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Baz figures it out fifth year, but he knows it has festered in the back of his brain long before this point. Maybe it has even been there since the first time they met. Being raised to hate the Chosen One doesn’t exactly mean you’re going to comply.
And he certainly does hate Snow. Stupid fucking hair, stupid fucking walk, and stupid fucking everything and anything else Baz can think of. He can’t even hold a wand right unless Bunce shows him first. Pathetic choice for a Chosen One.
And the whole “I’m going to follow you around until I finally catch you draining rats and defiling virgins” act also doesn’t let Baz sit on these confusing emotions for more than three seconds alone. Seriously, is it all some cosmic joke? Is some long-forgotten enemy of the Pitches sitting Upstairs somewhere, laughing until they cry, and also making sure Baz doesn’t have a fucking second alone?
If so, fuck you, Baz thinks. Fuck you and your whole lineage, if someone ever felt bad enough to sleep with you.
That is another thing: the wanting to sleep with Simon Snow, Mage’s heir, resident Good Boy, and savior of the magical world. Also, the boyfriend to the stunningly gorgeous Agatha Wellbelove, who also may have a thing for Baz, too. And Baz is flattered, honestly. He and Wellbelove would make some beautiful children that would dominate the magical world. Hell, maybe he’d name them all Simon Snow Pitch just to piss off the Golden Boy.
He wants so bad to feel anything else for anyone else. He’d fuck a chimera if he thought for one second it would clear this blinding, aching need to touch and be touched by the one person most disgusted by his presence. Anyone else. He’d marry Bunce, or a second cousin, or a tree.
But that feeling, that “It’s you; it’s going to be you” has sat in the pit of Baz’s stomach for five years before deciding to take root at the base of his brain stem and prick and demand attention from both. A torturous cycle akin to being stuffed in the ground alive with a straw poking though the earth. Never satisfied, but still hopeful like a fucking moron.
Baz climbs the stairs to the turret. If his mum was still headmistress, maybe lifts would have been incorporated sometime, or even just escalators. Everyone calls the Mage the ‘Great Reformer’, but Baz puts that on the far end of his list of names for that fuckweed. Far behind prick, narcissistic bitch, and crazy fucking lunatic, which all rank well within the top ten. But Snow would argue that the Mage is really the ‘Great Reformer’ everyone calls him.
Baz’s calf muscles and back disagree heartily.
Even though the basic unsaid rules of their room declared that Snow takes showers in the evening, Baz can’t stand the way his clothes stick to him like they’re a second skin. He thought last year he was finally done growing, but the Grimms are a tall folk, and it seems he’s inherited that (and maybe, like, four other things) from his father. Any walking makes him sweat when it’s this early into the year, and the added bonus of not fitting into custom clothing makes it all the more awful.
So Baz breaks tradition and grabs a towel from his wardrobe. They’re supposed to share one, but Simon decidedly moved his things away from anything resembling Baz about three seconds into this year’s term, and Baz actually doesn’t give a shit. If anything, he’s happy. Now, no lingering scent of Simon can be on his clothes anymore than it usually is.
Sharing a room with the person you want more than actual life makes him hyper-aware of what Snow smells like: brimstone, green fire, and burned foodstuffs. Makes sense.
Despite the building being old, the water pressure is wonderful. Baz maybe thinks someone has spelled it this way because there’s no way a place as old as Watford had this wonderful a plumbing system when it was made. Just as Baz is wondering who may have upgraded this integral part of the school, a loud, obnoxious knock on the bathroom door jolts him from his thoughts.
“We need to talk,” says a muffled voice on the other side of the dark wood door. Simon Snow has never been great at yelling, even in the best of times. Baz accidentally pushed him down the stairs once, and the only noise he made the entire time was a surprised little, “oh” just before he went down.
“I need to get clean,” Baz replies, hoping that will shove off any response for a few minutes.
The knock sounds again, though this time it’s louder. “Now!” Simon yells. He thumps even harder against the door, and Baz sighs as he rests his head against the cool tile of the shower. Never a dull moment when you know the Chosen One, he thinks to himself.
Baz really should be thinking about the structural integrity of a door that was made centuries before him. It’s got a cheap little doorknob from when the other fell out two years into their time at Watford. (Baz blames Simon, but he knows it was himself that did it; slamming a door closed will do that.) The thing hardly locks half the time, and Baz was so tired after a day of classes and scouring the Catacombs that he just didn’t think about locking the door.
So when Simon’s incessant thumping gets harder, the door gives. The knob, thanks to its cheapness, breaks, and the door swings in to reveal Baz, naked, actually in the shower and not plotting, because that’s what Snow always thinks he’s doing.
Baz’s first instinct is to cover himself up. Fling a towel around his lower half and cower in a distant corner until Snow decides that looking at a pale, naked vampire isn’t worth his time anymore. His second instinct is to shout. Because his towel is one the counter outside of the shower, his second instinct will have to do.
“What the fuck is your problem?” he demands, and if there’d been any magic in his voice, Snow would be spilling secrets from his childhood like a broken dam. But Baz doesn’t need magic to make Snow become flustered or spill his secrets. All he needs is a hiss in the back of his throat and a lethal glare.
Snow looks like a deer caught in the headlights of a semi-truck. The most logical thing he can do at this point is close the door, walk out of the room, and not show up for a few hours so Baz can have a bit to think about this. But all Snow does do is stare, and stare, and stare, and stare some more. It’s like he’s trying to bore holes into Baz’s brain with just his eyes.
And then Baz watches those unextraordinary blue eyes creep from his face to where he’s trying desperately to cover up. And damnit, Baz thinks, that shouldn’t be doing the things it’s doing to me. It shouldn’t be setting him on fire all over like he’s not flammable to the largest extent, and it damn sure shouldn’t be making all the blood from the rats rush south like a freight train.
Snow comes to his senses finally (if he’s really got any) and slams the door shut. Baz can feel his face becoming redder. He likes the water hot, but this isn’t a temperature-related heat. This isn’t even the heat of arousal. It’s the heat of shame. Because while Snow was staring down where Baz’s hands are still covering, he was only thinking about one thing: snogging the daylights out of the Mage’s heir.
