Chapter Text
“Stay back, monster.” Sabrina hissed, sword at the ready. Puck raised his hands, wooden sword gripped tightly in one hand.
“Hey, Grimm, it’s me.” he said, his voice only wobbling a little. “I don’t think I’ve done anything lately to warrant being talked to like that.”
Sabrina’s face twisted with disgust, and she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Roar all you want, you’ll eat steel anyway.”
She squinted, grip tightening on her sword, but Puck had rolled out of the way before his conscious brain even realized what he was doing. Sabrina lunged and slashed, missing Puck by a mile as he popped back to his feet behind her.
“Stop it, Sabrina.” he said, not quite brave enough to try and touch her yet. He was glad he hadn’t reached out when she whipped around and brought her heel up, trying to kick him. His wings popped out and he pulled back, out of range. “Sabrina,” he said, trying to keep the pleading out of his voice. “What’s wrong with you? It’s me, Puck! Trickster king? You don’t usually want to kill me unless I did something really stupid, which this isn’t.”
If she understood anything he said, she didn’t show it. She swiped at him with her claymore again and he danced away, bumping up against the low ceiling. What was it that Granny usually said- skin to skin contact disrupted magic? She was wearing a tank top and torn jeans, but Puck didn’t know how he was supposed to get close to her. Even drugged or cursed or whatever she was at the moment, she was fast, and the long blade of her sword gave her a lot of reach. More than his little magic wooden sword did, anyway.
Still, he had to try. Fast as thought, before he could talk himself out of it, Puck tucked and rolled through the air, crashing into Sabrina hard enough to take them both to the ground. He lost hold of his sword and she didn't, but instead of worrying about it he grabbed both of her bare shoulders, holding her to the dirty tile floor.
She snarled and tried to get her feet beneath him, to throw him off, but he flapped his wings, raising a cloud of dust and keeping himself planted on top of her. She coughed and spluttered, and Puck got right in her face, looking her in the eyes. "Sabrina Grimm!" he shouted, determined. Then she looked up at him, her blue eyes unrecognizing and fearful, and his resolve folded and died. He had never seen her look like that at him. Breathless, he let go of her and tumbled off, skidding on his hip until his wings stopped flapping. He heard her jump to her feet and, presumably, point her claymore at his exposed back, but he couldn't move beyond the harsh trembling in every limb. He felt like throwing up. He hadn't expected that look to hit him so hard, but for all the range of expressions he'd seen on his sometimes enemy, sometimes soulmate, the terrified blankness he'd just seen had never been one of them.
Then he heard her sword clatter to the ground. He looked back over his shoulder and saw her, looking at her empty hands in confusion and pain. And he watched, she stumbled back away from him, clutching her head. She grunted and whined, in obvious pain, and Puck scrambled to get his feet under him and run to her. The danger he might be in never crossed his mind, and luckily for him all that happened when he seized her shoulders again was that she flinched hard and looked up at him with blind eyes. Literally blind. They'd turned from their usually light blue to entirely white.
Puck had the wind knocked out of him again by a look from Sabrina, but this didn't crumble him like the last one had. He squeezed her shoulders tighter. "Sabrina? It's me, Grimm. Can you hear me?"
"I- I can hear you." Sabrina said faintly. Her hands reached out, finding Puck's arms, and she held on tightly. "Where are we? Why can't I see?"
"I uh- I don't know. I- we- there was some sorcerer guy? He- your eyes-"
"It doesn't matter.” Sabrina cut him off. “We need some light. Don't your wings glow or something? Or-" she lit up, looking slightly over Puck's shoulder. "Your pixies! Do you have your flute on you?"
"Um- I actually don't, but that's not the point because-"
"My sword! I had my sword, didn't I?"
" Sabrina ." Puck moved from holding her shoulders to holding her face, holding her jaw and forcing her to look at him, as much as she could. "You're blind, Grimm. The magic guy, he did something to your eyes and you- you can't see."
"Oh." That was all she said for a moment, and then it sank in, and her grip on Puck's forearms tightened. " What?"
"I dunno!" Puck huffed. "That's just what-” he sighed, frustrated. “A lot has been going on. This is honestly maybe the least of our problems."
"Puck, I can't see ."
"I know, Sabrina, just- I'll get us out of this. Do you remember the last few minutes? Or hours? Do you remember how we got here?" His fingers dug into her hair at the back of her head. He needed her to remember, for some reason. For all the crap he gave her, Puck knew they'd get out of here a lot quicker if Sabrina's scary smart Grimm brain was firing on all cylinders. Dimly, he noticed he could feel her heartbeat in her neck, throbbing against his palm.
