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Simon
All the younger students have gone to bed. Or at the very least they’re shut away in their rooms. But the 7th and 8th years are up and about. Instead of getting good night’s sleep, we’re all traipsing across the fields in small groups, heading towards the edge of the Wavering Wood. And everyone’s got a can or a bottle of some kind hanging from their hands.
No one is really sure who put this whole thing together (well, someone must be sure because someone had to have done it), but they seem to have succeeded in getting the attention of all the upper years while keeping the staff completely in the dark. I can’t imagine they would turn a blind eye to something like this if they knew about it.
I’m walking over with Penny and Agatha. Agatha looks absolutely beautiful. She heard the word ‘party’ and went all out with her outfit and her makeup. Her hair looks the same as always, and by that, I mean it’s completely flawless. She’s practically gliding across the field like a goddess. It’s almost enough to make me regret our break-up. Almost. Penny, on the other hand, is wearing what she wears every time she’s not in uniform: a baggy t-shirt tucked into a casual skirt. I’m more on Penny’s side of things with my loose white tee and generic jeans, but it’s not like I’m out to impress tonight. I’m mostly just out to get drunk.
There’s a whole area just outside of the Wavering Wood full of students doing their own thing and milling around and drinking, but the majority are forming a large circle in the middle of the crowd. I know exactly what that means, and I know straight away that that’s exactly where I want to go. I drag Penny and Agatha with me.
It doesn’t take long for me to spot Baz heading over as well. For once he isn’t leading his minions, but they’re leading him, practically dragging him into the circle. He looks bored, but that just seems on par with everything I know about Baz. Bored at the one fun party we can actually get away with.
Once there are enough people sat around, Gareth takes it upon himself to take charge and get everything started. It’ll be drinking games galore this evening.
***
Rhys is smirking at me.
“Simon. Truth or Dare?”
As if there’s even an option. I’m a good few rounds of never have I ever, a good few of truth or dare and many cans of cider down and Penny describes me as ‘stupidly and recklessly courageous’ at the best of times (and she very rarely means it as a compliment).
“Dare.”
Rhys takes a moment, as if he hasn’t already come up with a wealth of dares just for tonight.
“I dare you… to ask out the dryad in the woods.”
The circle erupts with shock and murmurs. We’ve had plenty of dares happen tonight and some of them have been stupid (most of them have been stupid). But none have been dangerous. And none have involved wandering off into the dark alone. No one seems to have too much of a problem though and I’m as equally drunk and stupid as everyone else right now (maybe even more so), so I’m up on my feet and ready to go.
“Someone’s gotta go with him. Make sure he’s telling the truth.”
That makes the sound cut out. No one else wants to go into the woods. Especially not at this time of night.
“Alright, alright, I guess it’s up to me then,” Rhys says, stumbling up to his feet. “Let’s go, Si.”
Baz
The game is on pause until Snow and Rhys can get back to us. Pretty much everybody else seems perfectly content to get back to their drinking and gossiping and I should be doing the same thing, but I just can’t pull my eyes away from the Wavering Wood. It’s dark out and we’ve all been drinking and does nobody remember that there’s a fucking Insidious Humdrum on the loose?
And by the way that Simon and Rhys were stumbling off together, there is absolutely no chance that either of them is even close to being sober.
But as much as Snow is notorious for getting himself into trouble at every turn, he is equally notorious for getting himself out of it. And for surviving over and over again, as much as the odds are stacked against him. Simon Snow is basically indestructible. I shouldn’t worry as much.
I still worry.
And I can’t stop staring into the darkness of the Wavering Wood.
***
The light of a few magical spheres isn’t enough to see anything clearly, but they are enough that its immediately obvious when Simon and Rhys emerge from the trees that things are not right. I can’t tell who is leaning on who, or if they’re supporting each other equally. They’re stumbling back over to everyone else. Simon has his sword out. It’s hanging down at his side in his hand that isn’t busy clutching at Rhys to keep him upright.
Everybody has fallen into silence to watch them. Even those who were never a part of the games, those who were stood on the outskirts, they’re enraptured by Snow now.
Simon himself barely seems to notice them. He falls back into his space and Rhys does little to help him down gently, instead just letting him fall down and stumbling over to his own spot.
