magic done on them.
It wasn’t enough to alert her to anything being completely out of place yet though, the haziness of sleep still pulling her down as she wrapped her arms around her pillow in an attempt to try for a little more sleep.
The covers weren’t quite cooperating though, something keeping them from moving the way she wanted. “Stop hogging the covers, Salem,” she muttered, trying to pull at them to wrap further around her body, the chilly morning air causing her to shiver.
Silence was the norm for Nick, as the mortuary had been completely empty when he'd found it almost two months prior. He'd run from floor to floor looking for any sign of any of the Spellmans, only to have his hopes come crashing down at the same time as a banister, the home in the same state of disarray as the rest of this devil-forsaken place.
Even so, he'd invited himself to stay in the last place he'd been, Sabrina's room and it was there he returned every evening, after exploring the world he'd found himself in, searching for more people, and trying to work out how to get out of this place whatever it was. Aided most nights by the bottles he'd brought home from another familiar though equally empty and eerie haunt he may have cleaned up better if he'd been expecting anyone else to show up.
But in that morning fog where he wasn't quite asleep or awake, he mumbled back, "I'm not your cat, Spellman," smiling at the familiarity of her voice before it clicked. He bolted up in bed and turned to her, a mixture of awe and confusion in his voice. "Sabrina?"
The bed wasn’t supposed to have moved that much nor was she expecting to hear Nick’s voice instead of Salem’s annoyed meow in response. Any chance of sleep was quickly dashed as she tumbled out of the bed and onto the floor in her haste to untangle herself. “Ow,” she moaned, rubbing at her side as she half lay-half sat on the floor, trying to make sense of what was happening.
She was definitely in her room, or at least it seemed like her room. The bottles were new, not at all lining up with how she’d gone to bed. Carefully she peeked up over the side of the bed, spotting Nick on it, before leaning back down.
“This is the weirdest dream yet,” she muttered to herself, rubbing at her eyes in an attempt to get herself to wake up. She’d dreamed of him off and on in Vallo, not as often as she had those first few months, but the latest memory update had brought back the dreams in a steady rush. None of them had exactly gone this way though.
"Are you alright?" Nick asked, leaning over to look at her once she'd settled back down. "Sabrina, what are you doing here?"
He asked the question then realized they were in her room after all. "I mean, when did you get here?" And why hadn't she woken him up when she discovered he was in her bed? Why had he startled her if she'd been the one to find him? Nothing was adding up, which seemed to be the only consistent around here. This wasn't actually a dream, was it?
"Are you alright?" he repeated, shuffling over to the other side of the bed to convince himself she really was there, the corners of his mouth tugging upward. This was the most welcome intrusion he could have imagined, except he needed to clarify one thing. "You are Spellman, right?"
“What do you mean when did I get here?” She looked up at him, taking in that smile and found herself scrunching her nose at his amusement. “I’ve been here nearly a year! When did you get here?” And how did he get into her room without her noticing? And why didn’t he wake her? Not that she minded him being in her bed but usually people wound up somewhere in the forest or city, not in bedrooms. "And I'm me. Not Sabrina Morningstar."
Wait. Was she not in Vallo anymore? Was she back home? Except she could still sort of feel Dan so that didn’t add up. “We’re in Vallo, aren’t we?” she asked as she looked around, really taking in just how off her room seemed in that moment. And not just because of the bottles on the floor. Were those cracks on her walls?
“And I’m fine.” A little bruised, but that was more her ego than anything else. She raked a hand through her hair, realizing that she wasn’t wearing her headband and had no idea where it might be in the bedroom since it didn’t seem to be on her dresser. “Are you okay?” The bottles kind of implied that maybe he wasn’t.
"A year?" he asked, because that definitely didn't add up. "I've been here two months, Spellman, and I definitely would have noticed if you were here with me." But this was Vallo, they'd worked that much out and she knew about it? But he was relieved that it was her, even as he'd searched for either one of them for the past two months.
"No, this is Vallo. At least, that's what it was called when there were actually people here. But how?" Maybe it really was an Eldritch terror although Nick couldn't quite work it together to make sense.
"I'm fine," he told her, his smirk returning as he momentarily pushed thoughts of the horrors of the universe aside. "I'm not the one who fell off the bed. You can come back up here, you know." He caught sight of the bottles and shrugged. "You know how this place is, apparently. At least we still got Dorian's."
She had to admit that he had a point and the floor was definitely not anywhere near as comfortable as her bed. Sabrina untangled herself from her blanket and got up onto the bed, sitting cross-legged as she stared at him. She was trying to wrap her head around everything that he was saying. None of it quite jived with what she’d experienced in Vallo.
“What do you mean when there were actually people here?” she asked, not quite sure what to do with her hands. Part of her wanted to reach out and touch him, to make sure he was actually there, but she refrained, settling them on her knees. “This place is full of people. And magic. There’s so much magic here. It’s almost overwhelming at times. Plus mythical creatures and gods and--how can we know the same place and it not quite be the same place?”
