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The room is full of moonlight when Sabrina wakes up, which is why she guesses Daphne is shaking her shoulder. She has a brush in one hand and a fistful of barrettes and bobby pins in another, the entire look put together with a big pair of puppy dog eyes and pouty mouth. So, as was customary, Sabrina flicks the lights on and sits in front of Daphne on her bed, letting her pull the brush through her hair.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Daphne's hand dips, causing the brush to catch on a particularly nasty snag. "It's Puck."
"Really?" says Sabrina, so surprised she turns around.
"He's leaving with Uncle Jake in a few days and I'm really going to miss him," Daphne says plaintively. "As gross as he is––"
"––don't remind me," says Sabrina, shuddering. His eighth and most recent attempt at gluing a basketball to her head involved an industrial quantity of superglue, an elaborate pulley system, animal hypnotization, and a rather smelly block of cheese that sat in the fridge for an indiscernible amount of time.
"––I'm still gonna miss him," says Daphne, scooting closer to Sabrina. "Who's gonna have eating competitions with me when I come home from school?"
"You could ask Red."
"She only eats vegetarian now. I'm glad, because she's glad, but an eating competition is about eating anything and everything. Remember the glow in the dark pudding?"
"I wish I could forget," mumbles Sabrina. "It was probably radioactive. Watch you grow another limb or something."
"That would be pretty funkomaniac," says Daphne. "But I'm still gonna miss him."
Sabrina suddenly snaps her fingers. "Elvis."
Daphne ponders this idea briefly. True, the Great Dane ate everything in sight without much discrimination. "But chocolate."
"Oh. I guess so."
"Maybe you could be a competitive eater or something."
"Nah, I don't want to do that professionally. I just want to come home and have an eating competition with him."
Sabrina gently untangles a knot Daphne can't get with her fingers. Battle hardened and calloused as they are, they still have the precise touch necessary to handle hair. Like magic. Magic weaves itself into her daily life, it seems, for better or for worse.
"How much do you think you'll miss him?"
"None. Good riddance."
Daphne leans around to raise her eyebrows.
"I wouldn't miss him. I'd miss the pixies. They're helpful." Over the years, they've grown less malicious and more teasing around Sabrina. They still didn't actively help her unless it also benefited their master, but they also didn't actively try to make her life worse anymore.
"You really won't miss him at all?"
"Nope."
"Not even a little bit?"
"Zilch."
"A teensy weensy itty bitty little bit?"
"Not even a teensy weensy itty bitty little bit."
She slumps down so her head is almost touching Sabrina's shoulder. "Wow."
"I'm going to a normal, human college," Sabrina says. "I wouldn't want my normal, human friends to walk in on me talking to a himbo with wings and snot grenades."
"I would," says Daphne, but Sabrina just laughs.
The next night, for Puck and Jake's farewell dinner, Granny allows them to choose; diplomatically, of course, and suggests a coin toss. And, of course, the decision making process ends up outside, and a few bloody knuckles later, it's decided on half wings, half pizza, and a heaping tray of garlic knots with extra Parmesan.
They end up ordering several more rounds of garlic knots, much to the bemusement of the poor delivery boy. In the end, Daphne sets a new record of 38, with Puck close behind at 35. Sabrina sits comfortably at 6, not really having the stomach for it all. Literally.
"Who wants dessert?" Granny asks. It's a rhetorical question, as she's already carrying a myriad of bizarrely colored and shaped foods in her arms. "We have leftover sea prune eclairs." Daphne and Puck take a handful each, but Sabrina, Red, and the rest of the adults decline as politely as the stench of the eclairs will let them.
"Where's your first stop?" Daphne directs her question to Puck and Uncle Jake, but they just look at each other and shrug.
"We'll figure it out along the way," Jake says. "Maybe I should go for the magic table that always sets itself and never runs out of food for this punk over here." He points an accusatory thumb at Puck.
"Don't look at me," Puck says. "I'm the victim here. I was perfectly happy as a prepubescent brat." He wolfs down another eclair like it actually tastes good.
Granny pats him on the head. He's so much taller than her now that he has to lean over when he feels her reaching out so she can actually do so without falling out of her chair. "Thank you for your sacrifice, liebling."
