#grimmtober

Normally, Puck would be eager to get moving again, but today he isn’t dragging Jake back to their rental car, demanding they get back to Ferryport Landing. Instead, he plays with his jug, looks witsfully at some kids improperly navigating a hay-bale maze by climbing the bales and jumping between them.

“You and ‘Brina didn’t have a fight again, did you?” Jake asks.

“Nah,” Puck says. “We just… she um.” He blushes. “She wants…”

Oh no. Jake regrets asking. 

He’s going to say something to dissuade Puck from talking, but before he can get it out, Puck blurts, “I don’t want to have sex.”

“Okay?” Jake says. This isn’t the sex talk, good. That’s good. It’s the opposite of the sex talk, it sounds like.

Puck’s talking a mile a minute now, like this is something he’s been sitting on, like he’s been waiting for Jake to ask, and it’s obvious this is the thing that’s kept him quieter than usual the past few… weeks? Jake lost track of time a little. They were in a pocket dimension, and things get weird in them.

“I thought I would when I grew up,” Puck says. “It’s half the reason I stopped, honestly. Everyone else started… looking at each other, and trying to like, touch each other, and it was so weird and I didn’t want to go anywhere near it and I was afraid that if I grew up any more I’d get dragged into it and I didn’t want that. And then Grimm happened, and I didn’t have a choice anymore, but I thought maybe it’d be okay if it was with her, but I’ve been growing and growing and there are things she wants, but I still don’t want them, and I think there’s something wrong with me.”

Jake doesn’t laugh, because there are times when he’s not allowed to laugh at Puck, he knows, and this is one of them. It’s tempting, though, because how many people are responsible for teenagers and wish this was their problem?

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” is what Jake says, instead. “Did Sabrina say that?” He loves his niece, but he’s not above giving her a talking-to.

“No.” Puck takes another swig of cider. “I think she was kind of relieved, honestly. She gets weird after we… y’know. Make out. Sometimes. But she wants it, even if she doesn’t want to be all vulnerable after. I don’t.”

Jake pats him on the shoulder and doesn’t say anything. He surreptitiously pulls out his phone and googles ‘my teenager doesn’t want to have sex?’ Puck sees him do it and rolls his eyes. Jake scrolls past the first few results, which are all ‘how to keep your kid from having sex’ or ‘what to do if you find out your child is sexually active.’ Finally, he comes to an article that sounds promising. He reads, then googles “asexual.” He passes his phone to Puck.

Puck takes a few minutes to read, then passes the phone back. “Huh,” he says.

Jake keeps scrolling. “They’ve got a pride flag and everything.” He grins at Puck. “Wanna come to pride with me next year?”

Puck shrugs, but he’s smiling at Jake, too. “Sure,” he says. “Someone’s gotta keep you from spending all our money on stupid shirts.”

Jake does very much have a collection of shirts that say things like “I love my lesbian niece” and “can i bi you a drink?” His google searching has, interestingly, led him to a t-shirt that says “I love my asexual son.” It’s twenty bucks.

He raises his jug, bumps it against Puck’s. “To knowing who we are,” he says.

Sabrina had never actually seen a soulbond Snap. Well, not in person. You saw it all the time in movies and books and the telenovelas her mom used to watch, where the protagonist would drop to their knees in agony at a piece of their soul snapping off, overcome with anguish and heartbreak as they realized that their soulmate was dead. She'd assumed they just amped it up for the drama, like when gossip magazines pretended that even the slightest bit of Fading between a couple meant that they were destined for divorce.

Unfortunately, Sabrina could now confirm that those shows were Definitely Not Exaggerating how it felt for a bond to Snap.

The Jabberwocky tore off Puck's wings and amid the awful sound and the buzzing in her head from the wand of Merlin, she felt their bond strain. It tugged and tore at something inside her and hurt, it was the worst pain she’d ever felt, despite not being physical in any sense.

But it doesn't snap. It was thin and taut but it was unbroken and that was all that mattered. Puck was injured but he was alive. He was alive, he was alive, he was alive. It was a mantra she repeated to herself as Mr. Canis showed up to take care of the Jabberwocky (and suddenly the fact that him and Granny Relda's bond had yet to snap made much more sense) and as they pieced together the Vorpal blade and all the way to New York City.

He was alive, she thought, staring at their glowing white bond in the darkness of the hotel room.

And she’d be damned if she let anything change that.