Had Eldritch terrors somehow seeped into Vallo as well? Or was this just another weird occurrence that happened every month or so? It was so hard to tell. “Did you find Cerberus’ too? And the Academy is here but its not quite what it was. Plus there’s…” Sabrina trailed off, not sure she wanted to bring up Pandemonium being around.
"Pandemonium?" he asked. "When I couldn't find you anywhere else I had to check…" He'd found it destroyed without having any idea of why or how and who may have been present. And even though he had no desire to ever go back, Roz had made him realize he needed to take a closer look then hearing of new arrivals meant more trips which he despised. It was only his search for Sabrina, either one of them, that kept him returning. "I'm not sure what's going on, Sabrina, but Vallo is a ghost town. Besides me and Roz, there's only a few other people here. Oh. Roz is here. In the mortuary. But probably still asleep."
Which was fine with Nick, as he selfishly wanted at least a little bit of time with her to himself right now. He brought his hand to her face, brushing his thumb against her cheek as his eyes locked on hers. Two long months had passed since he'd last seen her, and he'd started to wonder if he ever would again. "Whatever's happening, Spellman, it's better now that you're here."
Roz was here too? Sabrina went through a couple of emotions all at once, surprise bubbling forth that quickly turned to excitement over her best friend being there as well. Only for that to be quickly dashed when she realized that Roz and Nick had come to this apparent awful version of Vallo. One that was a ghost town and from what little she could see of the mortuary from her bedroom alone, seemed to be in severe disrepair. Why had Vallo brought them to this place instead of where she’d been, waiting desperately for anyone from home?
And then he touched her and Sabrina closed her eyes, leaning into that simple brush of his fingers. She might have new memories of him and of them but it had been a year since she’d had the opportunity to truly touch him, to feel him touch her. It was too much and not enough at the same time, a stray tear sliding down her cheek before she moved forward and hugged him.
She wanted to promise that she wasn’t going anywhere, but Sabrina had learned long ago that promises were pretty useless in Vallo. So instead she breathed out, “I missed you,” while still holding tightly onto him.
As soon as Sabrina hugged him, Nick returned the gesture and found himself relaxing for the first time in weeks. They were still trapped in this abandoned wasteland, but his anxiety and frustration that had built up over the past two months started to lessen at Sabrina's presence. Selfish as it was, he was relieved she was there.
"Missed you too, Spellman," he said, pulling back enough to rest his forehead against hers, allowing himself to believe for a moment that they were back home and hadn't been separated these past two months.
"Wait, how have you been gone a year?" he asked, going back to her earlier claim.
“Time works weirdly here,” she sighed, shrugging her shoulders as she took hold of his hand. “I don’t even pretend to understand it.” Every time she tried to make sense of any of it only led to a headache. “People can come from the same world and be from points along the timeline and you can come from one and get...memory updates.”
“It’s like you live out everything while you’re sleeping.” Or at least that was how it’d been for her, her head hurting for days afterward both times. “People get scars and other changes that happened during those memories. I don’t recommend it, but you also get no say in it.”
She let out another sigh as she pulled back some more, wanting to be able to look at him for her question. “So what’s the last thing you remember from home? Because like technically for me it’s a battle of the bands that I’m still trying to wrap my head around happening because of course Lucifer back home is just that damn petty and ridiculous.” His vindictiveness didn’t even surprise her anymore and she hoped he was rotting in Hell.
The next part was difficult to get out though and Sabrina looked down at Nick’s hand in hers. “But when I first arrived in Vallo you had just...sacrificed yourself and all I wanted to do was go home to get you out.”
That alone was a lot to take in and Nick gave up trying to figure out how it was possible that she had arrived at one point but now remembered everything she'd done up to the point where he'd found himself in Vallo.
"Well you did come rescue me, Spellman," he pointed out, not wanting to dwell too long on the past. She knew what happened after, after all and it had taken a toll on him. There wasn't a reason to dwell on that now, though. Not when he was seeing her for the first time in two months.
Nicholas dared a grin. "I hope you liked what I was wearing that night because that's all I arrived here with." Of course, he'd also taken advantage of the abandoned stores, which she would discover soon enough, if they didn't find a way home.
"So I take it you don't know how to get us out of here, then? Does your version remind you of the Darkness?"
Her grin was wicked when she looked back at him, giving him a once over before she licked her lips. “I remember liking the jacket and all of those chains to pull on.” Pity she didn’t have her outfit because she’d thought she’d looked hot in that getup. Maybe Vallo would be nice and send it to her one month.
“But no. My version of this place is vibrant and alive.” Not whatever dimestore horror movie lighting this place seemed to be perpetually drowned in. “I have no idea how to get us out but I doubt I’m the only one who came in?” It never worked like that when Vallo was playing its weird games with them. Others had to have arrived the same way she did...Roz and Nick showing up like they did was a wrench in the usual pattern though.
