Sabrina Spellman (
signed_sabrina) wrote2019-05-18 01:57 pm
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Sabrina finds the book on the kitchen table.
She knows even before she's moving to open it that it's somehow from the place she only sometimes thinks of home, and she's moving toward it with the same sick feeling of compulsion that had led her to another book in the woods.
But this is not the Book of the Beast. She can see it's a book of prophecy, and with a shaking hand, she reaches for it. It feels familiar under her hands; she opens to the page marked with what looks like a page torn from a sketch book.
Before she can identify the actual content of the drawing, she knows Harvey's made it, knows his hand; when she looks a bit longer, she realizes this is her own face, but not, somehow wrong and evil and everything she's tried to pretend she's not. Trembling violently, she moves the drawing away and finds that the page beneath has an underlined passage.
She leans down to read it, and then she's falling, and she's closing her eyes with Salem's panicked yowls fading away.
Her eyes open and she's curled up on the floor, the afternoon light turned to dim twilight tones, her face wet and sticky with tears. She wants to claw at her own skin, she pushes her hands through her hair to get rid of a crown that isn't there, she screams and hits her fists against the floor.
Even Salem is gone, but as sure as she knows anything, she knows he's gone for help and she's going to have to move quickly to make sure that doesn't happen. There's no help for her here.
Her legs are unsteady, but they carry her as she grabs her bag and takes off out the door.
At the edge of town, there's a place she's always eyed with the suspicion of one who knows she'll visit, but not when. She goes to the Necropolis now, picking out a particularly large and suitably Satanic looking mausoleum.
Chalk and candles and a knife-- she has these things in her bag all the time, and she works with them now. She draws the circle, the sigils, the sacred geometry that will form her makeshift prison. Her blood charges the lines, and the trio of candles serve as a timer. When they burn themselves out, she will no longer be able to alter this trap. It's foolish to think no one else could, but she's fairly certain it will take long enough that-- that--
She doesn't know.
She just can't let herself be out there, a loaded gun, the bringer of an apocalypse, traitor to everything and everyone she loves.
Drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them tight, she tucks her face out of sight, and lets the candles burn.
She knows even before she's moving to open it that it's somehow from the place she only sometimes thinks of home, and she's moving toward it with the same sick feeling of compulsion that had led her to another book in the woods.
But this is not the Book of the Beast. She can see it's a book of prophecy, and with a shaking hand, she reaches for it. It feels familiar under her hands; she opens to the page marked with what looks like a page torn from a sketch book.
Before she can identify the actual content of the drawing, she knows Harvey's made it, knows his hand; when she looks a bit longer, she realizes this is her own face, but not, somehow wrong and evil and everything she's tried to pretend she's not. Trembling violently, she moves the drawing away and finds that the page beneath has an underlined passage.
She leans down to read it, and then she's falling, and she's closing her eyes with Salem's panicked yowls fading away.
Her eyes open and she's curled up on the floor, the afternoon light turned to dim twilight tones, her face wet and sticky with tears. She wants to claw at her own skin, she pushes her hands through her hair to get rid of a crown that isn't there, she screams and hits her fists against the floor.
Even Salem is gone, but as sure as she knows anything, she knows he's gone for help and she's going to have to move quickly to make sure that doesn't happen. There's no help for her here.
Her legs are unsteady, but they carry her as she grabs her bag and takes off out the door.
At the edge of town, there's a place she's always eyed with the suspicion of one who knows she'll visit, but not when. She goes to the Necropolis now, picking out a particularly large and suitably Satanic looking mausoleum.
Chalk and candles and a knife-- she has these things in her bag all the time, and she works with them now. She draws the circle, the sigils, the sacred geometry that will form her makeshift prison. Her blood charges the lines, and the trio of candles serve as a timer. When they burn themselves out, she will no longer be able to alter this trap. It's foolish to think no one else could, but she's fairly certain it will take long enough that-- that--
She doesn't know.
She just can't let herself be out there, a loaded gun, the bringer of an apocalypse, traitor to everything and everyone she loves.
Drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them tight, she tucks her face out of sight, and lets the candles burn.
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Because every now and then he behaves like something else entirely.
He jumps up into the cab of the truck and begins to pace on the seat, so Marcus closes the door and continues the rest of the drive home. Something is wrong. He doesn't need to look at Salem to feel it and he's not surprised when they arrive back at the house and Salem goes streaking for the front door, which Marcus unlocks.