When Jake pulls out a pack of cards to play poker (winner take all, all being some almost-expired coupons to Taco Bell for a free crunchwrap supreme that Jake found in his endless overcoat pockets), Sabrina scoots over to sit closer to Daphne. While Daphne's slightly better at the mathematical/statistical portion of the game, she's gullible and less observant than Sabrina, who picks up on bluffs and tells before they can even happen. Puck's is the most obvious––he rubs his nose and then claims it was itchy to anyone who noticed. To which Sabrina points out that he's never been shy about picking his nose in front of people, so why not go all out?
In the first deal, unluckily, Daphne goes all in and loses all of her money ("I told you"), at which Puck guffaws, only to lose all his in a karmically bad deal right after Daphne. So now, she's dangling a leftover slice of pizza over Elvis's head, teasing him.
"I'm going to bed," says Sabrina, stretching her arms over her head. Her spine cracks with a satisfying pop, causing Henry, Veronica, and Jake to wince, the last rubbing his own back––whoever said Everafters couldn't get arthritis was a dirty, stinking liar. It was also Puck, so Puck was in the wrong for lying, but Jake was even deeper in the wrong for being gullible enough to believe him.
The table choruses their goodnights, and Granny gives her a hug and a kiss for good measure. Even Puck grunts in her general direction, which is about as mushy as he'll ever get, and it's then Sabrina takes in the whole image––her parents, Uncle Jake, Granny, Mr. Canis, Red, Puck. Half of them engrossed in poker, the other half reading, or watching, or napping. The chandelier light, nestled softly in the smile lines of the adults and bright upon the cheekbones of the younger ones. Her parents, idly linking their fingers together. Granny and Mr. Canis, chuckling at a joke Red tells them. It's peaceful. Stable. Just the way everything should be.
"Forget something, 'Brina?" Uncle Jake lifts his eyebrows above his hand of cards, only to quickly furrow them and relax them. So he's got a bad hand this time around. Henry catches on and raises.
She shakes her head. "No. Nothing. I'm going to pack some more for college."
"Don't forget to bring your journal with you," Granny reminds her, giving her hand a quick squeeze.
("You know, liebling, a Grimm journal isn't just to document magical incidents."
"Huh?"
"Why, most of my own journal is about your opa Basil. All the adventures we'd go on, how I felt after he saved my life for the millionth time. It doesn't have to be a textbook, you know. You'd be surprised at how much you can learn just from jotting down some of your feelings, magical or not.")
"I won't."
August 9
In a few days, Puck and Uncle Jake will be leaving to explore the world again. A couple days after that, I'm going to be starting college. College in a nonmagical town. Thank God.
Sabrina is inconsistent about writing in her journal. These days, since so many Everafters moved out of Ferryport Landing, there isn't much to write about unless she plans to transcribe every text, email, or carrier pigeon message into it (hey, some of them prefer the old fashioned way. So long as it didn't bite like the owls or the hawks that others sent, pigeons were welcome).
She's about to go brush her teeth when something in her periphery catches her attention. A formless shadow, moving slowly towards her from the darkness of the hallway.
It's instinct, of course, to ball up her hands into tight fists, but a few more steps reveal the total nonissue of Puck, who is casually spinning his key ring around his index finger. Why Uncle Jake ever gave him permission to drive his nice, expensive car, why he insured him, and how Puck ever got his driver's license as an immortal being all mystifies Sabrina, but she's assured that the reasons and means for it all were legal...ish.
Puck dangles the keys in front of his face. Mercedes. Classic, too. And convertible. "Wanna go to the dock?"
The dock is a landmark to them, Daphne, and Red but more to them than to Daphne and Red. They hold their most important conversations there, and between the two of them, there isn't really a whole lot that really qualifies as important enough to necessitate a trip to the dock, but they go often enough to establish it, unspoken, as their niche.
Sabrina grins. "Only if I drive."
"Ha! No dice, pigface."
"Have fun talking to yourself."
Puck sulks for a moment while his singular brain cell struggles to generate a compromise.
"Fine," he says, and Sabrina catches the keys triumphantly. "But I'm driving back."
"Deal."
Uncle Jake needed to be classy, but flashy too. Which is why Sabrina supposed he picked out this car, painted it cherry red, and magically enchanted it to run without needing gasoline or electricity to power it. Economical and environmental.
She adjusts the mirrors and the seats, taking a moment to inhale. It has that new car smell, not overwhelming but pleasantly sweet with new leather and pine air freshener. The car rumbles to life and she rolls the top down, reversing out of the driveway in one fluid movement. For someone who never drives (the metro is always there, what does anyone in New York need a car for?), Sabrina's actually really good at it. It was just one of the things she happened to take to naturally.