--

She was surprised, a little bit, when they came home from Faerie and saw the new glowing bond on Uncle Jake's wrist. It started as a faint pink, but as months passed it grew into a deep magenta, despite the disapproval of Briar's fairy godmothers. When the war broke out, their bond was edging toward red as Jake fingered the ring in his pocket.

So it really came as no surprise that Jake wanted to lead a one-man rescue to save her but then-

The dragons. Holy hell, the dragons.

Sabrina dodged dragon's fire and narrowly avoided the mob outside Briar's house and none of it was as terrifying as when one of the dragons slammed Briar into a tree. Her heart jumped in her throat as she watched the bond between Briar and Jake.

It wavered. It thinned.

It did not break.

--

The Wolf didn't have any soulmates; she guessed it was a little hard to form soul-reshaping bonds with people when you were chewing on their intestines. It was a stark contrast to Mr. Canis, as well as a kind of litmus test on how Wolf-y he was feeling that day. His own bonds tended to fade when the Wolf was closer to the forefront.

By the time Heart and Nottingham arrested him, his once golden bond with Granny was constantly flickering and thin as spider's silk. The jagged, torn edge of a snapped red bond (an exact twin to the one on Granny Relda's wrist) wasn't faring much better

(And even though she knew it was rude, she couldn't help but wonder about the red one, about who used to be on the other end.

Soulbonds didn't show up very well on cameras, but still, whenever she saw Grandpa Basil and Mr. Canis in the same picture, she could swear the string connecting them had the faintest hint of red.)

Then again, though, Sabrina wasn't in any position to judge; her own bonds had been a little tenuous lately. Her emerald green bond with Daphne was starting to flicker at the edges and sometimes it felt like the only thing they had in common was their last name. Even Daphne's bond with Puck was brighter!

But it was fine. She would fix it, she told herself as she slipped the key off her sleeping sister's neck.

It would be fine. It had to be.

--

A kiss from a soulmate. Not necessarily a romantic soulmate, or even a kiss on the lips, but those were the requirements to break her parent's sleeping curse. Which, perhaps, might have been fortunate if they were any other couple on Earth.

“But they don't have any other soulmates!” Sabrina lamented when Jake broke the news. Nobody really knew why some parents formed soulbonds with their kids and some didn't, but right now Sabrina wished for more than anything else in the world that there was a bright blue bond connecting her to her parents. But everyone knew you couldn't form one-sided bonds, and trying to make a soulmate out of your unconscious parents was as one-sided as it got.

“Right,” Jake said. “But, I think someone with a faded soulbond will work in a pinch.”

“Did you and Dad use to have a sibling bond?” Daphne asked, practically bursting with excitement.

“Nope. But I have someone else in mind,” Jake said with a smile too brittle to be genuine.

Enter Goldilocks.

Well, actually, enter the search for Goldilocks. She moved from country to country like- well, like a woman trapped in one town for hundreds of years being chased by a murderous thug. So, you know, a little hard to track down.

Once she refused to help, Sabrina wasn't expecting her to come back with three bears in tow, to trap herself in a town on the brink of war, all for a man who she wasn't even soulmates with anymore.

(Though Sabrina swore that, for a second as Goldilocks pressed her lips against Henry's, that the faintest glimmer of a soulbond appeared between them.)

--

“Our bond,” Charming said distantly, staring at the bright red soulbond connecting him to Snow. He didn't seem to be handling this news well, though, in all fairness, Sabrina didn't think many people would take the fact their very existence was manipulated and rewritten to suit someone else's needs. Bunny raised an eyebrow, silently urging him to continue. For someone who's mostly deeply hidden secret was brought to the light in the worst possible way, she seemed to be rather calm. “It's- after all these years, even after I remarried again and again, it still hasn't faded. That's because of you, isn't it?”

Snow looked down at their bond, mildly horrified. Sabrina felt the same way. Soulbonds…they were personal, okay? They were a part of you, they tugged at your soul and tied it to other people and literally changed you. And the idea of manipulating those bonds to suit your own needs, even if it was for a good cause…well, even though Sabrina had never put as much weight on soulbonds as Daphne did, the idea still made her sick to her stomach.

“Is this even real?” Charming asked. He tried to sound indignant, angry, but he mostly came off as lost.

“I don't know,” Bunny replied. “All I know is that it's what I wanted.”

Charming left and even though Sabrina still couldn't really stand the man, she didn’t blame him.

