Chapter Text
BAZ
I wake up to the aroma of fresh-baked sour cherry scones. This would be the absolute dream for Simon, and to me, waking up to scones brings the pleasant possibility of Simon softened around the edges, his anxiety worn out from eggs, sugar, and butter. I mustn’t have been wholeheartedly, committedly, shockingly awake though, because once several blurry seconds have passed my vampire senses kick in and I smell the smoke. And the clock registers two in the morning.
My first thought is that Simon has gone off. It is possible; he always smells a little bit like the mouthwateringly sickening medicinal sour cherries that Cook Pritchard insists on using, and who am I kidding: Simon, magic or no, will always smell like something I’d gladly eat. And the smoke. Always the smoke before and after the fire. After he’d gone off.
My fight-or-flight response is to (always, always) reach out for Simon, but then I remember that I’m in my dorm room in LSE (Father was quite insistent on having me stay on uni premises to socialise and “meet people,” just as enthusiastic as he’d been about continuing my education in something that was not magic; Fiona reckons it’s because magic killed my mother in the end, and speaking to dreadful Normals about Keynesian economics is the furthest thing from magickal) and Simon is of course not in my room.
I tumble out of bed, losing my grace, and swear loudly (I’m lucky to not have a roommate to share this ridiculously cramped space: coffin-sized bed, a desk so small that one day’s worth of my first-year Watford schoolwork wouldn’t have fit, an outrageous excuse of a closet, an en-suite shower that I’ve tried in vain to cure of odd smells by drowning myself in cedar and bergamot soaps every time I walk in, and thankfully a small refrigerator, microwave, and sink outside).
“Bollocks! Crowley!”
That wasn’t my swearing, and I catch a secondary wave of smoke, foul and not as earthy and whole as Simon’s magic had been. I round the corner and turn on the lights.
To find Simon Snow with flour in his hair, tending to a small exploded heap of what one can only assume is unevenly baked, unfortunately microwaved scone dough.
“Hey,” I say carefully, because that’s what you say to your narcoleptic, insomniac boyfriend of six months who breaks into your dorm room and stress-bakes using your crappy uni microwave in a criminally ungodly hour in the night.
“Baz! Come over here, will you? I’m not sure what I did wrong, the measurements were right, I used cold butter, I-”
“Snow, you utter numpty, you used a microwave.”
His face flattens into the expression I’ve seen him use on one too many goblins. His fight-or-flight response.
“Why do you say such cruel things?” He always crumples after. After shutting himself out and gearing up for a fight.
“Simon, love, look, let’s go to bed. You can kip in the room. I’ve a few bags of Walkers I can dig out.”
“I don’t want your pity.” I’ve never pitied you, with or without the smoke. You still smell like scones and tea and samosas and roast beef sandwiches and soft afternoon sunshine.
“Also some mint Aeros in the nightstand if you’d like.” Other couples keep objects foreign to us in the nightstand (I haven’t broached the subject because I’m scared and I’m unsure of how vampirism could complicate the actual process and I’m scared of losing him and I’m scared), but I store family packs of mint Aeros to make Simon feel welcome. Food always solves problems. Food puts off the temporary glitches that come with missing your magic.
“I don’t want your food, either.”
I take a good look at him, and see that he’d filched one of my smaller Watford football jerseys. He’s got one of his own, yet he elects to wear mine. “I’m sorry. I’m knackered. I’ll clean up tomorrow. Can we go to bed?”
His head snaps downwards in guilt, and I feel myself wilt.
“Did I wake you, Baz?” Did he not see that all the lights were off? How far out of it is he this time? I feel the familiar surge of rage towards the Mage, the Humdrum, and the entire World of Magicks for abandoning Simon. For stealing his magic.
“No, I was studying, actually. Exam tomorrow. Case study on the Lehman Brothers Collapse.” Better to let him think that I was up cramming something dreadful, and that this was a pleasant surprise. I suppress my anger at the world, anything to lighten the mood, and force a grin, hoping it’s not too much a grimace.
SIMON
He knows that any smile of his will work on me.
BAZ
“Tea?” I ask, as a peace offering, and this time when the corners of Simon’s eyes crinkle I can’t help but let out a slow smile.
SIMON
That bastard knows that I love him and his posh royal flush ginger tea too much to say no. Besides, I’d just spent the previous hour blubbering in a late-night cab, feeling too much and then too little as I remembered. The fighting. The dragon. Baz’s Hampshire home up in flames. Ebb dying, and my inability to help, to use my magic. The Mage dying, and it was all my fault. A broken piece of Latin that the Minotaur must’ve installed in my head had kept repeating: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. My fault. I was the Chosen One, and we were giants.
Now, I rely on Baz's ginger tea (“It’s royal flush ginger tea with a hint of orange and bergamot, Si. The Queen’s first sip of tea from Ceylon. It’s historically significant and a marvellous tea all on its own,” I remember Penny saying as she accepted tea after we surprised Baz by picking the lock to his dorm room with her ring) to feel warm, after my magic had gone, the warmth I’d been carrying leaving with it. There’s nothing wrong with not feeling uncomfortably hot anymore, but the first time Penny broke down the door while I was having a wash I knew. She cried for the rest of the day as Baz hit me with healing spells. I’d been taking scalding hot showers; I needed to run hot. How else will I be able to keep Baz warm? He's a vampire who heats up blood before meals, and secretly is the small spoon. Baz is always so cold, and I need to keep him warm. They didn't understand.
How else will I be able to retain a bit of who I was?
BAZ
Simon lost his magic, and I was there. I felt the distance between Simon and the world, between us, grow.
SIMON
I close the distance between us, smiling at Baz, and allow myself to feel.
He’ll give me this. He always does.
BAZ
I’ll be damned if Simon doesn’t know I’ll always give this to him. I slant my head downwards and close my eyes. The warmth of his breath fills the gap in between, and I feel myself shiver. Simon huffs a quiet laugh, and his breath tickles my lips again. I lean in for a brush, and-
That’s when the smoke detector goes off.