awickedtime | (no subject)

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It's all going so well, until the moment when it all falls apart. He'd stood there with the others, aware of all of the glamour laced around the like threads of gold, watching Sabrina and the Dark Lord dance, unable to tell, in that moment, which one of them shone brighter. It was like they were both bleeding light. When the Dark Lord had come to Nick with his request, he'd been in a different form, and it had never occurred to Nick, never in his life, that he could be so...beautiful.

It makes sense though. When he thinks about it.

When the others start chanting, Nick starts chanting too, repeating the words that he's learned by heart, that he knows in his muscles, in his bones. A spell to bind the devil; an incantation to beat him at his own name.

By the time Lilith sends the glamour up in smoke, by the time Lucifer catches on, it's too late. The trap's been set.

"I told you what would happen if you defied me again," he spits and something inside Nick, something primal and primate, wants to run away and hide somewhere deep and dark and secret. Sabrina doesn't back down though. She's brave and brilliant, in her crown; she's blazing light. She is, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing that Nick Scratch has ever seen.

But he's always thought that, hasn't he?

"Remember my name!" she says, "Remember it was me - Sabrina Spellman - who beat you, Lucifer Morningstar."

Ambrose sends the Acheron Configuration skittering across the floor and light flares before it dies and Lucifer Morningstar, Satan, the Dark Lord himself, is gone without trace.

It feels like his heart is going to burst in his chest. He's so proud of her. He loves her so much. Even if she never wants him close to her ever again, that's a thing that's always going to be true.

"Well planned, Spellman," he says.

"Yes," says Zelda. "Edward would have been proud."

And then it doesn't matter what anyone else would have said, what anyone else thinks, because the Acheron jumps and shudders in Sabrina's hand and she cries out like she's been burned, and then the thing explodes into all of these pieces and there he is, once again, beautiful and terrible in his fury.

"You try and try to defeat me! I am the great Satan, that no prison may contain!"

He surges forward towards Sabrina and then, just as suddenly, stops, and Nick can feel the power coming off Lilith in waves. How did they ever mistake her for anything other than what she so clearly was? How stupid were they?

"Hold that nasty thought! I can't restrain him for long. We'll need a better prison. A stronger one."

And what she says is true - that the most perfect prison ever created was one of flesh and bone, all of the shit and blood and wonder that went into human bodies, witch or mortal. Bodies were miracles, mazes, and Nick knows, in that moment, what he has to do next. The only choice he has, really. A way to make up for everything that he's done wrong, every step he took away from the girl in front of him. When Sabrina insists that it has to be her, there's a chorus of disagreement, but nobody's voice is as vehement as Nick's own.

"Absolutely not! I'm the best binder and conjurer since Edward Spellman; if anyone can keep him trapped, it's me."

He can feel the relief coming off everyone except Sabrina, which makes sense too; who did he ever belong to, before he belonged to her? He looks at her, a tear overspilling her lashes and rolling down her cheek, and it feels like his heart is going to burst. It feels like he can't breathe for loving her, like there's no room in his body for anything else.

"I love you, Spellman…" He says, the first time he's ever said it, to anyone, his whole life. He didn't even know that he could feel it, not like this. "You taught me how to love."

The words come back to him. Body. Darkness. Hold. Hold. Hold. Palace. Prison.

He hits his chest to finish the incantation and there's this rush of darkness, this roaring noise in his ears and he drops down to his knee, and he's fighting it, he's fighting so, so hard, because he's never wanted anything in his life, he's never wanted anything like he wants her to be safe, and...and….

"Nick? Nicholas?"

He hears her say his name, as if from a long way away, but he can't see anything, can't make out anything except the vaguest hint of gold in the darkness, gold that might be her hair or her dress or her crown, and then he hears Ambrose (he thinks) cry something about sleep, and he's gone then…

Nothing. For a long, long time.

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"Nick," she says again, begs, her voice starting to shake. "Nick, please. You can't get here and not wake up." Ignoring the warning cries from Salem, she's moving so that she can cradle him more easily in her arms.

She ducks down to press their foreheads together.

"Nick," she implores, and realizes his face is wet now, she's the one crying, "Nicholas Scratch, if you don't wake up, I will never ever forgive you. Come back to me, and I mean it."

It's not like he doesn't want to. He's never wanted anything like he wants to do what Sabrina Spellman wants him to. But his mouth is not his own, and he can't break the spell without her. He tries to astral project, but he can't break the bounds of his body. He can't get there.

With an absolute yowl, Salem leaps onto Nick's legs, and climbs up to nudge at Sabrina's head.

