listen to the wind blow (down comes the night)

[signed_sabrina]

running in the shadows
damn your love, damn your lies

i. Charlie
ii. Rosie

listen to the wind blow (watch the sun rise)

i. Charlie & Kavinsky
ii. Marcus
iii. Sam


[Collection post for Sabrina's threads during Lucifer's possession of Nick.]

Comments

[teenagerenegade]

Her text had been upset and frantic to the point of incoherence and Charlie had dropped what he was doing and borrowed the keys to Newt's truck. It was a pattern that he hated every time it repeated - not because he'd begrudge Sabrina any comfort that she needed, but because he hated that shit happened to make her keep needing it.

He kills the engine and jumps straight out of the truck, heading for the front door and ringing the bell, pulling out his phone at the same time to send a quick text.

It's only me.

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina has been sitting numbly on the couch, watching Salem as he stalks about the living room (and makes some truly strange and awful sounds). She keeps her arms wrapped around herself, and watches her phone.

She'd texted Charlie.

She knows he'll be here.

No matter how Nick has shaken her faith in so many things, she knows that Charlie will be here soon.

When the bell rings, she's quick to the door, opening it and barely giving Charlie a change to get through before she's burying her face, nearly sheet white with pink-rimmed eyes, into his chest.

[teenagerenegade]

As always, as ever, he wraps his arms around her, holding her close against his chest, murmuring comforting nonsense into his hair. "What's wrong, sweetheart?" he says. "What did he do?"

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina can't even quite push through the shock to cry again, and trembles in his arms as she shifts to be able to speak. "I still don't understand," she whispers. "He told me he-- he was tired of me. He broke up with me." The whisper is tiny, numb.

[teenagerenegade]

Rage washes through him, similar to what he'd felt when David had broken up with Rosie but hotter, this time, so much hotter, because it's Sabrina who's sobbing in his arms. "Nick?" He frowns, trying to puzzle through how that can possibly be a thing that's happened. "I...I don't understanding, Brina. He did what?"

[forthsofar]

Rosie would like to say that she was out the door and on her way to Sabrina's the second her friend's text buzzed through, full of anguish and confusion and pain. In truth, it took her a few minutes--most of them spent in slightly frozen horror, trying to make sense of what the other girl was even saying, how such a thing could be. The time for trying to understand it will come, she knows, and it's that reminder that starts her feet moving, lets her scrawl a note left on the kitchen counter for Neil (At Sabrina's--something happened, may not be home tonight), sends her hurrying out to the bus stop for the route that will take her up into the countryside.

Once the bus lets her off, she's running as fast as she can, up the slightly twisting road that leads to the cabin. Reaching the front door, she knocks once, then again, breathing hard. "Sabrina? Sabrina, it's me, it's Rosie."

[signed_sabrina]

The door swings open, and it's Salem who greets Rosie with a cacophony of noise, managing to sound both affronted and deeply upset as he trots off toward Sabrina's room-- most likely announcing her arrival.

Sabrina's on the bed, on top of her bedclothes, back to the door and curled up as tightly as she can manage. None of it makes sense; it's so wrong, and so against every talk they've had, every kiss and embrace.

She wants to cry, or to scream, but she feels frozen. She can't even make herself turn around to face Rosie, just sucks in a shaky breath.

[forthsofar]

That it's Salem answering the door concerns her all the more, something cold settling in the pit of her stomach as she follows him through the house and down the hall to Sabrina's door, left ajar only enough for her to see a sliver of the miserable scene inside. Carefully, slowly, Rosie pushes it open.

"Oh, Sabrina," she breathes, looking down at the small, shattered thing Sabrina's been reduced to. Still careful, still slow, she goes to the side of the bed, then climbs up, curving herself around the other girl. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina gulps in a breath of air, again, as if each inhale pains her.

For a moment, she's completely still, her muscles stiff and her frame rigid, and then she manages to release that same wet punch of air. She can't make herself turn to face Rosie just yet, but she reaches for her hands, her arms to cling onto as she tries to make the words come out.

"I don't understand," she whispers. "How-- how can he not love me anymore?"

[forthsofar]

Rosie doesn't say anything at first, knowing the struggle Sabrina's going through, sensing it in every shaking breath. She'd gone through it herself, not long at all ago--even now, there's still a dull sort of ache deep within her, the last traces of the hurt David had caused her before she'd run sobbing from his house. That had been bad, but this? This is so much worse. This is Nick, the boy Sabrina had loved and lost, and been determined to go to Hell for the sake of.

Rosie never would have done half of that for David, even before she'd learned what she did about him.