They’re both coated in sweat and bruises, and I can’t see properly in this light, but I’m pretty sure there’s some blood mixed in there too.
What the fuck happened out there?
Simon seems remarkably unaffected by his predicament though and as soon as he manages to correctly right himself in his seat, he turns to me.
“Baz. Truth or Dare?”
Is he really doing this? Is he just going to continue the game as if nothing happened? As if he hasn’t just gone out to ask a dryad for a date and come back looking like he’s just been to war. Maybe he’s used to it. Maybe going to war mid drinking game is just another day in the life of Simon Snow.
I take one look at him, and I think of the possibilities of what could be out in the wood, and I think my answer to his question is pretty fucking clear.
“Truth.”
“Do you fancy Agatha?”
There’s about a million more tactful ways that he could have put that, and judging by Agatha’s reaction, she agrees with me on that (though she’s also looking intrigued, as though she wants to know my answer as well). I consider what to say for a moment and then decide to screw it. I promised the truth, didn’t I?
“No, Snow. I do not ‘fancy’ Agatha.”
For some reason, he just looks disappointed. I can’t bring myself to bother working out why. I'm still stuck on what happened to Snow in the woods. And why everyone else seems happy to go along with pretending it was nothing.
***
Simon
I can’t avoid walking back with Baz. I mean, we’re going in exactly the same fucking direction. It would be weirder if I tried to walk alone. But it means that I have to work extra hard to put one foot in front of the other evenly. To keep my head up and my eyes looking straight ahead. To keep a steady pace. To not be obviously trailing behind. And I do try. I try my hardest to keep up with those things, but it’s just so hard and I’m so tired. And the world is still spinning from the drinks I had earlier. So I’m not all that surprised when Baz turns around, exasperated, to face me.
“Struggling there, Snow?”
I am. Very much so. But Baz has turned back to keep walking and there’s no way I want to let him know that.
I try and tell him to fuck off, but all that comes out is a pained grunt.
And the next thing I know, the ground is a hell of a lot closer.
Baz
Simon grunts at me and I’m about to scoff back at him when there’s a loud thump. I turn back to find him slumped down onto his knees.
I don’t even think to stop myself from running over (it must be the alcohol) and helping him back to his feet again. He must either be really out of it, or have been drinking very excessively, because he lets me help him. And then he leans his head against my shoulder. And he keeps leaning on me. I adjust my grip to something minutely more comfortable, and start trying to shuffle Simon back towards our room. Everyone else has already cleared out, so I guess it’s up to me to sort him out,
That’s when I hear a snarl from back within the woods.
Luckily for me, Simon seems to have enough strength left in him to call his sword because it’s here before I can even think about what’s happening. Unluckily, that seems to be all the strength he has, because he’s just holding it, making no move to try and fight. He’s still leaning against me to the point where I have little doubt that he’d fall if I moved away.
I can see the source of the snarling now. There’s something at the edge of the wood.
Simon is gripping his sword with all the strength he has left and I’m gripping onto his arms with all of mine. The creature slinks forward, sticking to the shadows. I can’t see any details but I can see the gigantic size of its body silhouetted against the moonlight.
How is it that I continue to find myself in these situations? Stuck outside at night with Simon Snow while being hunted down by large and dangerous magical creatures. It appears that this is just my lot in life.
The creature, whatever it is, starts lumbering out towards us and for a second, I’m sure that this is where I’m going to die. Then I think that maybe being very drunk and practically hugging Simon Snow to my chest isn’t the worst way to go. Then I feel Simon Snow. I feel him too much. I feel him get hotter and hotter and fill up every inch of space around us. I close my eyes and prepare to get disintegrated by his power.
Then I feel him explode.
When I open my eyes again, there’s no creature and both Snow and I seem to be fully intact. That would be a mission successful then.
Simon was already completely slumped against me, but it’s at that moment that he goes fully boneless in my arms. If his eyes weren’t still open, I’d be worried that he had passed out.
***
Simon looks infinitely worse in the light of our bedroom. I was right to say he had come back from the woods covered in bruises. And I knew there must have been blood involved somewhere, because his arms are splattered with it. What I had not noticed at all back on the field, however, was that one leg of his trousers was soaked darker than the other.
