Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Baz 

It was never pleasant when Simon returned home after a mission. Seeing him tired and worn. A reminder of the sort of things the Mage puts him up to, pulls him out of school to handle. But I’d been used to it. Because it was always something he bounced back from, or let bounce off of him. And it was only ever for an evening, or a day, and then he was back in Magical words, back in the dining hall, back in our room. It never used to be this intense.

He doesn’t come to classes. Any of them. I made a jab at him about it once it’d really gone on too long and I just wanted to know why without having to ask, but he didn’t react. He’s in the dining hall some days, but fewer than before. And he doesn’t echo throughout it, quieter than he used to be. I used to be able to hear all his conversations with Bunce. Now, they happen around him while he eats, or pushes his food around his plate. He’s just as quiet in our room. It’s eerie.

Today, after four days of him being entirely missing, he’s not in our room but at the top of the stairwell, just outside the door. When I first see him it’s a relief, just to know that he’s back. (Last year I could rely on him being back from his missions after a couple days at most. Ever since I came to school late this year though, he’s gone for as long as a week at a time, like it’s nothing. And then he sleeps through the next one.) The relief is short lived though, immediately washed away by the panic that comes from the sight of him . He’s curled up over himself, his legs bent at the knee and clumsily held against his chest. His hair is streaked with blood, his blazer too. Some sticks to the floor beneath him and is smeared on the wall behind his head, which is hung down over his knees. His clothes are torn in a couple places, and through the tears I can see gashes that’re still bleeding from whatever fight he was just in. 

I pick up my pace over the last few stairs. “Snow.” I say as I reach the top of them.

He doesn’t move. The panic leaps into my throat and I kneel in front of him, but this close, I can see that he’s shaking. Still alive I think. Thank Crowley, still alive .

I take a breath, and before I can convince myself not to, let my hand fall onto his shoulder and give him one firm shove. “Snow!”

As soon as I’ve done it, his head snaps up, his eyes blown wide, and he pushes himself back against the wall before scrambling to the side, out from under my grip. His breathing is ragged. 

I want to reach out again, leave my hand on him until he doesn’t look so terrified. I stand up instead. “What happened to you?” I sneer.

“I—” he’s still catching his breath. “Where… shit— how long have I…?”

No full sentences, not that that tells me much. He’s never been able to finish a thought. 

“Been nodding off at the top of the stairs? Not sure.” As I push open the door to our room, he tries to push himself onto his feet using the wall. He stumbles, cringing, but gets there. “Seriously, what happened to you?”

I shouldn’t push it. Pushing it is how I’ll get caught desperately needing to hear the answer. But really, what the fuck was it? He seems like he’s about to blink back into unconsciousness, following me through the door and falling onto his bed, all the while hugging the wall.

“I was with the Mage—” (Knowing it doesn’t make it any less upsetting to hear. It’s always the Mage.) “—fighting some… something. Claws and wings, something.”

“Birds?” I offer with an arch of my brow.

I expect him to roll his eyes, but he doesn’t. He never puts in the effort these days. “Magical something… but, yeah. Birds. He was telling me to go off and I did… I thought I did, but now…”

“You teleported ?” And by accident, if he’s telling it right? 

His eyes are wide, brows pinched. “Didn’t mean to. He’s going to be so—” And then he’s got his eyes scrunched closed as he adjusts how he’s sitting. 

He’s going to stain his sheets, but even with my fangs aching just beneath my gums I can’t be bothered to tell him that. Partially because what I really want to say is that he needs to clean himself up, care for his wounds, and never let the Mage send him out on these death missions again. And, well I certainly can’t say that.

“I have to go back,” he says, though he’s not moving. 

“Yeah, what’ll the Mage do without you around to bleed on the creatures?”

“Seriously, I can’t— he’s going to…”

I expect him to say the Mage will be in trouble, that he won’t be able to handle himself against these winged-whatevers and he’ll need Simon’s help, and I’m about to argue against it when the back of his sentence finds its way to the surface: “— kill me .”

“The Mage?” I ask. 

“He was furious last time—” Last time? “—and he was just saying this was important.”

Now, he’s pushing himself up, grimacing as he tries to get to his feet.