Shit.
…
The end of fifth year isn’t nearly as exciting as the previous ones: Simon slayed a dragon first year, and the Humdrum’s sent something equally as lethal (if not, more so) every year. However, for the first time in five terms, the last weeks are uneventful. Baz takes his exams in relative silence, though Snow’s tapping feet never stop.
However, if that’s the only upset they’ll have during exams, he can take.
It’s been about six months since Snow walking in on him in the shower, and they haven’t spoken about it. To be fair, they also didn’t speak about whatever it was that had been so pressing in Snow’s mind that day. It just didn’t seem as important as seeing your arch-nemesis stark naked.
Maybe he’d seen the long scar that ran down Baz’s legs. It wasn’t from whatever Snow was thinking it were from. It was years old from when the wraiths had thought it fun to mess with a Pitch. Live and learn, Baz thought. The wraiths hadn’t touched him since then.
Or maybe Snow was really just freaked out about the sight of another man’s prick. If he thought that only he had stones or some stupid shit, anatomy next year was going to fuck him over really well.
Whatever it had been, it’s gone and passed. Baz has shelved it away for the day he’ll finally get a good wank in, which will be only a few days from now. The last days of term always feel the longest, though, and even just remembering that is making his skin itch.
He’s forgotten it long enough, though, to begin packing his wardrobe. It’s not like Baz has a sizeable amount of clothing or anything, but compared to Snow’s, it’s massive. The winter coats alone outnumber all of Snow’s non-school clothing.
Just as Baz begins to take down the few frayed tees he’s ever owned, the door to the room opens. He doesn’t need to look up to know it’s Snow; the clambering of feet up the stairs always tells him enough. Apparently, Snow shares the same sentiment about stairs. Baz looks up to see Snow’s face flushed and his mouth open. (Though that shouldn’t surprise Baz anymore. Snow’s mouth is always open, like an obnoxious trout.)
“Haven’t suggested a lift to your Jedi master, then?” Baz asks, returning his attention to the remaining clothes in the wardrobe. “Or haven’t you mastered Up, up, and away?”
Simon’s glare reverberates through the room, and Baz drops the tie in his hand. The unmistakable scent of Snow’s magic is pouring into the air. Could what Baz just said really set him off that easily? It isn’t even comparable to their normal insults. Nothing this year has been comparable to the previous ones. Baz is too wrapped up in himself lately to really think of any good zingers.
Baz turns sharply from the wardrobe and says, “Calm down, Snow. You don’t want the Anathema killing you for maiming me.” Maybe in some distant world, that could be true.
Snow takes one large step forward and is up in Baz’s space. He’s not close enough to get a good punch in, but Baz knows that Simon doesn’t judge distance very well when it comes to physical altercations. As long as he even scrapes Baz, Snow counts it as a win.
“Stay the fuck away from my girlfriend,” Snow spits at him, hands live like a wire in the air. He always does this when they fight: the spitting of words, the gritting of teeth, and the pointing of hands. However, the actual flames that lick the insides of his eyes give way to let Baz know he’s probably as serious right now as he’s ever been. “I mean it, you fucking creep!”
Baz is just confused. Of course, he won’t let that show. A sly smirk paints its way across his face and he asks, “Trouble in paradise, Snow?”
More magic is exuded. More of the air feels alive with electricity. Snow’s magic has always felt like this: alive, alive, alive. There’s nothing about Simon Snow that isn’t alive. Baz wishes he could be jealous.
“Calm down, Snow,” Baz murmurs, bending over to pick up his tie. It helps to ease the shaking in his hands. Snow could quite literally explode all of Mummer’s right now, and Baz could go up with it. That’s not how he’s supposed to die.
Well, sort of. Simon Snow will do the right thing and kill him once and for all one day, far away from this day, when they stand on opposite sides of the battlefield.
But dying as a fifth year in the top of Mummer’s because Snow’s girl has obviously upset him is not the way Simon is going to kill him.
Snow’s jaw clenches, and he steps back from Baz. Thank Merlin for Anathema, Baz thinks, whoever you were.
Finally, the static in the air calms to the low buzz that always accompanies Snow, and Baz feels like he can breathe again. He can smell a hell of a lot more than most people, and maybe that’s why being around Simon has always made him feel like he’s suffocating. Or maybe it’s because he just wants to pin the Chosen One down on a bed and kiss him ‘til they both die.
That’s what Baz is thinking as Snow loosens his jaw and opens his mouth like the damned trout again. He’s thinking about stepping closer and filling a gaping hole in his chest that aches more and more every passing second. He’s thinking about just coming out with it, no matter the repercussions from his family or the Coven or even Snow himself. He’s thinking about twisting his hands into that perfect golden hair and touching the moles he’s longed to touch since they first met at the Crucible.
But all Baz does is think.
So, instead of pulling Snow in for a maddening and passionate kiss, he turns to his wardrobe and says, “Try not to blow Wellbelove up next time you see her. I still haven’t gotten my fill.”
…
Christmas at Watford is always bittersweet. Baz loves the turkey that’s served the night before the official end of the term, and he’s obsessed with the holly hung up just about everywhere it can be. Miss Possibelf always teaches them little Christmas spells like Merry and bright (obviously for lighting fairy lights) and talks about where the myth of Father Christmas really came from.
But it also makes Baz long for his mother. Sixth year isn’t easy. It’s the year before the technical last year one is required to take. Baz can stop coming after seventh year if he chooses, though he knows he will come back. He’s not going to be the first Pitch to ever drop out of Watford. Plus, Aunt Fiona’s threatened him with a silver cross branding over the heart if he decides to leave.
His mum loved Christmas much more than any other Pitch. She’d set up a big tree in the sitting room and physically place the ornaments on instead of spelling them up like every other magical family. When Baz once asked why, she gave him a look like he’d just asked her why she was breathing. After all, everyone does need to breathe.
So, yeah, the holidays simultaneously suck and rock. Aunt Fiona always brings down the shitty handmade bobbles from when Baz was, like, two and places them on the tree where everyone can see them. His dad mixes up basically all the top shelf alcohol into a cocktail and lets Baz have several glasses. Even Daphne gets in the spirit and throws a mini party with some more liberal members of the Old Families. It’s a good time to be a Grimm-Pitch.