“Want to show me around?” After they woke up Roz so she could hug the heaven out of her best friend.
"Guess you're going to need more than just memories," Nick replied with a smirk, unable to stop himself and reveling in the normalcy. Were they good, here? Had they worked things out? And if they hadn't, could it not matter for even just a day?
"Of course, if you promise to fill me in on what this place is really like. And the past year of your life, apparently." As confused as he was about the time thing, curiosity was always going to get the better of him and heaven, a year was a long time.
She grinned at that, cheeks reddening a little with all the possibilities that flashed in her head at his statement, before she leaned forward, touching his chest. She couldn’t help but run her hand up it. She’d meant it when she’d teased him about it being impressive. “I think that just means you’re going to need to help me make some new ones.”
Sabrina pushed herself up off the bed and winked at him before holding out her hand. “But I’ll fill you in on everything, I promise. I also want to hear about everything you guys have been up to here. I’m sure you have your own interesting tales to tell.”
* * *
"You're right, Spellman," Nick said, walking the streets of Vallo with practiced wariness. "The magic here is overwhelming." Of course, so was the ashy darkness that never let up paired with the complete state of disarray, like the world was collapsing in on of itself. Not to mention there was always the possibility of running into some terrifying, predatory creature that stalked the abandoned streets with ease. Magic was his one advantage, and he felt for those without it.
"So what's the Vallo you know like?" he asked, glancing over at Sabrina and giving her hand a squeeze. "Who else is there? Anyone I know?"
It was Vallo but everything about the place was off. She furrowed her brow as she took it all in, locating shops that she’d frequented, spotting places that she thought she knew inside and out. They all were caving in on one another, the disrepair to them something that seemed to have been going on even longer than the months that Nick and Roz had been around.
She squeezed his hand back at the reminder that her friends had been in this world for so long. It seemed so unfair for the two of them to have dealt with the horrors of this place day in and day out.
“Just Ambrose from home. The aunties were around for a little while but they both went back home,” she murmured, hating the fact that they had to be so cautious. Even with all the randomness that Vallo liked to dole out, she’d never walked its streets with the wariness that seemed to come with this place. “This is what you guys have been living in?”
"Yeah well, I've been through worse," Nick pointed out with a slight shrug, not wanting to dwell on the point. It was just that having lived in Hell with the Dark Lord entrapped within him did give a certain sense of perspective. "Though I'm glad Roz and I found each other." It was easy to go days without seeing anyone else otherwise.
They arrived in front of Dorian's, and he led the way in. Books laid open on tables, looking more like Sabrina's cousin had been there than Nick. "I've been trying to figure out how to get us out of here." The discarded bottles and scattered glasses spoke of his lack of success, matching what she'd seen back at the mortuary.
"Haven't come up with much of anything," he admitted, finding it easier to focus on her now that they were inside.
“I’m glad you guys had one another.” Sabrina knew that it helped having someone else around. It had to be even more so in this wasteland. She looked around, heading over to the books to look through them and see what paths he’d started down to get them out. There was little point in commenting on the bottles and broken glass. She’d done her own fair share of damage to Dorian’s stockpile and Lux’s as well throughout the last year when various gifts from home had arrived.
“Usually things just kind of right themselves after a week here,” she murmured as she looked back at him, not sure they would find anything helpful among the texts. That didn’t line up at all with the experience Nick and Roz had apparently endured though. Part of her thoughts shifted to Sabrina Morningstar, wondering briefly if she’d landed in a world like this one instead of the version of Vallo Sabrina had been hoping for her ‘twin’. She quickly brushed that aside though, focusing back on Nick.
“I’m glad I found you too.”
"That would be nice," Nick replied wistfully. Even if righting itself meant that they'd all ended up at the alternate, better version of Vallo Sabrina was familiar with. He didn't have much faith in that happening. As he saw it, she was now trapped here with them unless they could find a way out.
"I know it's selfish, Spellman, but I'm glad you're here now. You're the best thing about this place."
“I’m not going anywhere without you,” she told him, holding out a hand to him.
Now she would promise that, not caring about whatever game Vallo was playing at or how she had no say in any of it. She would set the world on fire if it took Nick and Roz from her. If it was so intent on getting her to accept the part of her that was tied to Hell and decided to be a dick then she’d have no issue with destroying what she could as her own brand of justice.
"You better not," Nick replied, taking hold of her offered hand with only a faint trace of a smirk. "But maybe we can figure a way out of here." He was dangerously close to hope, something that had disappeared over the past couple of months. But if Sabrina had found her way in somehow, there had to be a way back. Right?
"Seen enough for now?"
“More than enough.” She squeezed his hand, offering up a smile. “Want to head back to the mortuary?” Because she really didn’t want to keep looking around or chance running into some random creature just yet. “I should check my phone when we get back. Usually things in Vallo happen to more than one person. So I might not be the only one who came through?”
And if others had come that meant more people to help try and get them all back where they should be.