A year ago I wouldn’t allow myself to say this, but with how different things have been lately, I don’t hesitate to speak. “Furious or not, there’s no way you’re going back there.”

“I have to.” He’s breathing heavily, propped against the wall.

“Do you know any teleportation spells? Do you even know how you got away in the first place?”

“Did it once today already.”

“Which has certainly drained your magic for the next week,” I say, even though we both know his magic flows like it’s on tap. “Besides, you look like shit. You’d pass out as soon as you were back.”

He’s still panting, looking pained by thought for a moment, before he collapses back onto his bed. “He’s gonna kill me.” He repeats.

“Right. Well let me know where it’s happening when he does, because I’d love to watch. And take a shower before I get back.”

I didn’t plan on leaving as soon as I arrived. I’d been coming up here to study. But I should have stopped talking to him half a conversation ago, and it really is difficult to deal with the blood right now. So I leave him falling asleep still in his clothes and study in the library. He doesn’t show up in the dining hall for dinner, so it’s not until after I’ve fed that I see him again. It does seem like he showered, after his nap, but if not for that I’d think he’d slept through the whole afternoon, seeing him still in bed, eyes shut.

I don’t try to stay quiet getting ready for bed. Still, he sleeps through the whole thing. He was never a light sleeper, but it’s been something else lately. I just wish I knew the full story, what he’s dealing with. Wish he’d tell me without me having to ask, because I can’t ask. Wish I could help him without being the one to do it. Because I can’t. Really, I can’t.

Simon

I wake up feeling like my body has turned to glue, like I’m stuck to myself, to the bed, to the air around me. Or maybe like I’m heavier by several tons, enough to keep even magic from moving me. But then, with a groan, I’m able to roll onto my side, so apparently not. 

It hurts though, I realize as a jolt of pain shoots down my arm. Makes me remember yesterday, fighting those damn birds. Or— mostly birds. Looked like birds, big black ones, but with something off about them. It’s all cloudy now—everything from the past few months seems cloudy. My memory isn’t what it used to be. Feels like my brain is always floating off somewhere since the Mage started having me go off on some mission everyday.

It was that or leave Watford entirely. At first it was just leave Watford, but I nearly went off when he’d said that, and so he’d sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, and said “ Fine . You can stay. But you’ve still got to train. You’re wasting your time in class.” and ever since then, no classes. No weekends. Just… training. He finds something for me to deal with, I deal with it. He’s there more these days than he used to be. I always thought he was busier. 

It’s been exhausting. Everytime I think, Merlin, that must be it for now, now I can have a rest, there’s something else he wants me to learn, something else to deal with. 

As if I’ve summoned him, I hear the Mage’s voice on the other side of the door. “Simon!” accompanied by three curt knocks. Shit.

I left him out there with those birds yesterday. I’d done that before, teleported without intending to. He was making me practice this one spell, again and again, and it kept backfiring, and it hurt , and I just kept thinking I wanted to be back home. And then I was outside our room, wand still in hand, in the middle of the phrase. I was back at the Mage’s office in a matter of minutes, running across campus. Didn’t matter, he was still pissed. I can’t imagine how angry he is now.

Or— I’ve got a pretty good idea of it by the way he’s knocking again before I can get out of bed and to the door. I almost don’t want to open it.

I do. He is angry.

“Sorry, sir.”

“Sorry?” He’s walked past me into the room. I’ve slept in late enough that Baz is gone. “You’re sorry?”

“Yeah.”

“What were you thinking!?”

I don’t think we’re talking about me opening the door. “I wasn’t—I didn’t mean to, sir.”

“Another accident?” he doesn’t sound convinced, but I nod. “You’ve got to get it under control. You can’t leave mid battle, we don’t have that luxury.” 

Sometimes when he says “we”, I know he’s really just talking about me. “I know.”

“Well, act like it!”

“Yes, I will. I’m sorry, sir.”

“Good,” he says, dragging his hands over his face. His expression is neutral now. Reset. “Good. You’ve got an opportunity now, get ready.”

“What for?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“Well, those Nevermores certainly didn’t take care of themselves after you left. I’ll be by the gates. Don’t make me wait too long.”

He’s back by the door. “No, sir, I won’t.”