Baz doesn’t entirely pack away his things. He just takes his coats, trousers, socks, and boots. He has more than enough clothing at his house. If he even so much as mentioned a sweater he thought was cool enough to look at for more than two seconds, it would be on his bed by the time he got home. He didn’t want or need anything from his school wardrobe. Just enough to get him to the train and back.
Snow kept the window open, and the breeze blows Baz out of his memories and right back into the chilly air of the room. Simon would keep that damned thing open all the time if Baz didn’t put his foot down. It was like that the first few months of the first year, but after he complained to Fiona about it enough times, she encouraged him to yell at Snow until he submitted to whatever whim was plaguing him.
Now, though… After last year’s revelations and midnight wanks, he can’t so much as snarl at Snow without feeling like he’s an utter arse. Hating Snow used to be as easy as breathing, even though vampires breathe far less often than humans. They do still need to breathe. Snow asked that once in fifth year. What a dunce.
You’ve fallen for a dunce, Baz thinks. A complete fucking dunce.
The cold gets to be too much. Snow isn’t even in the room. He’s probably off with Bunce trying to coerce cook Pritchard into giving him more scones or butter or something. As Baz is about to slam the window down and watch the snow fall from the sill, his eye catches on white blond hair that’s a stark contrast to the dark yew tree behind it.
Wellbelove is an objectively attractive person, and Baz can definitely admit that to anyone asking. She’s standing down against the yew tree, earmuffs protecting what Baz knows are tiny, pale ears that turn the lightest shade of pink when you compliment her. She’s got a light blue coat wrapped around her, and even though the weather definitely doesn’t call for it, she’s wearing a skirt and some tights that tuck away neatly into boots.
That’s another thing about being a vampire: the vision is impeccable.
As impeccable as it is, Baz wants to turn around at the next sight. Snow walks up to Agatha and wraps his arms tightly around her waist before kissing her. It’s so hetero that Baz thinks he might throw up. He would if it was anyone else. Just thinking about people like Dev and Niall actually getting their hands on a woman long enough to kiss her makes Baz’s stomach do summersaults and backflips.
But it’s Snow. His golden hair sticks out in every which way and demands attention in the flapping of the wind. He’s laughing loud enough that it trails up the room where Baz has his hands clenched on the window, nearly splintering it into thousands of pieces. Maybe the Anathema would hurt him for hurting the window. Then he wouldn’t feel so much.
It’s been easy to ignore them. It looked like they’d gone through a rocky patch there, and Baz let himself hope for just one second that it might be over. Of course, even if they were over, there was no way in heaven, hell, or the Veil that Simon Snow would fall in love with the evil gay vampire.
No way.
Baz wants to scream and rage and throw things around the room until his hands go numb and his fangs drop and he can taste blood in his mouth, which hasn’t happened in a long time. He wants to kill Snow and kiss him and throw him to a merwolf and take him so far away from the Humdrum and Watford and everything that’s been hurting him his entire life.
But Baz just slams the window down loud enough for Snow to look up and see Baz glowering down at the pair of them.
Whatever. Baz will just make Agatha love him instead. Shouldn’t be too hard.
…
Watching Snow get yanked out of thin air with Bunce on his arm feels like some weird fever dream Baz has made to cope with every stupid argument they’ve had this year. Even today, Snow came into the room just to get into a petty argument about the window again.
Snow’s just popped around the corner into the Wavering Wood. Baz mentally curses himself. Why does everyone try to follow him when he just wants food? (Blood? Same difference.) First Wellbelove, and then Simon motherfucking Snow and Bunce. Can a man have no privacy?
Of course, the second he realizes Snow’s in the vicinity of him and Wellbelove, Baz takes her hands into his, and it looks like they’re going to kiss. Of course, Baz isn’t going to waste his first kiss on a girl, but if it makes Snow mad, he’ll make that stupid sacrifice.
However, the sucking feeling of the Humdrum creeps into the air just as Snow comes to the clearing. Baz can only describe it as being dry. The air gets tight around him, and he can feel his lungs contracting like a heart that’s finally puttering out. However, his heart is beating what would be considered for normal for a human and erratic for a vampire. Snow asked once if he had any blood in his body. Why the fuck do you think I need it? Baz wanted to ask him back. He scowled instead.
Just as suddenly as Snow and that feeling appears, they both go away. Baz lets go of Wellbelove’s hands and stands in shock and awe. There’s no spell that can make oneself invisible, though one ancestral Grimm did try to use Out, out, damned spot for that. He accidentally discorporated himself to another dimension. Baz says a silent prayer for William Malcolm Grimm before turning to Agatha and basically screaming, “Where the fuck did Snow go?”
If Baz was thinking or was at all competent, he would track Snow using Come out, come out wherever you are, but Baz isn’t thinking. He knows Fiona will have his head on the pyre after she finds out, but Baz agrees with Wellbelove and goes to the Mage with her. They both saw it, and they both need the affirmation that they’re not crazy.
The Mage seems almost uninterested. It’s the last day of term for the eighth years, and he somehow thinks that’s more important than saving his literal heir. While Baz wants to punch the Mage on the best of days for what he’s done to the Old Families, he’d probably dig his fangs into the Great Prick’s neck if Wellbelove wasn’t there.
She’s an absolute wreck. Her best friend and boyfriend just got sucked out of thin air to Crowley knows where, and no one is trying to go find them. At least, no one skilled. The Mage sends his personal army after them, but Baz knows it’s just for show. The Mage’s army couldn’t find an apple on top of a bowl of bananas even if there was a bright neon arrow pointing to it.
So he and Wellbelove wait. Wellbelove is utterly inconsolable, but she does rest her head on Baz’s shoulder after a little bit. If Baz wasn’t so busy actively trying to take down her boyfriend and make him miserable, maybe they’d be friends. She’s a bright girl even with as little magic as she’s got, and she’s quippier than most people in their year. Her only real contender is Bunce, but she’s too busy worrying over Snow to be in any competitions.