"Sabrina?" he calls, even though he knows better.
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However, Sabrina has most certainly violated one of her agreements, and so Salem makes sure Marcus sees him, and he's dealing with traffic as he gets into the truck.
And Salem is right.
There's no sign of his girl, besides the book that had caused her to fall to the floor. He jumps up, prancing around it and yowling at Marcus.
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Sam might be able to track her, he thinks. But maybe Salem will work just as well. He'll have to call Charlie and then he blanks on who else.
Returning to the kitchen, he finally looks at the book, glancing at the drawing and then at the passage that's been underlined. He reads it three times, picking up the book and carrying it with him while he absently looks for the Scrabble box. As he finishes the third read through, he scatters tiles on the kitchen table and looks to Salem.
"Where did she go?"
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His tail lashes wildly as he sniffs and pokes at the letters, complaining more quietly now, a low growl.
s-l-e-e-p
This set is nudged away and set by an o-n.
The next set is t-o and f-i-n-d m-a-r-k-s.
An expectant look up at Marcus, and a meow.
t-h-r-e
r-a-n g-o-n
h-i-d-e
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"She ran," he says. "And she's hiding somewhere."
Not with Charlie, not with something of this level. He thinks if she's run from the house, she's likely run from Charlie, too, and even as Marcus takes his phone out of his pocket to call Sabrina, he knows she's not going to answer. Still, he has to try, and he paces a little, waiting, even though his call is never picked up.
"Where might she go?" he asks and he's speaking to himself as much as he is Salem. "Where... not to see Charlie. Not back to the Home. The store? Do you think she went to Leviathan?"
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Salem sits besides the pieces, batting them around to get rid of the words, waiting for Marcus to return, and with some similar conclusions. His tail lashes and there's a dismissive meow.
After what is clearly nearly a minute of thinking, Salem hisses and turns back to the letters.
t-h-i-n-x e-v-i-l
e-v-i-l p-l=a=s
g-r-a-v-s
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"Come on, then," he says to Salem. "We'll call Charlie on the way."
Given what he's just read in the book, Marcus isn't sure Sabrina is going to want to see him first. He's too tangled up in the ideas of God and the devil, the end of the world and trying to prevent it. Charlie will be the right choice to go to her, see what she needs. Marcus will do what he can from afar and then be there. After. When she lets him know she needs him.
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"Sabrina?" he says. "Baby?"
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This is going to be the real test.
She can't let herself break the line.
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"What are you..." He stands back, taking in the boundary, the blood smeared on the floor, on her hands, on her clothes. "Sabrina," he says, trying to make his voice firmer. "In what world do you think I'm going anywhere? I know...I saw the book, Sabrina. You have to talk to me."
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"My real father is Lucifer, Charlie. I touched the book and I dreamed, like I did the other time, and I can feel it. I'm the daughter of the devil. And I did it, I brought the Apocalypse like I was supposed to. I'm not chancing it again."
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"Sabrina," he says, his voice smaller than before, on his knees in front of the barrier. "You can't honestly thing I care about that? Any of that. I love you. I will always love you."
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She reaches for the other thing she has to tell him.
"And I-- there's something-- someone else. I fell in love at home. I lived it all out. His name is Nick and I can still feel myself loving him, even while I love you. And I might as well have killed him. He's in Hell, with Lucifer inside of him, because of me."
She's crying openly, the tears raining down her cheeks.
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That admission feels a bit like a punch to the gut, and, for a moment, Charlie can't catch his breath. He almost says that he'd been falling in love with someone back home, but then he realises that it's not the same, just because of how she says it. But it doesn't matter because it's just the two of them there. That other boy is something else completely.
"We need to talk about it, Sabrina," he says. "You need to take...whatever this is. You need to take it down, sweetheart."
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"We can talk," she says, unable to keep the devastation from her voice. "But the candles will burn down and then it's set and I won't be able to take it apart. I don't know what I'm going to do, but if I can't leave, I can't hurt anyone."
She doesn't believe this is ironclad; she suspects Magnus could probably take it apart, or even Marcus's hunter friend. But it can buy her time, maybe. Or-- or-- maybe they can't take it apart. Maybe she stays here.