She dangles one arm out the window and so does Puck. Silence between them no longer amounts to tension anymore, just an unconscious gratitude, sort of. Acknowledgment of the other's existence, no longer filled with fistfights and insults.
"What time are you leaving tomorrow?"
Puck groans. "Way, way, way too early. Like, before sunrise early."
"Oh," she says, as lightly as she can manage given the twisting sensation behind her sternum.
"Go ahead," Puck says, his voice taking on that annoying hint of singsong that it always does when he's getting ready to make fun of her.
"Go ahead and what? The light's red."
Puck sinks into the seat. "You know, I thought people who went to college were supposed to be smart."
Sabrina steps on the gas with more force than necessary, and they lurch through the intersection, the engine screeching. "Sorry I'm not a mind reader."
"Gah! You're insufferable, Grimm, you know that?"
"That's rich, coming from you."
"It is! You just don't want to admit you're gonna miss me."
"Oh!" Sabrina's blood boils. "You were just fishing for compliments the entire time. You know, insecurity is not your color, pal."
"Everything's my color!"
Sabrina makes a sharp turn into the parking lot and sets the parking brake before throwing her hands in the air. "I give up with you." She rolls the top back up, lest she suffer the misfortune of having birds poop in Uncle Jake's car.
As per custom, they walk to the edge of the dock, take off their sandals, and dip their feet in the cool, briny water before the actual discussion ensues. Splashing is mandatory, though it's a fifty-fifty chance one of them (usually Puck) will take it overboard and turn it into a full on water war. It's never really a fair chance, either, given that he always morphs into something like a porpoise or an electric eel.
"Okay," Sabrina says. She sits on the left edge of the dock, and Puck on the right, as they always do. A bag of gummy peaches, shamelessly stolen from the glove box, lies open between them. "So."
"You," Puck says airily, tossing a peach into his mouth, "are too defensive. By a lot."
She arches an eyebrow. "Elucidate."
It's Puck's turn to look surprised now. "Whoa. I just insulted you and you tell me you want to date me? I mean, I get it, but wow, not the reaction I expected." He fluffs up his hair with one hand and puts on what he calls his 'prize-winning smirk'. When Sabrina previously asked what prizes he won and how many, he declined to answer.
"It means 'explain'," Sabrina says, trying to tamp down the stubborn flush in her cheeks.
"I've saved your sorry butt a million times over," Puck says. "I've seen you at your best and your worst, and trust me, I know your worst. Remember that time you had to ask me to come get you from a party because you couldn't drive, and then you barfed all over yourself?"
She shudders. "Don't remind me. Just get to the point."
"The point is, I know you pretty well, Sabrina. There's something on your chest, and for once, I mean that in the least gross way possible. I'm not going to leave and then have you be all moody and pathetic just because you're too proud to bite the bullet and admit something's wrong with you."
What was wrong with her? She was excited to go to normal, human university. She wanted to go back to Manhattan and smell the city again, its nostalgic scent of exhaust and old brick filling her lungs. New York outside of Ferryport Landing had changed, evolved while time stood still in her own little bubble. Manhattan was home. Truly, really, forever home. It had been what she yearned for all these years in Ferryport Landing. Everything was going back to normal, and yet Puck was right.
But why would she miss him? Every time he has to pass New York, he comes to visit, often bearing souvenirs and magical trinkets from wherever he had last been. They text. Sometimes, he'll send her a picture of a bloody wound and she'll sprint out of class to the bathroom and call him only to find out it was already fixed and yes, I'm fine, but I gotcha that time, didn't I?
"Wanna hear some wisdom from me?"
"From you? No. What are you gonna do, teach me how to fart the ABCs on command? Do you even know the alphabet?"
"First, no, because you don't have the talent for that, and second, no. What do I need that for?" Puck waves a dismissive hand before dipping it back into the bag of gummy peaches. "And by the way, that wasn't a question, it was a warning."
"I figured."
Puck shifts around to face her. It's not that Puck's aging is surprising (not anymore, at least), but it's the degree of his aging that is. Even though he hasn't quite reached twenty, thin lines spread beneath his eyes, as sharp and distinct as knife cuts. Wisps of hair float across his face, past his brows, mingling with his long lashes. He takes a deep breath.