“Good.” And he closes it behind himself, loud. I’m glad Baz isn’t here to see the way I jump, though I find myself wishing he was here to know that I was leaving again. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t care. He’ll see me when he sees me. 

That’s the one bright side of all of this, I suppose. Less Baz. But when I spend each day missing out on classes and studying with Penny and meals in the dining hall and everything else I’m getting less and less of, it’s hard to feel like any of what I’m dealing with is good. Even though it is, I know. It’s all for the greater good. For my sake, and for the World of Mages.

I get ready as quickly as I can, but it’s hard when my hands won’t stop shaking.

Chapter Text

Baz 

One night he was back, and then for three days, I don’t see him at all. No one mentions it, like it’s nothing. Like this is normal now. I guess it is. When I say something about it to Dev and Niall, they roll their eyes, like they’re surprised I’d bother bringing it up. 

It’s not normal when Bunce deposits herself directly across from me during lunch of his fourth day missing. 

“Oy, excuse me,” Dev says, gesturing in front of him like we’d been having a conversation (we weren’t, it was just him and Niall going back and forth). “Do you mind?”

“Basil, can we speak privately?”

I take a sip of my tea. “Lovely to see you too, Bunce. Kind of in the middle of something.” 

“Really?” she asks, taking a pointed look at the table in front of me, where my food has sat untouched since I sat down.

I sigh before standing. “Just a moment,” I say to Niall and Dev. They both nod.

I let Bunce lead me outside the dining hall and around the corner, to an empty area against the wall. Really, whatever it is I’m sure we could have discussed it inside. I’ll likely be begged to relay the details of the conversation as soon as I’ve sat back down.

“Alright then, get on with it,” I say as soon as she’s stopped.

“I need you to talk to Simon, whenever you see him,” she says, staring me down. 

“What on earth do you need me talking to Snow for?” I ask. It’s not like our conversations ever go well.

“Information: what he’s dealing with, where he’s going. Anything, really!” Bunce tends to be pretty composed, which is why it stands out that she’s close to pulling her hair out. “I just—ever since the Mage pulled him from classes he’s been gone so often, and when he’s not, he never wants to talk about it, so I never know what’s going on.”

“As much as I love running errands for you, Bunce,” I say, “I’m not sure what makes you think he’ll tell me more than he tells you.”

She twists her ring around her finger. “He doesn’t talk to me because he always wants to just—I don’t know, act like everything is normal. He doesn’t want to waste the time he gets to see me these days, he says.”

Ah. Certainly wouldn’t be a problem with me.

“Look, I know you hate him, but I just want to know what he’s up to when he’s gone. At least this once, when he comes back, try to talk to him, a little. I mean, Morgana, it's been over a week.”

“It’s barely been half a week,” I say.

“What? When was he back?” She’s staring a hole through me, strong enough to make me forget how small she really is. 

“Three nights ago. Just long enough to sleep, really, and then he was gone again.”

“See? You live with him, you can talk with him more often. Check in, see what’s going on.”

She says it like I must know, when, really, I still feel like I have no idea. 

“Did he say anything when he was back?”

Part of me wants to lie, tell her nothing. Relish in the fact that I know things about Simon that no one else does. But a bigger part of me wants what’s best for him, and I know the better informed Bunce is the better friend she can be. So I tell her.

“He’d been fighting some magical birds with the Mage, but then he accidentally teleported outside our door. He wanted to go back, but he was just about to pass out, so…” So he decided not to all on his own, I’ll let her assume. 

“And then?”

“He passed out. Pretty much. Slept through his usual alarm, which I had to deal with, and was gone by the time I returned after breakfast.” 

It must be just about time to head to class, as I can hear students leaving the dining hall now.

“So three days, really. Four today. That’s not so bad,” Bunce says, talking more to herself than to me by this point. “Please, Basil, just. Keep me posted at least.”

Now that there are students walking and chatting around us, I realized she pulled me out here for my sake, so I could agree to help her keep up to date on all things Simon without anyone else knowing about it. And I do agree, with a nod of my head. Because I just want him safe. And if he can’t be safe, he should at least have support from someone in his corner. 

