Chapter Text
Early October, 2015
simon
I’m sitting in the passenger seat of Baz’s aunt’s car, and she’s not driving fast enough.
Baz would be able to tell you what kind of car this is, but I can’t. All I know is that the leather seats are sticking to my thighs whenever I try to move, and that the speakers are very good. She’s blasting Queen, but keeping her eyes determinedly on the road.
Despite the fact that we’re currently driving to save Baz, aka her nephew who’s been missing for six weeks, I’m fairly sure she’s keeping to the speed limit just to spite me. We want to get to the bridge that we’re fairly sure Baz is being held captive under as fast as possible, but yet she’s pointedly doing seventy miles per hour.
I’m definitely fidgeting. We’ve been driving for an hour or so already, so we’ve done all the talking we need to, and I don’t have a phone or a book or anything to keep me occupied. Every so often, her eyes slide right, to me, and she half-smirks, as she sees me fiddling with my shirt or picking at the skin at the side of my nails. The sun is glaring in my eyes, and I’m convinced that I’m going to get a sunburn, even through the window (or, alternatively, even more freckles than I already have). I think it amuses her, to see me uncomfortable.
She cranks up the heating. Even though Baz has told me that the Pitches are a family of fire mages, I guess it runs in the family to be cold even when it’s hot.
Or it runs in the family to pretend to be cold, just to make me unpleasantly sweaty. Like I think Baz used to, in our room at school. Before the final term of our seventh year changed everything.
Oh, Merlin. Baz.
The summers are dreadful for me—holed up in a foster home somewhere, barely allowed to leave for even a day, unable to use magic for fear of blowing something up like I did the first time. I always miss Penny and good food and magic desperately, but this year it was even worse, because I missed Baz, too. It was like the cherry on top of my self-pity.
I did a lot of thinking, this summer, which is very unusual for me.
Baz and I got together in the last few weeks of last year. We never really talked about us.
Penny and I arrived back at school after being snatched by the Humdrum covered in blood and dirt, and terrified out of our minds. We’d just had the earth-shattering realisation that the Humdrum looked like a kid version of me, and we hadn’t fully processed that before every adult in the vicinity took it upon themselves to quickly make sure we were semi-alright and then to interrogate us.
I didn’t see Baz for hours. Until I went back to our room, still with mud on my face (but no blood, because someone spelled that off me. Don’t know why they didn’t remove the mud, too) and in the same rags of clothes that I’d been wearing for far too long.
He looked very much taken aback. I guess he must have simply been worried about me, in hindsight, but it was still pretty shocking that he didn’t make some kind of pointed comment about how much of a mess I looked.
We managed a conversation. I was so exhausted, that I didn’t feel like fighting him. Then, my tired mind realised I never felt like fighting him.
I don’t honestly know how I ended up with him lying on my bed with me once I had showered and changed, but it was nice to have someone close. It helped me remember that I was alive, and so was Penny, and nothing was hurting either of us right at that moment.
I also don’t know how I ended up kissing him. But I did. And it was really nice.
So I kissed him again. And again. And then on the last day of the year, before I left with the Mage, he told me he’d liked me for years, and then we kissed until I was seeing stars. So, I guess we’re a thing.
Anyway, when I came back to school this year, I was looking forward to seeing him so much that it was all-consuming. When I stepped into our room, I missed the smell of his fancy products—cedar, bergamot, maybe sandalwood, definitely something floral somewhere. I missed running my hands through his unsurprisingly soft hair, and the feeling of him running his tongue or teeth over my lips until they were red and pleasantly sore.
And then he didn’t show up.
And now Fiona and I finally know where he is, and we’re going to find him.
Even if it means sitting and silently sweltering in her car for a while.
Finally, I muster the courage to speak again. Fiona is almost more terrifying than Baz when she’s on a mission.
“Can we go over the plan, one more time? I really don’t want to fuck this up.” My voice is scratchy, both from disuse and the hot, dry air. And the fact that I haven’t drunk anything whatsoever today.
“It’s not complicated, Chosen One,” she replies. She insists on calling me that. “We go in there, you kill whatever creature’s holding him captive, I get him out, we take him back to the Pitch house, you go back to school, all is well.”
“What if I can’t kill it? Or if it’s a person, not a thing? I won’t kill a person, Fiona.”
“Then keep them busy. I shouldn’t need long. Just try not to go nuclear, preferably.”
Of course she knows that I tend to do that. Did Baz tell her, before we cooled it with the constant and often-violent antagonism? I can just imagine him, when we were kids, saying ‘ Fiona, Simon Snow has no control over his magic whatsoever. He’s the worst Chosen One ever to have been chosen.’
“Snow, I’m still not entirely sure why you’re here. Why would you want to help me save Baz? I was under the impression that the two of you hated each other.”