My hand comes away sticky and red when I touch it.
Shit.
I blast healing spell after healing spell at Simon and thankfully some manage to hit the mark, though most seem to only liven him back up, but don’t do much to actually close the wound I’ve revealed by rolling up his trouser leg (I had to remind myself not to think dirty thoughts as I did that, but it wasn’t too hard with all the blood serving as a distraction).
It turns out that Simon Snow has a stash of beers under his bed. A stash of beers that he is more than willing to crack into after surviving a monster attack and while there’s still a steady stream of blood leaking out of his leg. He’s reaching for them as soon as he’s been hit with enough spells to let him form a coherent thought.
“Are you really doing that, Snow?”
He doesn’t seem about to stop anytime soon, so I guess he really is.
“Tonight was a night for getting drunk.”
“If I recall correctly, you did that perfectly well earlier.”
“Well, I sobered up. And tonight isn’t a night for getting sober. It’s a night for getting drunk.”
He takes another swig from his bottle and then grabs a second from the box. For a moment I think he’s going to embrace a whole other level of crazy and have two at once, but instead he thrusts out the second one towards me.
“Getting drunk alone is no fun.”
I take the beer from him (Morgana knows, I’m going to need it), but put it to the side. Unlike Snow seems to, I haven’t completely forgot that I need to be giving him medical attention right now. I’m still casting spell after spell at his leg.
“Is it really a good time to be getting drunk? You are suffering from a gaping hole in your leg.”
“Even more of a reason.”
“Are you sure? I’ve not heard of this being the recommended medical course of action.”
“More you drink, less you feel.”
“You really are an idiot, Snow.”
“Am I? Cause this idiot has a gaping hole in their leg and yet can barely feel a thing.”
I kick him for that. I’m not entirely sure why. I think I want him to stop being so cute. It’s not doing good things to my brain.
“Ow, fuck! I said barely. That still fucking hurt.”
He’s pouting now and it’s destroying my heart even more. At this rate, he’ll have finished me off by the end of the night.
He rolls onto his back, and I have to move away, but his leg doesn’t seem to be bleeding anymore so I just let him do whatever the fuck he wants, Merlin knows he’ll do it anyway. I start on that beer he gave me, and I must really need it because it’s only seconds later that I’ve finished the whole thing and he’s passing me another.
His head is dangling off the side of his bed so that the tips of his unruly curls are gently brushing against the floor. He’s staring up at me.
“I know I have to fight. I know I don’t get a choice. I know that I’ll have to keep fighting monsters. Keep with this-” He chucks his sword down to the side of the bed. Great. A drunk and rambling Snow. It’ll be a miracle if I can get any sleep tonight.
“But I don’t think I want to fight you.”
That gets my attention.
“You’re not a monster or a creature or something that needs fighting. You’re just-” He pauses and instead swings his hands around as if to gesture to me.
“I’m just what, Snow?” I mean it to sound condescending, but it seems to lose the effect when it’s split in the middle with a hiccup.
“You’re just a drunk teenager. Like the rest of us.”
“You’re one to talk.”
“You’re just my roommate. You’re just... Baz.”
“I’m just… Baz?”
“Yeah. You’re just Baz. And yeah, we fight. But we don’t fight to kill. I don’t actually want to hurt you. Not in a way that matters. Not even in a way that doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Although I think there may be something obvious. There may be a right thing to respond with.
“I don’t want to hurt you either.”
It doesn’t come out right. I wanted to say it. And I wanted him to know that I’m being genuine. That I mean it. But I didn’t want it to sound quite so… fond.
Simon turns so he’s lying on his bed normally, looking over at me.
“So let’s not.”
He says it with such conviction. As if he can change the way the world works just by willing it to happen. Maybe he can.
“Promise?” He asks, reaching his hand into the space between out beds, pinkie first.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m drunk or because I’m just always weak for Simon or if I truly believe that Simon can wish away the war between my family and his mentor or just because I think that maybe he truly wants to, but I reach over too and close the gap.
We fall asleep like that, hand in hand, and it feels as if this could be the start of something new.