Simon returns later that afternoon, after classes and dinner are both over. I’m reading at my desk when I hear his footsteps on the stairs, likely having woken anyone trying to get to sleep early on his way up. And I’m looking at him when the door opens. He seems in better shape than he was yesterday, at least. Mostly blood free. (Mostly. I can still smell it on him.) But his arms are held against him like he’s trying to hug himself to stay intact, and there are obvious tears dampening his cheeks. His expression tells me if I weren’t in here, he’d still be crying. I want to tell him he can cry, it’s okay, but he’s right not to. I picked on him mercilessly before he learned to bottle it all up, back in first year. These days I wish I’d never trained him to keep it in. I’m sure Penelope’s life would be easier if I hadn’t. 

He’s got his lip between his teeth as he kicks the door shut and settles onto his bed, tucked into the corner, cheek pressed to the wall, staring down into himself. I’ll let Bunce know he’s here in the morning, if he doesn’t show up at breakfast, but I’m not going to pry. I can’t get away with asking him any genuine questions, and I really don’t want to kick him while he’s so clearly down. 

I’m resolved to stay silent for the night, but then, after I’ve gone back to reading my book, he does start crying again. Quiet enough that I know he’s trying not to, or at least trying to keep it silent, but my enhanced hearing isn’t doing him any favors. I give him five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, and after every brief pause where I’m convinced he’s done he picks up again until he’s been softly sobbing in the corner of his bed for nearly an hour, and I just can’t go on pretending he’s not even in the room.

“I can hear you, you know,” I say, because anything harsher would be too much and anything kinder too revealing. 

He doesn’t respond, just hiccups and continues on. Not any quieter, but more strained. Trying to be quieter.

A minute of that, then five, then “What on earth is it, Snow?” because I really can’t stand sitting here listening to him cry any longer.

“I— my arm is killing me,” he says, apparently too out of it to avoid answering me like I expected. “B—but the Mage wouldn’t heal it, he doesn’t anymore, but I can’t, I never remember h—how, a—nd— and—” whether he has something left to say or not, he’s crying too much now to continue. 

He’s been getting beat up by various magical creatures (and me, on occasion) since our first year, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him act this pained afterwards. It makes me nervous enough to walk over to his bed, where he’s still all curled up against the wall, to have a look. He doesn’t offer out his arm, so I have to ask.

“Let me have a see.” It sounds painfully sincere, but I’m sure he’s not paying attention right now. He shivers as he moves it away from him, not fully extended but enough for me to see it’s certainly bruised. And crooked , just barely, in the middle of the forearm. 

I slide my wand out from my sleeve, and a What’s Up Doc? lets me know it’s broken.

“When did you first get hurt?” I ask.

“This morning,” he sniffles. “Or— it got worse later, I—I think, when I was using it. I c—couldn’t— it’s my wand arm.” 

It’s his sword arm. “ How have you been using it?” 

“I—I don’t know. I think my magic was— but now I—” and then his shoulders are shaking and his arm is gravitating back to his chest. 

He’s had a broken arm, a visibly broken arm, lugging that heavy sword around all day, and the Mage wouldn’t use a healing spell? I’ve never wanted to tear him to pieces more. 

I cast Get Well Soon, and I can tell it’s done something because Simon takes a shuddering breath and stops shaking with sobs. But it’s a broken arm, so the spell doesn’t fix it entirely, not even close.

I reach out to touch it, and the way Simon’s other hand braces against my shoulder, squeezing tight as he gasps confirms how much there still is left to be fixed. Through his hand though, I feel Simon’s magic, sparkling and molten, like liquid fire, move, pour into me, like a dam opening up. It rushes through my veins, leaving me feeling warm and full, perfectly, wonderfully full wherever it’s been until—

Simon gasps again, removing his hand and pulling his arm back. “Sorry.”

Sorry . It’s almost as shocking as the memory of his magic still haunting my skin. 

“What did you just do?” I ask. 

“I’m not— I didn’t mean to.”

“Do it again,” I say before I can think. Because I want to feel it again, all that magic at my fingertips, all that warmth blazing through me. And because I think I’ve got an idea. 

“Are you sure?” Simon asks, quiet. It’s not what I expected. I expected him to protest. But more than anything, he seems scared. 

“Course, I’m sure,” I say, grabbing his hand and replacing it on my shoulder. “I’m always sure.”