--

The kazoo (oh, excuse her, Horn of the North Wind. Such a pretentious name) apparently had side effects. Because it wouldn't be an overpowered super weapon without some crappy side effects.

It wiped out soulbonds, for some reason. It didn't cause them to snap, or to fade. It was just like they had never existed in the first place. Granny and Uncle Jake had some theories about how the kazoo messed with your soul itself, about how it voided soulbonds because they were tied to an idea of self that no longer existed. Or something to that effect. Magic theory kind of went over her head, though she did remember Uncle Jake's use of the phrase “factory reset.” It seemed like an accurate description.

Her own bonds had been spared because they had been formed before the Big Bad Wolf had gotten into her. Mr. Canis and Red on the other hand…

“How am I supposed to miss people I don't even remember?” Red asked. The two of them were curled into a hidden alcove in Granny Relda's newly rebuilt house. Red's fingers brushed over her bonds, one blue, one yellow, and one white. The last one led directly to Sabrina's own wrist.

“I don't know,” Sabrina answered honestly. All the people she's ever missed she's remembered all too well. “But I don't think that means you shouldn't. I mean, they were your family.”

“Yeah.” Red's shoulders hunched a little higher. “I just…I wish that the kazoo hadn't taken my last connection to them.”

Sabrina remembered that, remembered the blue and green bonds circling Red's wrist before…well just before. They'd both ended in jagged edges rather than people.

“Yeah.” A pause. “Magic is a crapshoot.”

Note: It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything for the Sisters Grimm so bear with me, please! It’s also been QUITE a while since I’ve shared any of my work with the public, much less Tumblr, so that’ll be fun.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Sisters Grimm and I'm not MB. Just a fan partaking in a fandom even for Halloween :)

Some notes about this series: All the stories take place in no particular order of timeline. We’ll see about that though. It depends on how long I manage to keep this up. Not exactly canon-compliant since it’s been a hot minute since I’ve read the scripture, y’know?

So yeah, Briar’s alive (and whoever else I need for the purposes of the plot, I guess). Okay, I’ve kept you along for long enough, enjoy the first prompt!

--

Sabrina Grimm was not a big fan of Halloween.

Maybe she was, once upon a time, before losing her parents to a cult led by her long-lost grandmother’s magical mirror.

But the Sabrina who dressed up as the Sugar Plum Princess to go trick-or-treating around Manhattan would be very disappointed indeed at the Sabrina who grimaced at the thought of parading around in a silly costume and begging people for candy.

Which is precisely what Sabrina Grimm was doing as her younger sister begged her to take her trick-or-treating later that week.

“Please Sabrina?” Daphne begged, hands clasped together and face on the verge of breaking out into a pout. “Red and I’ve been working all month to figure out the optimus path for trick-or-treating!”

This, Sabrina knows, is very true. She’s had to chaperone a few late-afternoon adventures as the two girls timed each other on how fast they could run through the block to yield the most candy. But trailing behind her little sister and Red on the way home from school is very different from being forced to go trick-or-treating. Besides, she had plans.

“First of all Daphne, it’s optimal . And second of all, isn’t dressing up in Ferryport Landing pointless when half the people here look like they regularly shop at Spirit Halloween?” Heck, most of the people in the town have about a million variations of their likenesses up for sale in party stores around the country.

“But mom won’t let us out later unless we get someone older. She and Basil Jr. are just going to kill the mood if we have to stop before 5 pm!” Oh boy, here come the puppy eyes…

“Dad?”

“He’s too old and grumpy for Halloween.”

“And I’m not grumpy enough for you? Uh, how about Uncle Jake?”

“Already asked him. He said he’s going to a party with Briar. And something about a Monster Mash.”

“Granny? Canis? Snow? Charming?? ” Sabrina was running out of options at this point.

“Granny’s got some errands to run and Mr. Canis is going with her. If Snow takes us she won’t be there to give out giant chocolate bars, and If we ask Charming, then Snow won’t be able to convince him to give out his giant stash of imported fancy chocolate.” As Daphne counted off the options with her fingers, Sabrina felt her chance at a peaceful evening slip through her fingers.

Well… almost.

“What about Puck?” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, Sabrina felt the soft halo of victory engulf her.

Fairy Boy was (more or less) the perfect candidate for Daphne and Red’s shenanigans— with the added bonus of keeping the trickster king from pulling any pranks on her in the spirit of the season.

With a quick shout of “You lucked out this time, Sabrina!” Daphne shot up the stairs in search of Puck. Presumably to work out a costume for him. There’s no chance that Puck will be able to say no to the opportunity to possibly pull a boatload of pranks on the houses that give out crappy candy.

