Work Text:
Thump!
Whatever is hurling its considerable bulk at the door isn't about to give up. The shudder of the wood against Simon’s back is distressing, all the more so because he’s putting everything he’s got into keeping it shut.
Thump!
Legs aren’t meant to feel like this, as if they’re setting in cement, throbbing, heavy, and weakening. He might cry soon. That hasn’t happened in a while and this really isn’t an ideal setting for it. A few inadequate seconds of respite before the miscreation outside takes its running start and tries again.
Thump!
This time, there’s more give and right on its heels, the unmistakable crack of splintering wood. Simon grates out a ragged noise, all frustration and fear, but he doesn’t feel better. Everything is trying to kill him all the time. And no one ever helps.
“I’m not sure what that is, but-” Baz starts with galling calm.
"I already told you, it's the Black Beast of Macau!"
Thump!
"Why aren’t any of your spells working, then?"
“Shut up, Baz.”
Oh no, he does feels very close to tears now, watched by this impassive bastard sitting on his arse across the room, in fastidious black as usual, with his ridiculous white skin and hair the colour of night, nearly blue when he gets close enough to a window for it to shine. And of course those grey eyes that make grey seem warm when it should be the coldest colour of all.
Thump!
"Well, whatever that is, Snow, it really hates you."
Baz’s big loathsome head is cocked to the side like he’s watching the adorable shenanigans of a puppy. That’s always how he looks at him and recently, Simon can’t help but notice and hate it, and he doesn’t know why he cares so much more than he used to.
Well, that’s not entirely true. There was that dream a few weeks ago that ruined everything. He’s had them about everyone at Watford, as one does, but this one felt better somehow and when he woke up whimpering, he found that he wanted to go right back to sleep and chase the receding visions and feelings, even if they all centered on the snoring berk across the room. But it’s so, so stupid because Baz hates him, hates him more than the giant monster-dog combo in the hallways does.
***
"Well, whatever that is, Snow, it really hates you." Baz points out, he thinks quite reasonably.
Snow looks like he’s thinking of a comeback, and with him, the longer it takes, the more pathetic it will be. Distracted by keeping the door shut and trying to run through his roster of spells at the same time, this one should be spectacularly weak.
"Then you can form a club," he shouts at Baz.
Oh. Not so weak, then. And a little devastating.
I don't hate you, Snow. That's what he thinks; what he says is, "You should try to sort out what it is fairly soon."
Another crash against the door, this one louder than all the others, makes Snow bleat and close his eyes like he’s giving up.
“Uh, Snow…”
"Shut. Up."
He considers. “No.”
“Then help me.”
Baz huffs a noisy sigh to make a point and gets up very slowly, stretches, also very slowly, and yawns. Maybe he can convince his own body as well as Snow that he finds this all quite boring.
There’s a reason Baz hasn’t helped yet. He can’t. It’s become so Crowleyed difficult to be near Snow of late that the thought of having to be less than a lunge away from him does not appeal in the least, mostly because he’s taken to measuring his relative distance to the boy in lunges. When did that happen?
He knows, of course. It happened last week, as mundane as a trip to the dentist, but infinitely more painful, that sharp realization that he loved this tediously moral and earnest boy more than he had ever hated him, which was a lot. When they had first met as children, it felt like an important enmity right away, the kind that people write about and compare things to – cats and dogs, Montagues and Capulets, black trousers and brown shoes, Pitch and Snow. And over the years, it grew and grew in Baz that hate, replacing things that were missing or lost until somewhere along the way, it had to turn into something else or take him down with it. At four in the morning, when the birds start up, he sometimes wishes it had taken him down. But only briefly until he turns over to watch that sleeping face picked out in sharp angles by the twilight gloom.
That thump again. This time the door jumps open a few inches prompting Simon to choke out loud on his panic. Baz doesn't think he can stand to hear him make that sound a second time. He won’t let anything happen to him, not really. He’ll tear whatever that is to shreds with his fingers and his teeth if it comes anywhere near him.
The door isn't wide enough for them to brace against it side by side, so after a few moments of awkward and futile maneuvering to avoid the inevitable, they end up facing each other, Baz’s palms flat against the door on either side of Snow’s head, not looking at the flush of effort spread across his cheeks, trying not to breathe because each rise of his chest means contact like a burn.
Thump and Snow's hips get shoved forward with the door, flush against his own for an unbearable second, a disconcerting consequence that Baz hasn't anticipated, probably because he's not breathing anymore and the lack of oxygen is making him stupid.
Thump and he has to breathe now because he'll die (well, he won't die exactly, he can't, but he'll pass out or throw up and neither sound particularly appealing when he is just an eighth of a lunge away from his mouth and their bodies keep slamming together and actually, maybe he will die after all), so he breathes, one gasp in and one gust out against Snow's neck.
Thump and Snow swallows and whispers, “Baz…”
Thump and, “Oh Crowley,” groans Baz and it’s an actual plea.
Thump and Simon licks his lips, Baz hears him do it, because that's how still it is in the airless void between them, despite the creature trying to battle-ram the door down like a Saxon horde. "Baz, look at me."
"Um..."
"Baz."
"No."
Thump thump thump and it's not the monster anymore, it's the beat of his heart just as loud, pumping pilfered blood through his veins.
"Will you listen then?"
"I suppose." The last word snaps in half.
"You..."
Baz does look up then, so quick and direct that he can see Snow's pupils contract like he's glanced at the sun. Still winded from the effort of holding the door shut, mouth slightly open, cheeks glowing against his skin, he’s even more Snow than usual, brighter, starker, warmer. It's not just him urging his mouth closer because Snow's head had been right against the door and now Baz's fingers have room to slide up the back of his neck and make a fist in his butterscotch hair. He's going to let Snow come the rest of the way to him, those one or two inches the difference between nothing and everything–
"Simon?" something peeps shrilly from behind the door.
They don't move, they don't blink, they only breathe and just barely, willing it away.
"SIMON?!"
A pause in which Baz has time watch a trickle of sweat creep from Snow's hairline down to his jaw. "What, Agatha?"
"Oh, you're alright!" It requires an inhuman effort to keep his teeth sheathed when she shrieks delightedly like that. Good thing he’s not human.
"Sort of," Snow replies and Baz laughs, once.
"The creature out here, I’ve banished it."
"Um, Agatha?"
“Oh. Baz.” She’s not mastered hiding her dislike like he has. All of Watford is convinced that he’s after her. “What?"
“What was it, the thing at the door?” he calls over Snow’s shoulder. Neither of them have moved.
"A fire goose."
“Not the Black Beast of Macau then?”
“No.”
Baz winks at Snow and catches him staring.
"Simon?" whines Agatha after a moment. Just this once, Baz doesn’t have to pretend he finds her entrancing. "Can I come in?"
"It might be a trap," Baz whispers, his mouth just brushing Snow's jaw where that drop of sweat clings on, "it could still be the thing pretending. We should kill it."
Snow takes a shaky breath. "You wish," he whispers back and Baz can feel him laughing without a sound.
"I do."
And that's how it starts.