"Of course I-" Sabrina stopped, looking baffled. "I- Did I- did I hit my head or something? We were following that wizard dude, we walked in here, and I charged him, and then-" her eyes widened. "The- the monster! There was a- a horrible-"
Puck’s stomach twisted. "Yeah, that was me." He dropped his hands, looking back over his shoulder for their fallen swords. "Look, it's a long story. Can you hold still for a second?"
"I- yeah. Yeah, I won't move."
In a different situation, Sabrina might've snarked at him over his request, but the loss of her sight had her completely off balance. She let go of his arms and stood stock still in the middle of the floor, arms crossed over her chest. “Wait, what do you mean the monster was you?”
Puck went over and scooped up both of their swords, grunting a little as he picked up Sabrina’s- it was a two handed weapon for a reason. “I don’t know. You were attacking me. It doesn’t matter.”
“Attack- did I hurt you?”
Puck scoffed, hoping she couldn’t tell how forced it was. “No, no, of course not.”
“Oh my gosh, I did.” Sabrina clapped her hands to her mouth, then reached out for him, uncertain.
Puck came back over, shoving his own sword in his belt. “You didn’t hit me, Sabrina. Calm down.”
She was still reaching out, so Puck put her sword hilt in her hand. Her hand closed around it briefly, but then she frowned and put it down, reaching for him instead. Puck’s heart squeezed in his chest, and he reached out and took her hands in his, carefully. She slid her hands up his arms, to his shoulders and chest, apparently looking for damage. Puck held very still, his heart going haywire. He could hear his blood in his ears, and there wasn’t a safe place to look. He found himself being very glad, for at least a few seconds, that Sabrina couldn’t see him blushing at the moment.
Then her fingers reached his cheeks, and he heard her gasp softly. She drew back, just a touch, then her hands spread over his cheeks again, cupping his jaw. Involuntarily, Puck closed his eyes, sighing again- a much needier sound that he’d anticipated. Mercifully, she didn’t laugh, and her thumb even stroked down his cheek, gentle, barely there. Puck’s knees almost gave out at the motion, and his hands came up to her wrists, holding on for dear life. She pulled him closer, seemingly unconsciously, but Puck could feel her warmth on his knuckles all of the sudden and he looked up, into her unseeing eyes.
His stomach clenched. Sabrina never looked like that- not frighteningly competent and sure of herself in a fight. Her sharp gaze, the one that usually had him feeling fire beneath his skin, was flat and dull, and it scared him.
Puck jerked back, and bent to pick up Sabrina’s sword. He scooped it off the floor and questioned the wisdom of handing a blind person a sword, decided it was Sabrina and he’d managed to avoid her cutting herself up so far, and handed it to her. Then, before she could react further, he strode away, deciding to look for an exit among the peeling wallpaper.
He heard Sabrina let out an indefinite noise, surprise and disappointment and more that he didn’t want to decipher, but that was all she did. He heard her sheath her sword, and then he’d reached the wall where the door they’d entered from had disappeared. He rapped his knuckles on it, high and then lower. There was no hollow noise, so he moved to the left and knocked again.
He heard Sabrina start shuffling around, towards the other side of the room. He listened to her footsteps as he continued knocking on the walls, cringing slightly at the crumbling, moldy drywall. Not that he necessarily had a problem with either, but it was making it difficult to hear if there was space behind it where they could potentially escape.
Another side step. Knocking. Another one.
A huge crash coming from the other side of the room. A crow of victory and a bunch of coughing.
Puck spun around and saw Sabrina, brushing drywall off her shoulders and holding her arm out for balance. There was a gaping black hole in the wall in front of her, and chunks of mouldering drywall on the ground at her feet.
“Sabrina?” Puck started, and Sabrina turned, making a wide gesture at the hole in the wall.”
“I found a way out.” she said, still coughing.
“You sure did.” Puck jogged over to her, surveying the darkness outside. He couldn’t see anything , no floor, no lights, no nothing. Puck looked back over at Sabrina, who was still staring vaguely over his shoulder. Her fists were on her hips, but her hands were trembling slightly, and Puck let out a guilty breath.
“Here.” Puck reached out and touched her hand, and when it uncurled, entwined his fingers with hers. Her hands were warm, and they steadied as she squeezed his, her nails pricking his skin just a little. In his other hand, he raised his sword, and stuck his foot bravely out into the darkness.