"Now, I'm only saying this because I have to spend the rest of my life with you––"
"We are not getting married!" Sabrina cries. "That future wasn't set in stone. And in fact, it shouldn't even exist anymore, because that future showed the Scarlet Hand still active. And finally, I couldn't marry my childhood sweetheart. That's so cheesy."
Oops. Oh no.
Sabrina tries furiously to backtrack while Puck howls with laughter. At one point, he even turns into a hyena just for Sabrina's annoyance, only changing back when he receives a firm slap on the snout.
"So you admit it," he snickers. "Childhood sweethearts, huh? One charity kiss after you broke your arm does not a relationship make."
"I wish you were still at that stage where you thought everyone of the opposite gender was gross and you didn't want anything to do with them."
"Don't worry, you're still a disgusting pile of slop," Puck reassures her, wiping tears from his eyes. "Anyways. Married or not, before you cut me off in the middle of my important words of wisdom, I was about to tell you: it's...it's okay, you know. You don't have to have your guard up all the time. Well, I mean, you always should have your guard up around me, but for different reasons."
Sabrina was stunned. Where did he learn anything so humble and introspective? And when did he learn to believe it?
He picks up a peach ring. His index finger is through the hole in the center, and Sabrina hesitantly plucks it off. "See? I didn't even slap you or do anything gross."
"Is that really your point?" she asks. A shiver runs up her legs. The water had gotten so much colder since she first dipped her feet in.
"Sort of. You know, in the first few months of traveling with Jake, we really didn't get along."
"Really?"
"Yeah. I was always flying off alone somewhere, because I didn't want him to babysit me or anything. I can save my own butt, you know? But he was always saying I was being a pain the butt for just up and leaving." Sabrina nods. "I just didn't want him to think I was incapable. So I let him do stuff for me, even though I could do it myself. I stopped trying to prove something."
Puck reaches for another candy, but crinkles plastic instead and frowns. "Hey, I thought the marshmallow was the big eater between the two of you."
"And you're the biggest of all three," Sabrina returns, and Puck sticks out his lip in concession.
At Puck's behest, they tramp back to the car in pursuit of more food. It feels half finished, the conversation. "Wait," he says. "Let's sit up here. Unless your precious little toesies are gonna freeze out in this cold?"
She rolls her eyes at him and nimbly climbs up the car, using the door handle as a foothold for just the briefest of seconds before sitting to the left of Puck. As it has been, as it is, as it should always be.
"Scoot over," he says. "You're taking up all the prime real estate." He shoves her over with one hand and it sends a crackle of electricity through her chest, and not in a static shock way.
"So," begins Sabrina summarily, in order to banish the traitorous thoughts rising up in her mind, "you think I should be less guarded."
"Well, yes and no. Ugh! Talking about feelings is so stupid," Puck says. He lies down over the roof of the car, and Sabrina notices he's grown so tall that he could probably see his own feet if he looked through the window. "Just. It's okay to say what's on your mind. It's good, actually, because that means Jake's finally not gonna point his knobby old finger in my face and scold me for hurting your feelings."
Sabrina looks out at the water before blurting out, "I hate change."
"Go on."
"Daphne and I used to get tossed around every other month between foster parents who were abusive to us and then some. And then finally, when we got to Granny's, and after I got over the existence of Everafters, I thought maybe I could actually have a little normal in my life. Something that didn't appear after ten seconds of quiet. I mean, look at you!"
"I do love looking at myself," he admits, winking in the side mirror.
"Every Saturday night when Mom and Dad were around was movie night. Daphne and I took turns picking which ones, and Dad always made me pick something that wasn't scary because Daphne would cry, but if I was good that day, he'd let me stay up and watch part of it with him. And then every morning after that, they would make us pancakes, with little chocolate chips to make smiley faces. It never changed until...well, until they were kidnapped."
Sabrina crosses her legs and picks at a scab on her shin. She and Snow had been sparring the week before when Sabrina lost her balance and nicked herself on one of Charming's million exercise machines in the gym. "And now, I'm going to college and you're going...somewhere, and there's no pattern or routine to any of it. I mean, I want so badly to go back to Manhattan, but that's a change too. I don't want my life all planned out for me. But I do want some kind of outline."
Puck does a crunch to pull himself back into a sitting position. Show off. "You're like a cat. A scaredy cat, but, still, cat."
"I'm sure I'll love the explanation you give me for that one."