After a moment of staring at me, I feel it again, filling up my chest like a star’s trapped inside, light shining into every dark corner of my body. Is this what it’s like to be Simon Snow? No wonder. 

My grip tightens on my wand as I point it towards his arm. “Good As New.” The words feel like they echo around my head for several seconds before the spell lands, and I watch the bone reset itself. It’s miraculous. And gross.

Simon sighs now, stretching out his arm with a look halfway between relief and bewilderment. 

“You… how did you do that?” he asks.

“Your magic is so…” I trail off, focused on the way it feels still thrumming under my skin. 

“Baz?”

“If you were any better at casting you could stop the earth’s rotation.” I never thought something that felt like fire burning me from the inside could feel so lovely.

His hand leaves me once more now, and the way his magic is sucked out after it makes me feel like all the pressure’s gone out of the air for just a second before things feel steady again. Mostly normal. Normal with a side of lingering warmth I’m not used to being able to feel in this eternally freezing body. 

“Thank you,” he says softly after I’ve had a moment to compose myself. “For fixing it.”

Thank you. Crowley, he’s been weird since he stopped attending classes. 

“Bunce would have my head if I let you sleep with a broken arm.” And I’d do anything to help you hurt less. And I love you.

“Still,” he mutters, and the silence that happens afterwards is entirely too long, so I return to my desk and try to continue reading, until I eventually give up on trying to pretend things are normal entirely and go out to hunt, even though I don’t really need to tonight. Just so I have something to do, away from Snow, as I think too hard about this whole evening. 

Chapter Text

Simon

I knew the Mage would be calling for me in the morning, but I still feel my heart sink into my stomach when his bird taps against Baz and I’s window just after I’ve woken up. Baz grumbles something into his pillow as I open the window to grab the letter. (I wonder when the last time I opened it was and find that I can’t remember. I shut it again now. What’s the point if I’m just going to be leaving again?) 

The letter seems to be paraphrasing what the Mage already said to me yesterday when we returned to Watford, reminding me that I’ll need to report to him right away this morning for spell practice to make up for my “subpar performance on our previous excursion.” The more overly formal his letters sound the more I feel like what he’s really trying to say is that I’m not good enough, just one big disappointment. (He doesn’t really have to say it for us both to know.)

Baz is still bundled up in his blankets, but he watches me as I move about the room, grabbing my uniform before slipping into the bathroom to change. When I come out and start working on my shoes, he sits up and clears his throat. 

“Where are you going?” he asks.

I shrug.

“Eloquent.”

I groan. “Mage’s office.”

“Why?”

Can’t he just leave it alone? “Training.”

“In his office?”

“No. Probably the wood.”

“Is that where you’ve been the past few days?”

I tug open my desk drawer with a bit too much force and it slams open. I have to hold back the Sorry at my lips as I grab my wand. “No.”

“Where then?” he asks as I’ve got my hand on the doorknob.

I should just leave. The Mage’ll be mad if I take too long, and I don’t know how long it took me to get ready (my sense of time’s been shaky lately). But something’s making me hesitate. Because, really, I think I do want to talk. I spend so much time with the Mage where I feel like I can’t say anything at all, show any emotion. I hold it all back until, apparently, with Baz of all people, my emotions spill over the top and my words follow along with them. But with the way that awful tickle is creeping up my throat like it does anytime I’m about to cry, I think it works the other way round too, the urge to talk digging up all the feelings I’ve been trying to keep in check.

I push out a breath and grip the doorknob harder.

“Same place as before, with the birds.” I know Baz is going to ask me another question so I speak again before he can. “I have to go.”

“…Alright.”

I turn the knob, but don’t fully open the door for a beat longer, glancing back at Baz just to see him before I leave. I don’t know why. I just… I don’t know, I need something. And it feels like something, seeing him there, looking at me with that look I don’t quite understand. So I look at him for just a moment, and then I go.

  Baz

I’m relieved to see Wellbelove isn’t sitting with Bunce today, though the more I think about it, I can’t remember the last time she did. She and Snow broke up at the start of term, and she hasn’t really spent any time with him or Bunce since. At least not that I’ve seen. I’m especially grateful for it now—I’m not sure I’d be up for dealing with her, and I promised I’d talk to Bunce if I got anything out of Snow.