“We have a complicated relationship, but I’d rather he wasn’t missing.”
She doesn’t look satisfied with that answer, but it’s all I’m telling her. I’m assuming Baz wouldn’t want me to tell his aunt that our relationship has had a jarring about-face in the past few months.
I shrug, and slouch into my seat. We can’t be far away, now.
—
I was wrong. We were far away. By another hour, in fact. I almost lost my mind, sitting in that car.
Either way, as we pull up about a hundred metres down from the bridge, it’s late afternoon. The sun isn’t quite setting, but the cooler evening air is a relief. I summon the Sword of Mages, and Fiona and I walk in silence, until we’re standing almost at the base of the bridge.
I hear a rumbling from under the concrete, and look to her for some clue as to what I’m supposed to do here. The bridge has a low base, with just enough space under it for me to walk. She nods at me, raising her eyebrows, and gestures in the general direction of the large, mud-filled puddle under the bridge.
I take a step toward it, and a great slab of what I thought was concrete moves.
Damn it. Numpties.
I break into a run. Numpties certainly shouldn’t be a problem if I can single them out, but I’d rather not get crushed by a hulking mass of living building materials, which will happen if they all try to get to me at once.
Fiona darts to the side— she’s seen something.
Keep them busy, she told me. I can do that.
They aren’t hard to fight, since they’re very politely attacking me one by one. Numpties aren’t particularly intelligent creatures, and these ones seem even less smart, since they apparently just woke up. I run them through with my sword without a problem, and I only start having issues with them when my sword gets so covered with their swampy, thick blood that it’s heavier than I’m used to, and it makes my swing sloppy.
I end up wiping it on my shirt, cringing at the way the numpty blood smells and smears all over my hands, and going straight back into the fight.
It doesn’t take me long. Probably less than ten minutes later, they’re all dead (knocked out? Can they even die? Do they have organs in the first place? Penny would know), so I run after Fiona, feeling distinctly uncomfortable as the gritty concrete-like flesh that’s gotten all over my lower body rubs my thighs raw as I move.
She’s gone under the bridge and through some bushes, and it mustn’t have been easy for her to get through. I make a mental note to thank her for spelling some of the shrubbery clear, because I climb through just fine. I see her, and she’s kneeling on the ground, casting spells frantically, and with such power that I can feel it from here.
“ Get well soon! ” I hear her say. “ Early to bed and early to rise! ”
She’s not alone. She’s found him.
Almost before I know it, I’m by her side. I don’t cast any other healing spells, because I don’t trust my ability to speak clearly right now. Because Baz looks like a wreck.
He’s even paler than he usually is. Normally, his skin is fair, because he’s a vampire, but with a little of the dark, warm tone that shows he’s alive, betrays a little of his Egyptian heritage. Like Fiona’s golden-brown skin tone has had most of the colour desaturated. Now, his skin is deathly grey. It makes my heart rise in my throat.
His hair is tangled, and it’s much longer than usual. His clothes are torn and stained, and his trousers are soaked with blood around one of his legs, which immediately makes me even more distressed than before.
He looks bleary, and a little more dead behind the eyes than usual. He looks a bit like a more intense version of how he does when he wakes up after studying until four in the morning, but a thousand times more terrified.
He looks up at me, and his eyes widen, and he almost smiles. I give him a weak grin.
“Hey,” I say, and my voice cracks. That makes him really smile, and I go to hug him, to help him up out of the coffin he’s been stuck in for the past six weeks.
They put him in a coffin. I want to kill whoever did this. I know the numpties didn’t decide to kidnap him, with their collective seven brain cells. Someone sent them to take him, and put him in a coffin, and apparently injure him and keep him from having enough blood for so long that he couldn’t fight them.
He places a shaky hand on my chest, holding me back.
“No, Simon, I— I need to drink.”
Fiona casts Doe! A deer! , and a few minutes of constant healing spells later, a deer walks out of the bushes. I busy myself while he drinks, and a little colour comes back into his cheeks. Once he says it’s okay, I help him up off the ground, and wrap an arm around his shoulders as we walk back to the car. His arm around my waist is still shaky, and we let Fiona walk ahead of us. So I can talk to him.
“Baz. Hey.”
“Snow. Good to see you,” he says, a little lightness in his tone, and I snort.
“Your leg,” I say, “What happened?”
“Blasted numpties did something to it. Didn’t heal properly. Why aren’t you at school? It’s September.”
“It’s October, actually, and it’s the weekend—”
“It’s October? We’re going to Watford. Straight away.”
“Baz, you’ve been in a coffin for six weeks. We’re going to your house. Then, once you’ve recovered, we can go to school.”
“We’ll see about that.”