Mrrrrrrow.

She looks up, her eyes wide as she listens to the series of chirps. "I--" She has to calm down, to stop panicking. "A spell. I mean, yes, there's possibly more spells on him than I'd like to even think about, but--"

At her cry of understanding, Salem hops down, and Sabrina leans back in, holding Nick's face tenderly.

"Surgite," she says, her voice soft. "Surgite, Nicholas. Wake up for me now."

It's like a lock being opened, like a rope being cut. One minute he's stymied, stuck, and then the next he's surfacing, slamming wake like a man emerging from deep water. He gasps for breath.

"Sabrina..."

"Nick," she says, and tips his face into the light so she can see his eyes, just to be sure. She knows before she's done that she won't see anything but Nick there, and she's smiling through the tears she no longer feels falling.

"There you are," she whispers.

"Here I am," he says, smiling at her despite the desperate ache in his head, despite the fact that he doesn't have a very clear memory of anything after he told her...

He glances around frowning.

"What...why are we in the woods? We were at Dorian's..."

It takes so much effort to settle for kissing him on the forehead, her eyes closed. She'll have calls to make and texts to send, but right now, she needs to finish making sure he's alright.

Sitting up again, she moves so he's leaning against her in a way more comfortable to both of them.

"We were at Dorian's," she agrees, "but we're not anymore. We're not in Greendale, or even in the same-- world. We're somewhere else. It's safe here, though, mostly. I've been here for about eight months, and Lucifer hasn't reached me here. I don't know how much to tell you until I know you're okay."

"I'm okay," he says, because he is, or, at least, he thinks he is. He's okay wherever she is. "I...the last thing I remember was..." There's a brief moment where his eyebrows pull together, and then he's looking up at her, dark eyes searching her face. "I remember telling you that I...That..." He frowns again. "Eight months? Spellman, that doesn't make sense."

Except maybe it does? He has no idea how long he was under.

Her face crumples slightly, and she ducks her head low, the tears continuing to fall. "It's complicated. This place has some kind of magic that-- I was at the Academy, and it was just after I'd finally signed the Book. I remember that I saw you in the hallway, when I was walking with the Weird Sisters. And then I went through a doorway and I was here. That was eight months ago. Except about a week and a half ago, something appeared here from-- it was a book of prophecy, you know it. And I touched it and I dreamed, and I was home but not, and I remembered everything."

She makes herself talk through her tears.

"I remember you saying you love me. I remember you binding Lucifer to you, and Ambrose putting you to sleep. I remember Lilith taking you away. About the only thing I don't remember is how long I sat at the Gates of Hell until my aunts got me home."

"Wait," says Nick, a sick realisation settling in the bit of his stomach, cold and thick and heavy. "The...the gates of Hell?" He'd known, he supposed, that if his idea had worked then there would have to be consequences, but he'd hoped...he'd hoped that it might buy him back into her good grace.

He'd hoped.

She takes a long, wet breath.

"I went-- we all went down with Lilith as she carried you down. She said that was where you had to be kept while Lucifer was inside you. I gave her my crown and she gave me my powers. Promised to take care of you. And then I watch her carry you away into Hell, and I--"

She takes another gulping breath. "And the Gates closed, and I don't know how long I stayed there, leaning against the doors and hoping someone would come tell me it was a mistake and you could come back to me."

There's so much that Nick doesn't understanding, but that will keep. What matters is that the girl in front of him is crying, and he loves her, with his whole heart. He reaches out, wrapping his arms around her.

"I'm here," he murmurs. "I'm right here. Safe. I'm back, Spellman. It's okay."

She breaks completely then, winding her arms around him, and even if it's stolen time right now, these moments before she has to figure out what to do, she needs them. Sabrina wraps around him and cries, huge ragged sobs that have been lodged so deep inside since the night she ran to the Necropolis that she's only felt them here or there.

"I'm sorry," she manages to say. "I'm so sorry that I didn't get time to make sure you know that I'm not angry with you, how much you mean to me. I'm sorry I spit at you. I'm sorry about what I am, that you had to taken that on for me."

All Nick can do is hold onto her, cradle her against his chest while she cries. His own eyes sting, tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Sabrina," he says, his voice raw. "I deserved it, okay? I deserved all of it. And I never held it against you. I...I lied to you. I didn't mean to hurt you, but I did, and I am so, so sorry."

When she's able to catch her breath, marveling slightly at how it feels to have his arms around her here, as this Sabrina, she looks up again, pushing her fingers through his hair in a familiar gesture.