She seems to realize why I’m sitting down across from her and quickly sets down her fork. “Is he back?”

I nod. “Last night, about an hour after dinner.”

She tilts her head towards me. “Off with the Mage, now. Training he said.”

“Training? What kind of training?”

“‘Training’ was all I got. You know Snow,” I say, hoping it comes out more annoyed than sentimental.

“He didn’t say anything else?” 

“He said it was probably going to be happening in the Wavering Wood.”

“That’s all?”

“Didn’t seem to be in the talking mood. Or, at least not the talking-to- me mood,” I say, raising an eyebrow. What else did she expect, really?

But then she gives me this look, drawing in her eyebrows and taking her bottom lip between her teeth, and I know what she’s asking out of me, even if she doesn’t know exactly what she’s asking. (I’m not sure why it’s so easy for me to read her. Apparently seven years of barely speaking is outweighed by enough shared concern for one person.)

“He came back with a broken arm yesterday,” I say, working to keep my expression neutral even as hers is so entirely expressive, shock and anger and concern all shining through. “Don’t worry, I fixed it.”

“How?”

“ Good As New .”

“That’s impossible.”

“Maybe for you.”

She stomps on my foot under the table. “Don’t, this isn’t— seriously, how’d you do it? If it was Good As New , it’s not fixed.”

Bunce last term wouldn’t have batted an eye at me taking any opportunity to be rude and arrogant, but I guess I wouldn’t have been talking with her like this about Snow last term either. Somehow this situation has forced us into some approximation of a friendship, where I’m not allowed to be an arse when we’re talking about Snow, and she has to trust me enough to ask for my help.

“You won’t believe me.”

She gives me another look.

“Snow gave me access to his magic.”

“That’s impossible,” she says again, then “How?”

“He put his hand on my shoulder and it just… flowed.” I’m desperately trying to remember the feeling. “I think it was accidental at first.”

“That’s— magic doesn’t work like that. You know that.”

“Magic also isn’t supposed to turn you into a human bomb anytime you get too riled up.”

That at least makes her pause before she shakes her head. “He’s never done that with me.”

“Again, I think it was accidental.”

“At first,” she says, expectantly.

“Well, once I realized what he’d done, I figured, with magic like Snow’s, Good As New would work just fine.”

“And it did?”

“He was still intact this morning.”

She takes a moment to think, I suspect running through all the possible explanations for Simon being able to share his magic.

“So now he’s with the Mage.”

“Assumably.”

“But he’ll be back tonight?” She really seems desperate for a yes, so I nod.

“Probably.”

She’s nodding too now, like if we both shake our heads enough we can will it into reality.

“Alright. If he’s not at dinner, let me know if he shows up to sleep.”

I roll my eyes. “ You’re welcome. ”

She waves a hand at me as I stand. “Yeah, thank you, just— don’t keep anything from me.”

“Do you want my bank information or family gossip first?” 

She glares at me. “You know what I mean. This is serious. You’re not allowed to slip back into how things were before, even if you hate him.”

If I hate him. I don’t think she meant it like that, but that’s all I hear.

A million snarky and sarcastic replies come to mind but I brush them away. “Fine, yes.”

She doesn’t shift her gaze. “I promise.” It doesn’t sound like me.

But she nods and it seems I have permission to leave now (not that I take orders from Bunce). When I sit down next to Niall and Dev they’re smart enough not to question me. 

He does come back today. The sight of him walking into the dining hall, looking more intact than usual, smiling as Bunce waves him over to their table brings a shock of relief, releasing tension I hadn’t fully realized was there.

I watch him sit down next to Bunce, hug her while she beams over his shoulder. I watch them talk. The longer they do the less they smile, but it doesn’t seem sad, whatever they’re talking about. She looks concerned and Simon looks a bit nervous, but mostly relieved. And then he’s looking at me , which I really should be used to given the past seven years, but I’m not after the past few weeks. Even more surprising is when he gives me a half hearted sort of smile and nods before returning his attention to Bunce. Crowley, what has she said to him?

“His royal highness finally returns,” Dev says, and I realize a second too late he’s saying this expecting a response out of me. 