Sabrina thinks that she’ll probably regret this decision by the end of the night on the 31st, but she’s mostly thinking about how nice it’ll be not to have to deal with Daphne on a sugar high on Halloween night.

--

And that’s exactly what she finds herself doing on the evening of the 31st. Not dealing with a hyperactive little sister or a prankster fairy boy with access to a million pounds of sugar. Sabrina’s confident she could probably handle Red, but she’s also never seen the Everafter girl eat a pixie stick.

None of that matters at this current moment, however, because by some stroke of luck, Sabrina is the only person currently in the Grimm household.

After double-checking that Elvis and her dad were actually out on their walk and that Puck wasn’t hiding behind any doors with an unpleasant surprise waiting for her, Sabrina let out a breath of relief.

Setting up the TV to one of the more classic seasonal reruns, Sabrina makes her way into the kitchen to retrieve her secret stash of candy. On the very bottom section of the higher shelf, out of reach of Daphne, and low enough to escape the direct view of Puck sits an inconspicuous box of generic raisin bran cereal.

Moving the box of cereal to the side reveals a second box of the same generic cereal box— gotta be careful in case her mom or dad suddenly crave a healthy dose of cereal for breakfast, right?

Again, moving that box of cereal to the side, right there . A box of plain, steel-cut oats remains the gateway between Sabrina and her secret candy stash.

Taking the box of oats with her back to the living room with the television, Sabrina spares one last cursory glance around the room to make sure there were no witnesses to her mini escapades.

The first treat of the night: a peanut butter cup.

Sabrina makes it through half the movie (and most of the peanut butter cups) before she switches to the next delicacy: a decent-sized milk chocolate bar.

As she’s about to take a big bite out of the bar, however, she hears the front door open.

Sabrina freezes, eyes wide as she realizes she’s probably been caught, and now Daphne and Puck are going to eat all her candy, and just after she’d saved up all the candy over the past couple of weeks. All that sneaking just for—.

“Hey, honey, what’re you...” Henry stops his sentence short, making eye contact with Sabrina, mid-bite of her chocolate bar.

The slightly unhinged look in his eldest daughter’s eyes might have clued him in on the situation because he very quickly reassessed the situation.

“Honestly, sweetie, I totally get it. I think Elvis and I should take an extended walk today, hm, Elvis?” The great Dane barked his agreement. “Okay, so we’ll be heading out. Maybe we’ll catch your mother and brother on the way and we’ll pick up some dinner from the diner?”

Silence.

“Alright. Great talk, honey, see you soon.”

And with that, Sabrina Grimm was once again alone in the house, free to stuff her face with discounted Halloween chocolate to her heart’s content.

Gummy bears, jelly beans, Twix bars, gumdrops, even a couple of pieces of candy corn met their demise as Sabrina continued on with the movie just as before.

Candy after candy succumbed to Sabrina’s sweet tooth binge until a decent dent had been made into the stash. As the credits rolled on the cheesy horror film, Sabrina gathered up the wrappers and candy boxes and cleaned up any remaining crumbs on the couch to dispose of the evidence.

Replacing the box of oats behind the cereal boxes in the cabinet, Sabrina silently pats herself on the back for her sneakiness. Just in time, too, as she can hear the sounds of the other kids stomping around by the entrance.

“Sabrina! We’re back!” Daphne calls from beyond the kitchen door.

“Yeah, Grimm! And we’re not sharing our candy with you!”

“...I’ll share with you, Sabrina..” Red’s voice rings, softer than the other two.

As Sabrina walks back into the living room, she sees that the three trick-or-treaters have already begun trading their candy from their trek around Ferryport Landing. True to Daphne’s word, there looked to be a couple of full-sized candy bars, probably from Snow.

The older Grimm sister sits on the couch, letting out a sigh of relief that she hadn’t been caught. Her stash was safe— at least for today. She snags a Kit Kat and listens to the three (mostly Daphne) catch her up to speed on everything she missed when the trio had taken off earlier that afternoon.

“So actually, Puck had to do a little convincing for Charming to hand over some of his fancy candy but thankfully...”

So Sabrina Grimm isn’t the biggest fan of Halloween, but she does see the appeal of candy.

--

And that's a wrap for day 1! I know, cutting it super close to the deadline! I can't believe I got Ao3, Tumblr, AND FFN