Baz eventually gets the news that his family’s arrived for the ceremony. All the Old Families come for the Leaving Ceremony even if they have no one graduating. Baz will be up on that stage in the White Chapel next year, and while he can’t get the image of Snow and Bunce being sucked out of existence before his very eyes, the least he can do is distract himself by watching his predecessors leave.
Fiona is looking around, and it takes only three guesses for Baz to realize she’s trying to find the Chosen One. She’s hexed him at enough of these ceremonies to know he’d be here, and when she asks Baz where he is, all he can do is shrug. It’s not exactly lying; he really doesn’t know where Simon went. Baz looks over and sees the Bunces looking around just like Fiona, although they’re more worried.
It’s their daughter missing, after all. The brightest child they’ll ever put out hasn’t shown up to a ceremony she’s gone to since before she enrolled in Watford. Baz almost feels like he should go over and explain. He knows something, even if it’s not the whole story.
Just as he’s rising to his feet, the doors bang open. The light from outside nearly blinds Baz as he turns to stare at the two figures in the doorway. He already knows Simon is one of them. The brimstone and burning smell are in the air, and his magic is pouring out of him and tearing at the seams. After adjusting to the light, Baz can see Bunce’s bright hair and the glint of her ring.
There’s a moment of silence before chaos erupts. The blood hits Baz’s nose last. Somehow, even he thinks that’s wrong. The blood should have alerted him long before the doors flew open, but here he is, gaping open-mouthed at the two figures in the doorway. Simon is covered in blood from head to toe, and Penny is only cleaner by a fraction. It looks like it’s being sucked out of their pores. It looks like they’re going to die right there on the floor of the White Chapel.
Baz is stuck in place, and he silently thanks whatever Pitch ancestor is keeping him there. It would be even more of a scandal if he ran to his enemies and cried over their corpses. That’s to be done in private.
However, two hours later, a group of magical nurses and doctors have been called, and they all gather in Baz’s room, waiting for Simon to exit the shower.
Baz feels awkward. Should he be pouring tea? Would that be too domestic? He doesn’t have to wait much longer.
Snow steps out of the washroom like a zombie in a low-budget film. Even though it’s obvious by the smell that he’s scrubbed every surface of his body, dried blood flecks are still speckled here and there like the moles already present. If given enough time, Baz could find nearly every one of them. He knows every mole that litters Snow’s body and how large it is and where it’s located.
He’s a man who can’t swim that’s been cast out to sea.
Baz watches as the doctors perform vitals on Snow and check his skin to make sure the bleeding won’t start again by the simple pressure of fingers or clothing. They poke and prod until the Mage enters and watches himself. Then, they’re sent back to whatever corners of the world they crawled out of. Baz is pretty sure one came from New Zealand.
Simon looks like a stress ball squeezed one too many times. His hair has gone flat for once, the telltale buzz in the air that marks his presence is gone, and he doesn’t say anything he doesn’t have to. It’s the first time Baz has seen him not stutter out every other word.
It would be impressive if it wasn’t so fucking scary.
Then the Mage leaves, and it feels awkward between the two of them for the first time in six years. Even the Crucible wasn’t this bad. Simon seems to stare straight past anyone who looks at him. Wellbelove had been in here before Simon showered, just to see if he was alive, but he’d looked through her like she was a window. Baz had never seen Snow look at her like that. Even when he’d first noticed the two, Simon looked at her like she hung the moon, stars, and other planets.
So why does he suddenly straighten when Baz shifts?
In this state, Baz can do anything. He can sacrifice a virgin right in front of Simon, and Baz doesn’t know if Simon would scream or laugh or do nothing at all. He doesn’t know which of the three would be worse.
“What happened?” It’s the only thing Baz can think to ask. Maybe he should be demanding it, or maybe he should be taunting Snow for being sucked away in the first place, but even though he’s toed at some of the most untouchable of subjects, this feels like a new territory.
Simon takes a minute before he slowly turns his head to look at Baz. He looks gaunt. He looks like he does whenever term starts up: his face has gone sallow all over, his cheekbones stick out like he’s been starved, and his eyes sit just far back enough in his skull to be unnerving. Baz hates the beginning of term for that reason.
The smile Simon dawns then cracks his lips, and a small dot of blood bubbles up. Baz doesn’t even have the fiendish sense to want to pop his fangs and kill the Chosen One right there. It’s not like the Anathema would let him, but thoughts have to count for something, right?
“The Humdrum,” Simon murmurs, like that’s supposed to explain what’s happened in the last six hours. Simon says it like he’s praying to it, and that makes a chill run through Baz’s back.
“Can he even do that?” It comes out as a whisper, and Baz wishes he had the bravado to ask again, but the Humdrum makes him have a headache and the urge to throw up all at once. It’s fear in its primal stages, but Baz won’t admit that.
“He can now,” Simon replies, breaking eye contact and looking down at his hands. One thumb and forefinger rub at his wrist, which have both gone boney. “He took something from me today.”
“Fifteen pounds.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither Baz nor Simon laugh.
“There’s a new hole in the atmosphere,” Simon adds, like an afterthought. The holes in the atmosphere scare Baz, too. They always seem to open when Simon and the Humdrum meet. It can’t be a coincidence. Nothing with the Chosen One is coincidence.
Baz then crouches down in front of Simon like he’s about to give him a scolding. However, Baz just loosely takes Snow’s hand in his own. The finger bones feel too big in the skin that contains them, but they’re still warm. They still have a pulse in the wrist, and they are still tanned and freckled and have moles scattered across them.
“He won’t win,” Baz says to the floor. It’s cowardly not to meet Simon’s eyes, but it would take much more of Baz than he’s capable of giving right not. “You won’t let him.”
Simon nods, but it’s empty. Whenever something like this happens, Simon seems like he’s just going through the heroic motions. He’s read the fairytales and knows his role well enough to play it with few hiccups.
“I’ll die trying,” Simon whispers. Baz wishes he wouldn’t say that, but they both know how this story ends. The Humdrum will die or disappear or do whatever entities like that do when they’re defeated, but that won’t be the end of Simon’s trials and tribulations. He’ll be hunted by the vampires and the goblins and any other magic-hating creature.