When Sabrina laces their fingers together, when her hands curl around Rosie's arms, she moves just slightly, just enough to hold her friend a little more tightly. "I wish I knew," she says, her voice just as soft as Sabrina's. "I'm so sorry, I wish I knew."

the devil you know

[signed_sabrina]

It only comes to her when she's cried herself out, when the feelings are no longer drowning her, leaving her to cling onto the people she still has. She's alone, Salem prowling the property-- only because there's overlap in people spending time with her. Curled up on top of her bed, having turned over only to find herself staring at a picture of herself with Nick, one bright and sunny day after the winter had faded. There are other pictures, Charlie and Rosie and Marcus, and others too, and she finds herself following two thoughts to their end.

The first is that she's so lucky, even if she will eventually lose the mortals in her life, to have them now.

The second is that she doesn't understand Nick's change in heart towards them, and it tugs at her mind in a way that his new disdain for her can't. His feelings for her are too painful to examine, but there's something that doesn't fit.

He'd studied her father's work, after all. He'd agreed with her about the need for witches and mortals to be side by side, and not just because it had made her happy. And there had been no faking the warmth and shine in his eyes when she'd brought him to Baxter High, no faking the wonder of it.

It's not like him. None of this is like him.

None of this is Nick.

None of this is Nick.

She sits up, feeling like she's struggling to push to the surface of a very dark ocean. God, maybe it's just stupid, desperate hope, but this makes sense more than anything. Something's wrong. She'd known it before and had been too caught in her hurt to pursue it.

Sabrina's up and moving before she knows it, gathering the candles, the pendulum, making the tea that tastes awful but is a Hilda-approved favorite to promote divination. She and Salem are in the ring of candles in her room, the picture of Nick on the floor, and when she asks the questions, she knows.

Show me, she commands, and she sees the Acheron Configuration, and she sees the face settle behind Nick's features. The spell breaks and even with the lingering image of the devil looking out from behind Nick's eyes, she's so relieved and glad. Relived and glad and then furious and terrified too.

She goes to throw up the rest of the bitter tea, and then begins to send texts.

[forthsofar]

When she's not up at the house, when it's Charlie or Marcus or someone else spending time with Sabrina instead, providing their own comforts, Rosie still keeps her phone close. Sometimes she's just sending distractions, pictures and texts, funny stories or silly jokes; other times, something more substantive, reminders of her love and care in the face of all the lingering bleak confusion that Nick's betrayal had wrought. It's not much, none of it really is, but it's what she can provide.

She'd tried to do something else, too, some furious confrontation a few nights previous. Somehow, she can't grasp the details, just a sense of something wrong that her mind skitters away from just as she starts to contemplate it. She knows she tried; lets that be enough for now.

When her phone pings, Rosie's sitting on the couch with Beau, a heating pad slung over her shoulder. She'd done something to it the other day, something else she can't quite recall, and it still hurt. Seeing that the text that's just come through is from Sabrina, though, gets her moving as it always does. While it's just words on a screen, there's an urgency to them, something frantic. She unplugs the heating pad and bundles it away, gulps down another dose of ibuprofen, and then she's out the door.

Once there, Rosie knocks at the front door, then tests the knob and finds it unlocked. "It's just me," she calls, pushing her way inside. She can see a dim glow in the hall, in the direction of Sabrina's room, and she heads toward it.

[signed_sabrina]

The Sabrina that looks up at her-- sitting cross-legged on the bed with a book in her lap, the remains of her spellcasting on the floor, her eyes still vaguely pink-rimmed but now bright and alert-- is far from the heartbroken girl who had been curled up there only a few days ago. She gives Rosie a small, grim smile, and pats the bed beside her.

"So, I kept thinking... this isn't like Nick. I just couldn't get past it. And I had this feeling, and... I'm not giving up. That's not Nick. I believe in Nick. I trust Nick."

She waves her hand at the floor.

"Rosie, it's not him."

[forthsofar]

There's bits of this that Rosie already can't quite understand--the candles, the picture on the floor, the teacup on the dresser with the dregs of something odd-smelling inside--but when Sabrina beckons her over, she goes without question. What Sabrina says pulls at her heart a little; it sounds desperate, like some kind of bargaining or denial, and who could blame her? To believe something like that, that the boy she'd loved so deeply had been replaced somehow though some Darrow trickery, made the whole thing far easier to bear.

Rosie nearly opens her mouth to murmur some kind of reassurance, a commiseration from one heartbroken girl to another, but she looks at Sabrina just before she does, and the expression on her face stills the words before she can voice them. This isn't denial. This is conviction.

"You know that for sure? Because of..." Rosie looks back at the candles, the picture, the book in her friend's lap. "And you know this...it worked the way it ought to?"

Re: the devil you know

[teenagerenegade]

"This doesn't make any sense."

He'd come straight over when he'd gotten Sabrina's text. Salem lets him in and he makes a beeline for her room, appearing in the door way with his phone in his hand. "You...I need you to walk me through this. Because it doesn't make any sense to me."

Because he's mortal, he knows that. There are things that he just doesn't know because they aren't possible, not where he comes from.

