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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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."

Nick feels like he's probably more set up to take this in stride than a mortal might be; he's been to the mountains of madness, after all, and he knows the weird ways that the world can turn in on itself. Still, it strikes him as inconvenient, if nothing else.

"...And you've been here for eight months? i just saw you..."

Sabrina would agree; she'd taken most of it pretty well herself. It had been the Home that had her most afraid and upset.

"Yes, and for me, the last thing I knew was being at the Academy just after the thing with the Thirteen. I'm not of age here, so I had to go to... like an orphanage."

Nick should have grown up in an orphanage, would have, if it wasn't for Amalia (her memory still sends an ache through all of the meat and bone of him). He'd gone to the Academy as soon as it was possible, and that had been his home after. He didn't remember his family, not really. But he knows what Sabrina's mean to her.

"Oh, Babe," he says, gently. "I'm so sorry."

She looks up wonderingly at him, that he's comforting her right now. Maybe....

"It wasn't terrible, except that I wasn't good at following the rules, and I really got in trouble. They were going to say I couldn't keep Salem, but Marcus-- he's a volunteer there, he said I could stay with him, since his partner had just vanished. Marcus is amazing. He used to be a Catholic priest, but they exiled him for not following their dumb rules. He's been there for me while I figured out how to deal with remembering everything."

Nick opens his mouth to say something about this man being a Catholic priest, but then Sabrina speaks so highly of him that, he supposes, he can't be bad. He just nods.

"It sounds like you had a hell of a learning curve, Spellman."

Sabrina slows slightly to consider this, and hums thoughtfully. "I think it's just how my life is supposed to be, whatever the world," she says. "You'll like Marcus. He knows about you, too."

And then they're at the cabin, and before they can make it to the porch, Salem has run in and out, coming back to announce that it's empty for the moment.

"Sounds like you've definitely been talking about me, Spellman," he teases, instinctively trying to lighten the mood for both of us. "I'm flattered. Truly."

Once they're inside the cabin, Nick finally kneels and gives Salem the attention he's been looking for, scratching between his ears and stroking him from nose to tail.

"I might have panicked when I got three months worth of memories during a black-out," she says, and she loves him so much, for doing that. "But then I couldn't stop."

Salem is happy to take over gaining Nick's attention, and that leaves Sabrina to take out her phone and start texting. First Charlie, and then Marcus.

"We're lucky it brought you nearly to my doorstep," she says quietly.

Nick stays on the floor with Salem while Sabrina texts. The familiar ends up curled in his lap, which, Nick supposes, means he'd better make himself comfortable on the floor. "How big is this place, anyway?" He looks down at himself, the baggy pants, and wrinkles his nose. "I don't suppose you've got something that I can change into? These tights are totally cramping my style."

Sabrina looks up from where she's just hit sent, and is struck a bit by how it seems like she can feel the world rotate around her. "Darrow? It's a big city, lots of surrounding countryside, an ocean... but once you go far enough, you start over."

She bites her lip on her first suggestion. "I have some oversized stuff from the first couple of weeks at the Home, before I was able to shop. T-shirt and sweatpants?"

"That would be perfect," says Nick. He gently dislodges Salem from his lap, pushing up to his feet. "When I'm on a sofa or something, you can come back, man," he says. "So it's...like a trap? A pocket universe. Like Dorian's or the Academy? In the world, but...not."

"Right," says Sabrina, who is slightly more flustered by Nick going to her room to change. Her cheeks are pink as she says, "Come on, I'll-- I'll get the clothes."

She's such a churning mess of emotions that it take her a second to seem to remember where to go, and then she's leading him through the open living and kitchen area to the hallway where her bedroom is. Get it together, Spellman.

She's blushing; Nick would be a liar if he said he didn't notice. He smiles at her as he slips past her into the room. "You can stay, if you want," he says, starting to unlace the doublet. "It's not like you haven't seen me in my boxers before, Spellman."

That only makes her blush harder, because there are a few memories that she's maybe played back alone in that very room, in the dark, feeling slightly guilty.

"I want to, believe me," she says, "but I have some things to--" She looks up at him, and though she's trying to hide her longing, she's not very successful. "I'll be in the living room." It's running away, but it's about all she can think of doing for now.

He feels a little bit bad about himself, after she runs away from him like that. He changes out of the fancy, ridiculous clothes, slipping into soft, worn things - sweatpants, a t-shirt. He ignores his boots for a moment and leaves his feet bare instead, padding out into the lounge to find her.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I shouldn't have...That wasn't fair."

Sabrina has another, much smaller crisis at the sight of him then, looking for all the world like she might have him come sit on the couch and hold her.

She sits on the couch by herself, and looks at her phone.

"It's okay. You know it's different for me. I'm not used to this-- is this what it was like? I know you weren't in love with the Weird Sisters, but what was it like, to-- I love you, so much, and I want you, so much, and I can say the same thing about Charlie."

"Are you asking me how it feels to be in love with two people, Spellman?" he asks, perching on the arm of the sofa and looking down at her. "Because, honestly, I don't know. I didn't figure it out until I met you."

"I guess I kind of was," Sabrina says. "I don't know, I thought maybe you'd have some insight." She just wants to touch him, and she thinks, maybe-- she takes a breath. "Will you hold my hand?"

She hears the echo of the past in it, but can't find anything inside her that regrets saying it. "While we wait," she clarifies. "Though you should probably drink some water and rest."