And one day, something will kill him. Baz hopes to Merlin that the Old Families don’t want it to be him. He’d die, too if he had to kill the Chosen One. His last deed would be to kill the man that did Simon Snow in, and his family would never forgive him for it.
The urge to kiss Simon’s forehead takes over Baz’s mind, just to let Snow know that he’s so alive. That people love him and that people will protect him and that there are people who would kill and be killed for him.
And Baz is one of those stupid people.
Baz can’t kiss the Chosen One. Maybe he will, before Simon puts the stake through his heart. Maybe he’ll stop fighting for ten seconds to tell Snow how he’s in love with him, how he’ll always be in love with him, and how nothing Simon could do would change that. And then Simon would stab him or hex him or go off and not protect him, and it would be over.
That night is not tonight.
…
The earthy smell of wet dirt and rotting wood makes Baz gag again. The wood began to rot a week ago. There’s no plush velvet interior like a coffin for a real dead person. This is one of those cartoony coffins Baz would see in reruns of Scooby-Doo when he was young.
Perhaps the Numpties think they’re doing him a favor. Maybe they get all their information on vampires from cartoons. It would explain why he hasn’t been given food or water or been exposed to the sun in the last five weeks. However, he was kidnapped in broad daylight, so…
At first, Baz thought someone would come for him. Maybe the Numpties sent ransom. But after he scratched a sixteenth dash into the wood, he knew he’d die here.
It’s a pretty shitty way to die. No ventilation, surrounded by earthworms to pick the bones left behind, and with Numpties blabbering right on the other side of the wooden coffin. To think, the last thing he’d eaten was a fucking pasty from the country club.
The blood they were giving him tastes like none he’d had before. What if he died with another human’s blood in his system? Whose blood? Someone he knew? A father? A mother? Sister? Son?
After the third day of refusing blood, Baz gives in.
Today, they give him another 32 oz. Styrofoam cup filled with blood, and no food or water. Maybe he should demand it. Would they actually listen to him? Maybe they’d think it was a trap. There’s no way Baz can trap them. He’s too weak to move. The first few days, he had promise, but they hit him over the head with a rock when they gave him the blood, and he woke up hours later in the dark again.
There’s no difference between light or dark here. The only indication Baz has as to the passage of days is the giving of blood. It’s possible they give him blood every other day and it’s really been ten weeks. It feels longer than five weeks, but that could be the fatigue. Vampires can go longer than humans without food or water, and the blood counts for the barely-there amount of water he is getting.
However, they need that holy trifecta to live: food, water, and blood.
Baz has two-thirds.
He’ll die here.
The first time Baz thought that, he let himself cry in the most cramped and crumpled position possible. (Coffins are decidedly not spacious.) The second time he thought about his death, he laughed and laughed and laughed until a Numpty came in with a rock and gave him a good thump behind the ear.
The third time was now. Day thirty-seven (by best estimates). No one is coming for him.
Baz doesn’t cry or laugh. He just sighs through his nose and takes a sip of blood. If he doesn’t drink it fast, it gets congealed at the bottom, and even though he’s going to die in a Numpty den in a coffin in the ground, he won’t die on an empty circulatory system.
His stomach will just have to deal.
The darkness used to play with eyes. Now it just dances like the elephants in Dumbo until Baz gets bored. Then it settles back to darkness. Sometimes the Numpties go away to talk, and the silence talks to Baz until they get back.
Surprisingly, the silence sounds like an angry David Tennant. Maybe that’s just how every angry Scottish person sounds, but silence might be inherently Scottish.
But when the Numpties eventually come back, Baz breathes more deeply and closes his eyes. And he sees it.
The bronze curls always come to him first. Then the unextraordinary blue eyes take formation, and the moles follow. Baz allows himself to focus on that mole just beneath the left side of the jaw. The smile comes last. It’s a smile Baz has saved in his memories by countless times witnessing it from countless angles. The mole to the right of that mouth makes Baz’s eyes water.
Those eyes shine down at him. For some reason, he’s taller in Baz’s memories than in real life. Maybe he’s grown since seventh year. Probably not, though. Neither of them have grown much since sixth year. They both just filled out in the shoulders and got squared away in the face. No more pockmarks.
Baz can hear the laugh that emits from that mouth. It’s a sound he knows the angels crafted for ears of the damned to hear. Maybe they thought the damned would think twice about falling if they heard that laugh. It was made to be the first glorious sound deaf people here and for blind people to try to put a face to. It was made for people like Baz, whose souls were up in the air and just needed to be caught and nurtured.
Those lips were made to be chapped in the cold wind but warm to the touch. The moles and freckles were made to be dreamed of and painted. Those eyes…those unextraordinary but beautiful eyes were made to make women swoon. They certainly made Baz swoon.
His last thoughts would be of Simon Snow’s lips and moles and eyes. Baz knew this is how it would end. With one of them in tears, professing love, and the other driving a blade into a damned heart.
However, the one that’s supposed to end him is probably having tea right about now at Watford. Hundreds of miles away. Not knowing that the one he has to kill is being killed by someone else.
Simon Snow is alive, Baz thinks.
And I’m hopelessly in love with him.
…
“What do we do now?” Penny asks. Simon looks up from the ground. The dead birds are starting to get to Baz. There’s blood everywhere: spilling from the Mage’s ears, drying around Ebb’s corpse, and from the birds that were near enough to Simon’s explosion.
Baz can’t help it. He hasn’t fed since two days ago in the woods right before a hole opened above his house. He goes to a corner and feeds on a few birds. Penny and Simon should be reprimanding him for doing that, but they’re all so drained that they don’t stop him.
Eventually, Simon tears his suit jacket off and lays it over the Mage’s body. Even though Snow technically killed him, Baz knows this will tear him up inside. He’s probably the only one that ever loved the Mage properly. Some loved the man for his power, and others for his influence, but Simon loved him because that’s all he could do.
Baz lays down on the ground away from the bodies and tries to go to sleep. It’s not hard. The last few hours have been more draining than a marathon. In a way, it was a marathon to save Simon Snow.