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"I just want to be there for you," he says, quietly, head tipped back, studying the space between them. "I just...can't I touch you? Won't that feel better?" He doesn't care about Nick, doesn't care about anything. He just wants to keep the girl that he loves from feeling any more pai.
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If he touches her, if she feels anything besides this pain, she might forget what she is, after all.
She's holding herself in place so tightly that her muscles ache. "I only seem to be able to hurt people."
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"You've never hurt me," he says, his voice a little sharper and he's as close to her as he can get with the barrier in the way. "I don't believe you ever would, Sabrina. I don't believe it for a second. You're the love of my life, okay? You're everything to me. And I'm not letting you do any of this on your own. You don't have to do it on your own. Because I'm right here. And I'm not going anywhere."
A tear rolls down his cheek. Charlie can't remember the last time he actually cried. But there it is.
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She's uncurled herself, leaning closer. They're not more than ten feet apart, but the candles are burning lower, starting to flicker.
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He knows what will happen when the counters flicker out and Charlie can't have that. He doesn't know what he can do, but that's never stopped him before. He stands up, shoving against the barrier with both hands as hard as he can, trying to push though it, trying to get to her. The pain starts small at first, but then it ends up with searing pain and the smell of singed flesh. Charlie staggers back, cradling his burned hands against his chest.
"Sabrina, please..."
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"Stop," she begs, "STOP, don't do that!"
But it's hurting him and she made it, and she can feel it hurting him and smell it hurting him and she has. She's hurt him anyway, and even if she's only going to keep doing it, she thinks she'd rather risk the end of the world if she can keep him from this, from that way he says her name and pleads.
"Charlie," she chokes out. She doesn't even feel it when she takes the knife up and cuts herself to smear blood through the lines, breaking them. She staggers out and goes to him, weeping, reaching for him. "Charlie, no, I'm sorry, don't, I'm sorry."
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The minute he can, he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close, the palms of his hands scorched and cracked, bleeding a little. He drops frantic kisses into her hair.
"You can't do that," he says, his face wet with tears. "You can't go where I can't get to you."
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One of the candles flickers out behind her.
"I won't leave you again."
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"Whatever it is, whatever's going to happen, we're doing it together," he says, holding her as tightly as he can. "Promise me."
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There's a little pulse between their hands, and she kisses him with trembling lips.
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Charlie feels it happen, feels things mend and, when their hands part, his palm is tender, but whole. He blinks at her, tears still clinging to his eyelashes, and then he holds out his other hand to her. Because he trusts her, completely and utterly.
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Magic, yes, but the kind of magic she knows she'd been trying to find in the words of Edward Spellman.
She wraps that hand in her bloody fingers, and raises it to kiss the back. "Whatever comes, whenever it comes, you're with me. Because I love you, and you love me. Promitto."
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"I love you too," he says, and he's never meant anything so much in his life. When his hands are whole again, he wraps both arms around her tightly, pushing his fingers into her hair to crush her against him.
"We need go somewhere that's not here. I don't care who's place it is, but I don't want to be here anymore."
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"I took off without telling Salem, or Marcus. We should go back there. I'm sure you can stay over. I'm not letting go of you tonight."
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"They're the ones who got me here," he says, stroking her hair. "But let's go to your place. I just want to be where you are, Sabrina. We've got...You need to talk to me about all this."
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She sighs and tugs away just enough so that she can walk. "Time to face the music?"
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Charlie keeps his arm tight around her, keeping her close, but nods. "I'm here, sweetheart," he says. "For whatever you need."
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Eventually, as the sky has barely begun to lighten, Marcus gives up on trying to sleep.
With Trass padding along behind him, Marcus goes to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee, knowing he'll need the caffeine today. Sabrina might need it, too, and he can have it ready for her when she gets up. He won't wake her, won't disturb her, because he imagines she needs a great deal of rest after yesterday, but at least he can get things ready. And he can be here when she comes out of her room.
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She pads into the kitchen in over-sized woolen socks, and sits down at the table.
For a minute, she's just quiet, and then she says, "I'm sorry I ran away. I was scared."
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"Sugar?" he asks, nodding at her coffee. He takes his own black and he pulls his mug closer, holding it between his hands to warm them.
They have to talk. He's seen the book and she'd told him in the truck on the way home about the memories that had come up when she'd fainted, and there's so much there, he knows she needs to talk about it. He can't rush her through it, though, it has to come up in her own time.