"Jake once told me some kind of stupid saying that was like, 'the only two constants in life are change, and taxes'. When things change, you always land on your feet. Like a cat. So don't worry."
"It's death and taxes."
Puck frowns. "Oh. Huh. I like my version better though, it's better than whoever the other guy who said it was. But it's still true. Change keeps things from getting too boring."
"And stability keeps things from getting too crazy."
"You're a Grimm. Shouldn't you have accepted by now that you'll never be able to outrun crazy?"
Sabrina laughs. "You're right. For once."
"What do you mean, 'for once'?"
"Okay, then, for twice," and it's here that Sabrina takes a huge, wobbly breath because she's about to say something really stupid, like, ridiculously, are-you-out-of-your-mind, what-kind-of-mushrooms-did-you-have-for-dinner kind of stupid––
"I hate that you're leaving."
Initially, there is no reaction, which is almost scarier than him actually saying something dumb or mean or snarky. And then, "Well, of course you do. Who wouldn't?"
"Me! I always dreamed of going back to normal life, and now I can't even have that to myself. I hate change. I want things to be exactly the same the next time I see you, and I'm mad that they're not going to be."
"Just for the record, I'm not Dr. Cindy. But," he says, and clears his throat, "it'll all be the same."
"How do you know that?"
"Well," Puck says lazily, stretching out next to Sabrina, "we're immortal. And even if we're still aging, Jake tells me that all the weird stuff that comes with puberty hits a...whaddyacallit...a platoon, or something."
"Plateau."
"Yeah, whatever that is. But it's not gonna change as fast anymore. Maybe not even at all. So don't you worry, because before you know it, I'll be putting all sorts of creepy crawlies in your food and your bed again. Man! When we went to Colorado, the scorpions we saw––"
"I get the picture," interrupts Sabrina, who really, really doesn't want to hear any more about Coloradoan scorpions.
Yet weirdly enough, it's comforting. No matter what, she's always going to be tormented by his presence in life. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's the one constant that life will let her keep.
"And," Puck sighs, "if it cures you of your sad weepiness––"
"––I'm not sad or weepy!"
"Yes, you are, and as I was saying, if it cures you of your sad weepiness, I'll miss making your life hell, too. Don't let anybody else do it for me, because that's my job, and only mine."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
"Great," says Puck, "because being married to me in the future is gonna mean a lot of hell-raising."
"You are so annoying," she mumbles.
"It's all part of the charm, piggy. Women love men who annoy them."
"No the hell we don't."
"Well, you do."
"You wish."
They watch the waves lap against the dock for a long, long time. The tides have a rhythm to their ebb and flow every day. Maybe not set perfectly, but it's natural, and it has its own ways. Sabrina is envious, almost. It is always balanced, always occurring at the right time and the right place. And it stays.
"Let's make a pact," she says, after a while.
"What's in it?"
"Let's be like this," she says. "Forever. Okay, maybe not forever, but for a while. At least until I've graduated college."
"Sitting on a roof in the middle of the night?"
"No, stupid, let's be us. Just like we are now."
Puck looks at her inquisitively. And then he laughs, but warmer this time, like the heat of the sun in the last part of summer.
He picks up her pinky and curves it in his own. "I, Puck, aka Robin Goodfellow, the Trickster King, the Prince of Juvenile Delinquents, the Patron Saint of Nothing that is Good and Holy––"
"Yes, yes, all that."
"––I promise to keep making Sabrina Grimm's life miserable with pranks and shenanigans for as long as we live, together or not. And I will always come back to save her sorry behind, emotionally or physically speaking, no matter how inconvenient it is for me, because I've been told it's not socially acceptable to do so, and for some weird reason, I care."
Sabrina takes a deep breath. "I, Sabrina Grimm, aka the Queen of Sneaks, promise to retaliate in full force with regards to Puck's pranks and shenanigans for as long as we live, together or not. And I will always come back to save his sorry behind, emotionally or physically speaking, no matter how inconvenient it is for me, because I have to deal with him whether I like it or not."
There is no flash, no bang, no sparks, no turning into stone to officially seal the deal. Yet somehow, a pinky promise holds more weight than all of it combined.
Puck pushes their foreheads together and stays there, his breath tickling her skin, so close their lashes could tangle together and neither would notice.
"You and me," he says.
Sabrina holds her breath.
"It's a promise."
fin.