A scream interrupts Baz’s nice dream about a hill far away where the sun shines down on the grass and birds are singing in the trees. Simon’s there, too, laying beside him and resting in the shade. It’s the best dream Baz has ever had.
It’s Bunce’s mum that screams. Baz thinks that maybe having two dead bodies surrounding three (nearly) alive kids could probably give someone the wrong impression, and he rises to see Bunce hugging her mum and Simon hugging himself. Those stupid wings are still spread out, and his cartoonish tail even whips around on the ground.
Eventually, they leave the White Chapel and go to Mummer’s. The Mage’s army has been summoned, and the Coven and Old Families also arrive. Baz almost flinches when Snow’s hand grabs ahold of his and Bunce takes the other. If anything, he’s at least gained two friends from this miserable experience.
They wait in the bedroom in the turret for what seems like hours. About five different people of five different ranks from five different groups ask them what happened, and they tell the same story separately five times. However, Simon always comes back to Baz’s bed and grabs ahold of his hand again. It’s a good balance because Baz is shivering, and Snow is a personal furnace.
Finally, they all leave, and Bunce leaves with her mum. No one comes to get Snow, and Baz refuses to leave until tomorrow unless Snow wants to come with. He doesn’t, so Baz doesn’t go. It feels wrong to leave him in this place when there’s nowhere else to go. Bunce’s mum wasn’t in the right place of mind when she left, so Baz is sure that’s why she forgot to ask Simon with them. Baz isn’t sure Simon would’ve gone anyway. Why does it feel so appropriate to be in this room of all places on Earth?
“What do we do now?” Baz echoes Penny from hours before. It had been a good question at the time. Two dead bodies, a missing Wellbelove, and no cellphones to call anyone on. This was similar to that. No one left to tell them what to say or do. No one peering in from the outside to get the scoop. No one trying to get evidence to blame either side for the deaths.
They’d track Wellbelove down soon enough and get her side. Then everything would be clear.
Simon rests his head against Baz’s shoulder. Baz rests his head against the tuft of curls that tickle his neck. They’re still holding hands. It’s not awkward. It should be.
A lot of things should be awkward right now. Snow spent Christmas with Baz. They had (still kinda do have) an alliance. They know the Mage succeeded in having Natasha Grimm-Pitch killed all those years ago. Inadvertently, he also caused Baz to be Turned into a vampire.
So many new pieces of trivia. So much to sort through. So much to strike and add to the Record. So much that they should want to forget.
But Baz just keeps holding onto Simon’s hand and brushing his face against those bronze curls. It’s a good dream come true that he’s allowed to do this, but Baz doesn’t have the mental capacity at the moment to think about how his fifth year-self is hooping and hollering inside of his heart. He’s too tired to want more than is being given.
Baz would be content if this is all Simon Snow ever gave him.
A few months later, Baz stands at a punch bowl while the people he’s known for eight years dance and cry behind him. The punch isn’t even spiked. They’re all still too wrung-out from trying to understand what happened in the White Chapel that night. Dev and Niall wanted to know why Baz hadn’t killed or at least seriously maimed Simon that night.
How does one explain homosexuality for the arch nemesis to two duds like Dev and Niall?
Simon doesn’t know, though, so neither should Dev and Niall. Or maybe he does, and he just won’t say so. It would make sense. Baz has been trying to kill Simon since they were eleven, so the revelation of love would either shock him or make him laugh so hard he would piss himself.
Simon didn’t come back, and neither did Bunce, but after Bunce’s mum became Headmistress, she let all of them have cellphones on campus, and Baz had stayed in near-constant contact with the two of them. He tried to reach out to Wellbelove, but she explained she just wanted to run from it all.
If that was an option for Baz, he would still be running.
But there’s a Leavers Ball and ceremony to attend to, and if the Chosen One and his insanely smart friend aren’t going to show, he kinda has to. It’s an unwritten contract that at least one of them has to show up to these kinds of things, even if it’s just to let people know all three of them are alive.
Simon hasn’t gotten in touch tonight, and Baz thinks about texting him just to make sure he’s still kicking it. However, Simon might be sleeping. These Leavers Balls take place at night, and even though it’s only nine, Baz would like to be in bed, too, preferably with the Chosen One tucked against his side.
Baz scans the room for anyone worth talking to. It’s strange how his best friends have alternated from Dev and Niall (Niall being his literal cousin) to Penny and Snow. (Baz has decided Penny’s name is worth saying every once in a while.) It just goes to show…something. Baz’s brain is spent from exams and that speech he gave a few hours ago.
His eyes lock on a figure entering the small procession that is the Leavers Ball. No one at Watford is late, so who would be walking in nearly an hour after the Ball’s started?
The boy who’s loved making entrances since he was born, apparently. The Golden Boy, the former Mage’s heir, the Chosen One, Simon Snow makes his way over to where Baz is standing. It’s like a reverse of what happened halfway through the first term this year.
Baz stands so still a stray tumbleweed could blow him over, even though Miss Possibelf spelled the tumbleweeds away hours ago.
Simon runs a hand through his hair, a little nervous trait Baz has picked up on these last few months. Simon has a few of them, the newest being tugging on his little devil’s tail, though that changed after he got it surgically removed a few weeks ago. The wings were gone sooner because Simon kept knocking people and things over, and Penny and Baz both breathed a sigh of relief when Simon could walk through a hallway without knocking over a vase or painting.
Someone’s given him a proper suit, and he looks like a cardboard cutout model with a few extra moles here and there.
Baz feels a genuine smile (not a smirk) tugging at his lips. To see Simon Snow in a proper suit with his hair somewhat tamed feels like seeing a unicorn, though he’s been told that a couple hundred live in a sanctuary in Switzerland.
“Didn’t think I’d be here so soon after…” Simon leaves it open-ended. Baz doesn’t need the end of that sentence. He didn’t personally know if he’d come back after that Christmas break, but Fiona’s threats about the cross still ran around his brain all these years later, and he didn’t want to disappoint his mum. She valued education more than the person who created it.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Baz replied, setting his little glass of punch back down and adding, “Party was dull without you, Snow.” Simon grins over at him and bites at his bottom lip. It’s something cheeky Baz has only ever seen him do around Wellbelove, but she’s been well and truly gone for a long time now.