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Still, she waits until Marcus has passed the sugar over and she's added it to taste, a fairly ridiculous amount that she knows means she'll have to eat or suffer a bit of a crash. Then again, this is already a pretty big crash.
"Lucky you," she says finally, without bitterness, just resignation. "You've managed to end up housing the daughter of Lucifer. I-- I can't even be entirely sure I'm half witch. I don't know if there's any of Edward Spellman in me. What does that make me, then? Is the Lucifer from my world technically a demon? Or still a fallen angel?"
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But Marcus has never seen evidence of the devil. He's seen demons, plenty of them, and he knows not a single one of those things could have ever fathered a child as bright and caring and brilliant as Sabrina.
"It makes you Sabrina Spellman," he answers. "Exactly who you've been already for sixteen years and exactly who you'll continue to be from here on. And I am lucky. I'm lucky you're here, I'm lucky Charlie was able to convince you to come back. I'm very lucky to be the one looking out for you and don't think for a second any of what you've learned will change my mind on that."
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She sniffles a little, looking down again. "Just my existence tore the coven apart, though all the times I pushed Blackwood didn't help. He wanted us dead, and when the Dark Lord commanded him to accept me as Queen, he chose--" Her voice breaks a little. "He chose to poison them before he ran away. He was responsible for them and he killed as many as he could. I didn't make him do it, but would have have? If I weren't part of the equation?"
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Men like that don't learn. They don't change. They only hurt others for their own personal gain.
"You're not a monster," he says gently. "You never could be. We are not our parents, you and I. We are our own people. Whatever mark they think they get to leave on us is ours to do with what we will. None of what you learned changes that."
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"And it's not like I didn't do anything. I performed the miracles, the perversion of them, and I blew the horn, and I wore the crown and I danced his waltz. If my mortal friends hadn't figured out how to block the gates of Hell, I would have brought the Apocalypse."
She's trying not to let her hands shake, but that's a losing battle. "I'd do it again, too. If he was here and I could keep you alive, keep Charlie alive, by doing it, I would."
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He doesn't know that he can change what she thinks of any of that, but there are stories he can tell her. Of evil.
"My parents, Sabrina, were as evil as two people could get. They beat me. Burned me with cigarettes. They hated each other and hated me for having been born. When I was seven, my father took up a hammer and he used it to beat my mother to death. Right in front of me. I knew I would be next, so I took his hunting rifle off the wall and I shot him. He died still trying to choke me to death. His hands 'round my neck. I saw it in his eyes, how angry he was, how much evil there was inside of him." He strokes the back of Sabrina's hand. "But I am not my father. I make my choices to be good as often as I can and so do you. Maybe he's your father and maybe he's evil, but evil isn't passed through blood. Evil is a choice."
He smiles a little, then reaches up to smooth back some of her hair. "I've seen the face of God, duck. I know goodness when I see it and there's so much good in you."
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When she thinks of the true evil of the creature that is apparently her father, what she thinks of are those moments in which she'd seen his eyes, enjoying the torment he put her through, revealing Nick, happy to kill her family. She meets Marcus's eyes, and he smiles and is gentle with her.
He thinks she's good, and she wants to be, so much.
"I tried so hard," she finally stammers out, and throws her arms around his neck and lets herself cry, a different sort of tears than have been poured elsewhere. "I'm so sorry, I'm sorry, I tried so hard." She's apologizing, she knows, to ears that can't hear her, in another world, but the words and the weeping keep coming.
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"S'alright, duck," he murmurs. "I've got you. You're alright."
She needs this release. Marcus isn't going stop her tears or tell her she has nothing to cry about. People need these moments, these times to fall apart, and if he can give her somewhere space in which to do so, then he's done his job.
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She sniffles as the tears start to dry up, and whispers, "Thank you, Marcus. If I had to have a surprise dad, I really wish it could have been you instead."
Breathing evenly, only sniffing a bit here and there, she doesn't think she can be blamed for letting herself be comforted a little bit longer, pressing her face into his shoulder.
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Caring for Sabrina has hardly been a trial and he's been surprised by just how naturally it's come to him, too. Going beyond an adult friend available to help out where needed was never something he imagined he would do.
But they're here now. And he adores her entirely, knows he would do anything for her. There's no harm in it, he figures, if it gives them both the security they need.