She smiles up at him with a tear-smudged face. "We both were manipulated, by... more people than I would care to say. But I've had time to think about it, and I believe you. It hurt so much more to have to watch, to stand there and not be able to do anything, and for you to be gone."

Sabrina smooths his hair back, wipes at his face. "And I believe you, what you said about choir class. I believe that's true."

"How hard I fell." His tears are still falling, even as she brushes them away. He hasn't cried like this since Amalia died. "I meant it, Spellman. Every word."

She wipes carefully at each droplet, smiling despite the dizzying storm of emotions. “I believe you, Nick, how could I not?” Her chest seizes up and releases.

“There’s so many things I have to tell you, explain, figure how to—“. Sabrina sucks in a breath. “But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t make sure you understand what I knew when I saw the Gates close to keep us apart. I love you too, Nicholas Scratch, and you deserve to hear it.”

And then he's laughing and crying and he doesn't care where he is, in any world or under it, as long as he's with her. He leans in and presses a kiss against her mouth, his face still wet, his hands shaking.

"So let me hear it again," he says. "And then tell me what the hell is going on here."

She shouldn't, she thinks, take this kiss. She has to talk to Charlie.

But Sabrina knows a few things by now, and the way Nick responds-- she knows she loves them both, with all the passion and sweetness inside of her, and yet the feelings are somehow different. She knows that just as she needs to face this with Charlie, she needs to make Nick absolutely clear that he doesn't love in vain.

What that could mean remains just out of reach-- but Nick is here and she kisses him back with every bit of her love before she has to pull away. "I love you," she says. "And I have to tell you things I don't want to, I--" She pulls away, her hands wringing, but she can't get too far.

"This place, I've been here eight months. Sometimes it catches me up with what's happened in Greendale. A couple of weeks ago, the last thing I knew was the winter holidays, and then everything else. But I've built a life, and new friends, and family, I suppose." Her eyes hold his, because she should be brave enough for it. "A boyfriend. A mortal named Charlie, and I love him. I love him, and I love you, and if I know you, I think this is more important than going to pick up your creepy envelope at the train station."

"I...Yes. Definitely more important than an envelope." He doesn't ask how an envelope can be creepy; they'll figure that out later. For now, he just absorbs what she's said about time, months spent apart, and the way that she's built a life here without him. Another mortal boy. It's a depressingly familiar story, but, this time, at she loves him too. "Well," he says, managing a smile that he doesn't quite feel, "You know what I said before. I'm down with sharing."

He means it as a joke. Half means it as a joke, anyway.

Even at his smile, the way he takes it, her lip trembles, and she's continuing to work her hands against each other as she wills herself not to cry about it.

"When I remembered, a couple of weeks ago, I told him everything. He knows you exist. He knows I love you. He knows I lost you, and that only by being very sure that I, or the Sabrina back home anyway, would go right back to hell to find you, that's how I kept my heart from breaking."

She can't help but wonder, this time, about his words, like she never had before. Real questions flood her mind, and still, the first step in any of it-- "I'm taking you home, and then I need to call a couple of people."

She starts to climb to her feet, and she wants to kiss him so badly she nearly does cry again. Instead, she holds out her hand.

He watches her wring her hands like that for a moment and then he reaches out, covering them with both of his and squeezing them both gently. He listens to her talk, and then he nods, taking all of that in.

"Where you want to go, Spellman," he says. "I'm there. But I might need you to answer some questions for me, too." He reaches out and takes her hand, climbing to his feet. Once they're both standing, he leas i and presses a soft kiss against her forehead. "It'll be alright."

Sabrina keeps her hands in his, because surely that's alright, and she needs to touch him to know she can keep him here, that this isn't another dream. "I bet you do have questions. You can ask, though I'm afraid there's not a lot of answers about this place."

The touch of his lips to her forehead has her eyes closing, and she sighs, somehow feeling joy and pain wrap themselves around her heart. "Come on," she says gently, and begins to lead him down the path. "It's really not that far at all."

He would go wherever she led him, and he suspects that they both know that by now.

"So...you need to tell me more about this place, Sabrina," he says, gently. "How did I get here? What am I doing here?"

Having his hand makes her breathe easier, and Salem trots along beside them, clearly looking to get a bit of Nick's attention too.

"It's called Darrow," she says, focusing on the task at hand. "It's a city, and it's like... some sort of dimensional vortex or limbo or something. No one knows, and there are people who have been brought from all sorts of... dimensions? Realities? I think it's pretty rare that there's more than one from the same place. No one chooses when they come or go. Most people just focus on the now. There are other people that seem to be native, but they have no idea about any of it and don't talk about it."