“I guess the last few months were pretty dull, then?” Simon asks. Baz smiles and nods. It was nice not being threatened with dragons and flying monkeys every couple of weeks, but not having Snow even as a presence was unsettling, and after Bunce left, there was no real competition anymore.
“Ah, Snow, you were gone but not forgotten,” Baz replies, walking away from the table and closer to Snow. It’s the closest they’ve been since right after whatever happened in the White Chapel. Even then, it’s not very close. Baz is about a foot and a half away from Snow.
Simon’s only a little bit shorter than him (give or take three inches), but he seems so much older than he was a few months ago. He’s by no means a man. In Baz’s eyes, maybe Snow will always be a boy (the boy), but there’s no denying that something has fundamentally changed about the way Snow carries himself.
Maybe it’s the shared trauma.
“Have you danced?” Snow asks. It’s an odd question, but Baz really doesn’t think anything can be that odd between them anymore. They nearly died together on multiple occasions last December, and it’s foolish to believe they could ever be what they were before. They’re not enemies, and they share a side now, though it’s not either side they were on before. It’s all their own, now.
“No one to dance with, Simon,” Baz says, and the exasperation is overshadowed by the stirrings of those fifth-year feelings. All the songs they play at the Leavers Ball tonight are slow and meant for couples and sentimental friends. It’s meant to be a celebration, but there’s nothing to celebrate this year except maybe that Headmistress Bunce has brought back end of year books filled with photos. (Even though Simon, Penny, and Agatha left, they were still featured throughout the book.)
“Any girl here would have danced with you if you asked,” Simon mutters, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. Baz quietly thinks to himself that suit pockets are not meant for hands or anything, really, but Simon makes pouting look good when he’s dressed up.
“Come on, Snow, you know I’m not looking for a girl to dance with,” Baz replies, toeing at the ground with his expensive dress shoes. Fiona presented them to him a few days before, and even though Baz tried to insist he had enough dress shoes for a thousand different balls, she won.
Simon huffs, and a loose piece of hair falls into his eyes. He hasn’t cut it in a while. “I’m sure more than a few blokes would dance with you, too.”
Baz rolls his eyes and feels a blush creeping onto his cheeks. He’s had enough blood tonight for more than a few types of blushes. “I’m not looking for more than a few blokes.”
“What are you looking for?”
The way Simon poses that question makes Baz want to reach out and snog him in front of everyone watching. Everyone already is watching. Baz is surprised, but he shouldn’t be. Even though he and Bunce know about this weird friendship that’s blossomed, it doesn’t mean everyone else was clued in. Baz didn’t want anyone else clued in.
Baz looks up from where he is tracing the line of grout between the tiles, and he feels like he’s fifteen again, just trying to simultaneously please and displease Simon. He feels like they’re back in that blazing forest again where Simon talked him down from a suicidal rampage and walked him back to the car. He feels like the flames that existed in Simon’s eyes until his magic left have now planted themselves right at the base of his spine and are tickling his back.
Simon’s got his mouth quirked to the side, and a little dimple appears there. He’s still got his hands shoved in his pockets, but he seems more tense than before, like he’s holding something back. In these last few months of three-way Skype sessions and phone calls and group chats, it’s never felt like Simon’s tried to hold back. The three of them have something not a lot people can say they do: shared trauma.
And Simon and Baz have more. They have the forest fire and the Humdrum setting Baz off like a killing machine. They have years of sitting in that room at the top of the turret and bickering over a window and bathroom schedules and posh soaps. They have a rivalry that’s morphed into this friendship that still feels like it’s morphing even as the silence stretches between them.
“I want you to dance with me tonight.” It’s simple. It isn’t a confession of anything, but Simon smiles anyway. He outstretches a freckled hand, and Baz takes it. Now all those who were staring are gaping openly, but the song that plays is nice, and Baz has heard it before.
It’s a slow rhythm meant for only two people to hear together. It’s meant for them, even if it really isn’t.
Simon’s not the nervous wreck he once was. Baz once watched him at a special ball the school held for a blood moon, and the stiff way he danced with Wellbelove made Baz spit out his punch and laugh. Now, though, he’s the one that’s stiff. His dark blue suit feels too heavy and hot now that Snow is within inches of him. It’s the closest they’ve ever been, including after the mess in the White Chapel.
It’s closer than two platonic blokes get. It’s closer than a lot of romantic blokes get.
Snow must have been taught to dance before tonight and after than disastrous ball so many years ago. Baz thinks about him practicing with Wellbelove, and a small flame of jealousy glows in his mind. Then he remembers Wellbelove is in America, and the glow subsides to a flicker.
Maybe Simon just doesn’t realize how close they’ve gotten. Maybe he’s about to trample on Baz’s toes and knock his forehead into Baz’s chin. Maybe he thinks two blokes can dance like this and just be friends.
If this is all Baz ever gets from Simon, he can die happy and sated. He feels fuller than after he’s drained a deer. He feels like his feet aren’t nearly as heavy as they have been the past few hours. Simon’s got his arm behind Baz’s back, and Baz can feel the muscle of Simon’s shoulder through the suit jacket. Baz’s hand, eternally cold, feels comfortably toasty in Simon’s.
It’s a strange feeling to be dancing with Simon Snow at a Leavers Ball. Baz never thought he’d make it this far. He knew he’d go to the Leavers Ball, but he thought he’d spend the entire night at the punch bowl, shooting glares at Wellbelove and Simon and nearly crushing glasses in his fist. Maybe people would assume he was mad about Agatha making up her mind once and for all about the good guy, and maybe some astute pixie would feel the jealousy and properly place it.
Baz never thought he’d share a dance with Simon Snow at their Leavers Ball.
He never thought they’d both make it this far. He never thought there’d be a time when they could look each other in the eye, let alone be dancing at a Leavers Ball together instead of at each other’s throats the entire night.
It would be easier if they were at each other’s throats. They’ve been there so many times that they could do the motions in their sleep. Baz is quite sure Simon already has. He’s slept close enough to the Golden Boy for the last seven and a half years to know they’re both plagued by nightmares that are too scary to mention in the morning.