Re: the devil you know

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina's on her bed with a large, witchy-looking book in her lap, one Charlie might recognize from one of the worst days she's ever had. Even if it doesn't contain further information she can use, somehow-- somehow it seems like it might inspire her.

She holds out her hand to him, because she needs him more than ever.

"What didn't make sense was Nick acting like a completely different person. This-- I did the spell, but I know I'm right. That's what this feeling has been all along."

Re: the devil you know

[teenagerenegade]

"So.." Charlie frowns, coming to sit at the foot of her bed. He's got a feeling that the world is sudenly moving a little bit faster than he is. "It's like a doppelganger situation? This guy just...looks like our Nick?"

[high_warlock]

Magnus loves texting, but at a certain point, face to face interaction is required. Especially in something like this.

He knows about possession. He knows about Lucifer. He knows about Greater Demons. And if what he understands from Sabrina in true, she's going to need all the help that she can get.

So he portals to her apartment, knocks on the door before letting himself in (magically, if the door is locked) and strolls right in, like a man on a mission.

"Alright, explain this to me again, using small words. I want to make sure I've got this correct."

[signed_sabrina]

Sabrina sits at the table in the house she shares with Marcus, creating one of the sugariest bowls of cereal ever to exist. She's still pale, her eyes a bit puffy and pink, but she needs sustenance, and she needs help. Hasn't she always suspected this would happen?

"It's as fucked up as it sounds," Sabrina reassures Magnus. "My biological father, Lucifer, appears to have made it to Darrow, where he's now inhabiting my boyfriend."

She takes a bite of sweetened grain and milk, crunching it.

[pushbackthedarkness]

Marcus is in the kitchen when she brings back her tea cup and he glances in her direction, wishing all the while there was more he could do for her. Nothing can cure heartbreak, however, so all he can do is be here for her while she deals with everything Nick has done. He doesn't understand it and he's angry about it, but he had felt something was off when he was speaking to Nick after the performance in the park. Something had been different and while he hadn't been able to quite place it, he's now prone to blaming it on whatever prompted Nick to end things with Sabrina.

But when she comes into the kitchen, there's something in her expression other than the heaviness she's been wearing lately. She looks angry and yet somehow... more focused. As if there's a task at hand.

"All right, duck?" he asks as she goes to the counter with the cup. Something has changed.

[signed_sabrina]

The look she gives him is far older than her years, and not quite witch or mortal in its glimmer. She takes her time in searching out her favorite sour strawberry candy, and she makes her way back to the kitchen table to eat several pieces thoughtfully, thoroughly.

"Not all right, I'm afraid," Sabrina says, her fingers trembling a bit. "Did-- did you see Nick, before it happened? Did he seem like himself? That was what I couldn't get over. He just wasn't himself."

She pops two more candies in her mouth and savors them.

"We're going to need to call Sam."

[pushbackthedarkness]

"I saw him," Marcus answers. "And he didn't."

It's true he doesn't know Nick well, their interactions have been limited, but the Nick he had seen during those awful snow filled weeks was not the same young man he had seen after the performance in the park. At the time, he'd allowed himself to write it off as Nick simply being tired, then he'd decided it was whatever foolish urges that had brought Nick to place where he had hurt Sabrina so completely.

Maybe Marcus was the fool, though. For not having probed deeper.

"I'll call Sam," he assures her. He'll get details before he does, simply so Sam knows what they're dealing with, but Marcus trusts Sabrina when she says they need him. "What's going on?"

[greatest_sin]

Sam wasn't exactly mobile, still waiting for a fitting that would happen in just under a month, but when he got her text, he knew that he needed to just suck it up and figure it out.

Packing up his kit with whatever he could think of, he slung his bag over his shoulder, texting Lisbeth where he was going, and then he hobbled downstairs to wait for the car he'd called. The driver eyed his crutches and the empty left leg of his jeans skeptically, but said nothing as Sam tossed his bag and crutches into the backseat and climbed in.

Outside of Marcus's cabin, Sam tipped the driver and made his way carefully up the uneven walk, eyeing the shuttered windows with a growing sense of dread. Knocking on the door, he called out, "Sabrina? It's just me."

[signed_sabrina]

"Hi," Sabrina says, opening the door and releasing Salem out to patrol the grounds. She's vaguely aware that probably it would have been better to make getting here easier for Sam, but it's a passing thought.

"Come in," she adds, moving so he has room to maneuver inside. "Marcus is just out to grab some supplies, but he'll be back soon. And, um, it's probably better I tell it all." Waving at the couch, she says, "You should sit down. This is a sitting down kind of conversation. At least for me."

She flashes a smile that looks more worried than anything, and locks the door behind him.

[greatest_sin]

"Yeah, sure," Sam said, doing nothing to hide his worry as he made his way over to the couch, lowering himself down onto it and propping his crutches within reach.

"What's, uh. What's going on?"

He didn't blame her for not giving him any details over text, but all the evasiveness was making him worry. Honestly, he had a feeling that he wasn't quite worried enough.