It makes me feel both exasperated and enamoured that he so badly wants to go back to school that he would forego seeing his family, who’ve been worried sick about him for over a month, just to presumably regain his title as top in our year.
I can relate. Watford is, in my limited knowledge, the best place on Earth.
He stops walking, for a second, and I stop with him. He turns to face me, my arm still around his waist, and leans his head against my shoulder. He’s breathing heavily.
“Baz? What’s wrong? We need to get to the car.”
“It’s just—” He pauses. “I can’t believe you found me. I thought I was going to die for real, down there.”
“I was so worried about you, Baz. We weren’t ever going to stop looking.” He looks into my eyes. His look almost as grey as the numpties. “And, hey, you had the Chosen One, the smartest witch in our year, and your badass of an aunt all looking for you. Of course, we managed.”
“I imagine you contributed a lot to that little group.”
“Duh. I was the mastermind. Obviously.”
He smirks, and it’s miraculous to see some life come back into his features.
I pull him a little closer.
“Wait, I’m gross.”
“Don’t care.”
He leans into me, and our lips meet, and it feels like coming home. Finally.
It’s barely more than a peck. After all, we are outside, and sweaty, and Baz’s aunt isn’t far in front of us. And, admittedly, we are both more than a little gross right now. But kissing Baz again feels like taking the first breath after a deep dive, and I find myself not caring about how the numpty flesh has dried onto my arms, and how Baz’s mouth kind of tastes like blood.
“Missed you,” I murmur against his lips. “So much.”
“You, too.”
—
I sit in the back seat with Baz, for the drive to Pitch Manor. I semi-clumsily bandage his leg— it’s been hurt for so long that Fiona’s healing spells didn’t do much. The nurse back at Watford, or a doctor, will be able to help. or, so I tell myself.
He winces as I wrap a long strip of bandage over the part of his leg that’s actually cut. I’ve put a little antiseptic cream on it, and that always stings. His lower leg’s at a bit of a weird angle, so I think it might be dislocated, maybe even broken. I don’t know anything about injuries. Which is surprising, considering how many I tend to get.
Fiona’s still playing Queen, and Baz is humming along. We stop at a Macca’s about half an hour into the drive, and I stay in the car while Fiona runs in to get all of us something to eat, especially Baz, who looks like he hasn’t eaten since he was kidnapped. I stay in the car, with Baz. Apparently Fiona has something against drive-thrus. Or, maybe, she’s actually being observant and decent, and giving us some time alone.
While she’s gone, I find Baz’s hand. It’s cold, and covered in barely-visible scars from all the scratches Fiona healed. The scars will fade, soon.
The tips of his fingernails are rough, and a trickle of cold runs down my spine when I realise it’s because he had scratched at the inside of the lid of the coffin, to no avail. Suddenly, I can’t breathe, at the thought of him trying to escape, and not being able to, and waiting for help for so so long, and—
“Hey. What are you thinking, Snow?”
“It’s just— I don’t know, Baz, I—”
“Look at me, Simon.”
I do. His eyes don’t look so grey, like they did when we first got him out. Now they look silver.
“I’m fine. Or, I will be. We’re fine. We can go back to school, and to our room, and everything will go back to normal. Alright?”
I don’t know if I want things to go back to normal. Normal, for us, is fighting, and what we have now is something entirely different.
“I know, it’s just, what if we hadn’t found you? I know I said before that we would’ve, eventually, but—”
“But you did. Look, we should talk about this at some point, but right now I just want to be here with you. Alright?”
“Alright.”
He unbuckles his seatbelt, and shifts, grimacing as he moves a little closer to me. He cards his fingers through my hair, before cupping my cheek. I press my forehead to his, and place my hand gently on his chest. I feel his pulse beat under my fingertips, and I let my breathing sync with his. His eyes flutter shut, and he lets his hand fall to the nape of my neck.
I just want to be close to him. Desperately. It’s been too many weeks.
I lean into his touch, and press my lips to his. We’re actually alone, this time, and he sighs into the kiss. I gently bite his lip, the way I know he likes, and the hand that isn’t in my hair tightens on my waist.
Just as I’m about to slip my tongue into his mouth, Fiona pulls open the car door on the driver’s side, and Baz almost jumps away from me.
He yelps, his bad leg jolting in a way that makes even me cringe. Fiona looks at us quizzically.
“Be more careful, Basilton. Can’t have you making that leg even worse. Why did you move, anyway?”
“No reason,” he says, too quickly. I’m blushing. His lips look almost pink, where I bit them. My hair’s a mess, and his looks even messier than it did. She raises an eyebrow at him, and climbs into the front seat, handing us both Big Macs.
I’d have thought we’d gotten away with it, if I didn’t see Fiona wink at Baz in the rear-view mirror. I look at him, and smile a little guiltily. He smiles back.