This feels like one of those dreams that Baz wouldn’t let himself think of. If he dwelled on the good dreams he had of Simon, he’d never stop. There are so many he can’t remember because he’s forced them out of his brain, but they come back now.
There’s the one about sleeping under the sun for hours with Simon next to him, and the sun doesn’t burn them and ants don’t bother them. It’s free of bugs and sunburns and evil. That’s one of Baz’s favorites. There’s another where he’s just woken up and can feel Simon breath against the back of his neck, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s him. And the one where they’re just kissing for hours on Baz’s bed, not moving or noticing the world crumbling away around them.
But this is so much realer than all of those dreams combined. The hand grasping Baz’s is real and warm and calloused from calling and holding a heavy sword for years. The occasional brush of dress shoes on the floor sends vibrations through Baz’s legs, and they threaten to buckle right underneath him. He knows now that Simon would catch him. No matter what, Simon has always caught him.
“Why are you here?” Baz asks. It’s been bothering him. Without needing to say it, Simon basically swore off ever returning to Watford after December, and Baz understood. He swore off that nursery before he knew what swearing things off really meant. Baz wasn’t even irritated when neither Penny nor Simon showed up to hear his speech. People would record it, and he’d get a copy and show them if they really wanted to see it.
Baz would swear Watford off, too if it had broken as many promises as it had with Simon. Watford promised to keep him safe. Watford promised to always be a home for him. Watford promised so many things that couldn’t have ever been promised.
Life hasn’t kept its promises to Simon Snow.
Baz will. He’s broken the necessary ones, like the ones about killing him and smiting everything Simon loves. Coincidentally, a lot of the things he loves are now things Baz does, too. He likes Penny a lot, and sour cherry scones aren’t bad. Baz will never wrap his head around Simon’s fascination with butter, but it’s probably rooted in not being fed properly for eleven years and then suddenly getting as much food as one could want.
Baz has promised himself to Simon Snow, in whatever way the Chosen One will have him. Baz supposes now he’ll have to stop calling him that, but now is not that time for large shifts in character. There’s been too much of that as of late.
Simon shrugs and looks down at the floor. “I guess…I didn’t want to think about you alone here.”
“I’m not alone,” Baz rationalizes, looking around. “There’re loads of people here. The teachers, for one, and people we’ve grown up with, and…” He wants to go on, but that obviously isn’t what Simon was getting at. Simon’s been seeing a magical therapist (one of three in the world), and while they’re working on Simon voicing his opinion, it’s not always easy.
“Why are you here, Simon?” Baz asks again, this time with a tenderness in his voice Baz hasn’t used since Mordelia was a baby, back before she was a terror. “It’s fine to not want to be here, you know. I wouldn’t have ever made you come back.”
Simon huffs out a laugh and looks up just as the song’s changing. The fairy lights catch the curls in his hair in brilliant flashes of light. If Baz was more of a dreamer and less of a realist, he’d call Simon Snow an angel or the closest thing to it.
Simon smiles and says, “I know you wouldn’t.” The hold on Baz’s hand gets stronger, and the arm across his back bring him closer to Simon. “I love it when you call me Simon,” he adds, finally looking around the room and seeing everyone staring.
“They’re all looking at you,” he mutters, his face suddenly aflame in a blush Baz will remember until his dying breath.
“They’re looking at two blokes dancing,” Baz replies, deciding to tighten his hold on Simon as well. “Two blokes dancing who they used to have to split up before a fight broke out.”
Simon does let out a genuine laugh at that, even if it is small. It’s a start. Baz loves to see him smile like this. The tension eases out of Simon’s back, and his arm doesn’t feel like a steel rod against Baz’s back. It just feels like the reassuring touch you’d give to someone who desperately needs it. Does Baz desperately need it? He desperately needs something from Simon Snow.
“All that fighting,” Simon practically whispers, “and we ended up on the same side after it all.” Baz guesses that Simon can’t believe it either. Who would?
“I was always on your side,” Baz says. It’s true. Even though they fought enough for five different arch enemies, Baz was never completely on the side of the Old Families. He was also never completely on the side of the Coven. He was on a side made for him and Simon and whoever else he deemed worthy. (Penelope Bunce was more than worthy. She actually probably made the side herself, and Baz just climbed on board before he knew it truly existed.)
Simon looks at Baz, truly, truly looks at him then. It’s the kind of look someone gives another person when they want to see if there’s a hidden intention or just true sincerity. Baz feels like he’s laid himself out time and again these past months. He’d go through it all again a million times if it got him here. He’d fight two-hundred chimeras and one-thousand dragons to be here.
Simon’s the one that gets to decide what happens next. Baz has always been deciding what’s gone on between them. He’s chosen where they go and who they talk to and what they bicker about. It’s Simon’s turn. The ball is in his court. In a way, it’s always been, and Baz has just been playing with that stupid, red ball Simon carried all first year.
Baz, honest-to-Merlin, doesn’t expect Simon to drop his hand and cup it around the side of Baz’s neck, just above two pin-prick sized holes that drained him of life all those years ago. He doesn’t expect Simon Snow to lean in and smile like he’s going to tell a secret, and then kiss him.
It’s just a kiss. It’s small. It’s Baz’s first. It’s not Simon’s. Simon’s lips are chapped (like always), and his hand is calloused and tickles Baz but not enough to make him giggle. Baz doesn’t expect the kiss, so his feet move for a millisecond longer than Simon’s, and he nearly falls over. Simon leans back and lets out a single huff of laughter. His smile is genuine, and he just picks up Baz’s hand like it’s nothing.
Baz will fall asleep that night with Simon pressed against his back in a pair of Baz’s silk pajamas. It’s a déjà vu that’s so much better than the dream. Baz will dream of that sunny hill where bugs don’t exist and birds chirp happy songs. Baz will wake up tomorrow and leave the grounds of Watford the last time for a very long time.
But right now, they sway back and forth to a tune unfamiliar to both of them, and the world looks on at the Chosen One and his former enemy.
Keris hands Trixie five pounds.