“Took him long enough,” I say with a roll of my eyes before prying my attention away from Snow.

Chapter Text

Simon

Somehow I’m both relieved I was able to get nearly a whole day to myself and disappointed when the Mage summons me for more training right before lunch. I try to convince myself not to be (I got plenty of time with Penny, and she’d have to go to class soon anyway) but I can’t fully get the ache growing in my stomach on the way to the Mage’s office to go away. 

He drags me out to the Wavering Wood again, to work on the same few spells. They’re all offensive, stuff I “should be using” to deal with any monsters instead of relying so heavily on my sword. I wish he’d teach me the things I can’t use my sword for. Help me get better at healing and protection spells, but last time I brought it up he took it as me disrespecting his authority— or maybe he said intelligence? I don’t know. I don’t bring it up anymore. 

Either way, I’m never good at spell work, offensive or otherwise. I finally seem to get one of them mostly down (one that throws back your opponent, that he’s having me practice on some kind of dummy he’s brought with us), but by then we’re so far into the day that he says we don’t have time to take a break like he’d told me I’d get around this time, so we push forward. The sun sets soon after, the cold never getting past my skin as every failure seems to make the warmth of my magic burn a bit more inside me. Somehow, this just makes it harder to get my spells to land properly. All the while that stupid ache is getting worse and worse.

Eventually, the Mage heaves a frustrated sigh that makes my shoulders tense. “Enough. You’re too worked up, you’re not going to get anywhere like this.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, gripping my wand tighter and jerking my arms down to my sides. 

“It’s too late anyways. You’ll just have to keep working on this tomorrow, or until you’ve got it.”

Until I’ve got it. I dig my nails into my palms, pushing down the urge to do something more visible. He gets upset when I get restless.

“You can go now, the bridge should still be down,” he says, in that tone that always feels like a trap. But I do go.

The walk back to Mummer’s is painfully long, and I wish more than anything I could get my magic to do that teleportation thing again, but I can’t focus enough to even attempt it. I always take my jacket off before practicing spells, the feeling of it on always irritating me the more frustrated I get. I don’t bother putting it back on now, just the idea of it bothering me. When I’m out of sight of the Mage, heading back to his office, I let myself squeeze my arms to my sides again and again, trying to get whatever’s kicking up inside me to settle. 

I’m almost surprised when I find myself going up the stairs. I’d been drifting off. Even now I feel like I’m watching someone else’s feet go up the last few steps before I’m at our door. It’s only as I open it that I think to wonder how late it is. Baz is in bed when I turn on the light, and from the way he rubs at his eyes and groans I think he was asleep.

The first sound of an apology escapes me before my vocal chords seem to give out. 

“It’s 2 a.m.,” Baz says, face shoved back into his pillow after a glance at the clock.

I sit down on my bed, arms wrapped tight around my middle, fingers digging between my ribs.

Baz is sitting up more now. “Why can’t the Mage send you home at normal hours of the day?”

I’ve got my eyes shut a moment later when he asks. “What’s wrong with you now?”

What is wrong with me? I’m not hurt like the last few times. I got plenty of sleep last night. I even got to see Penny. 

It’s only paying this much attention that I realize how hungry I am.

I open my eyes (Baz is staring at me all soft like I’m anyone but me), but I close them again when I realize my voice fails the moment I do. “…Hungry. Haven’t since breakfast.”

“Since your third helping of breakfast,” he says. And then something hits my head, which makes me dig my nails in deeper where my hands are still gripping my sides, but then I process what it is that Baz threw at me and open my eyes to see a packet of salt and vinegar crisps in my lap. 

I open them without a second thought and start eating.

“Keep the crumbs to your half of the room.”

It’s only halfway through that I realize this means he’s had these in here for a while, in a hidden stash I knew he had tucked away somewhere. Part of me insists I should have had my bloody eyes open so I could have seen where it was, but really, I don’t care. 

“You eat like an animal,” Baz says as I finish them off, but all his jabs feel a little dull when he’s the only one talking. Like they’re just a formality. 

I crumple up the empty bag and set it on the nightstand between our beds. He scoffs, picking it up and walking it to the trash can under his desk. 

I’m still hungry—it was one bag of crisps—but more than anything I don’t want to have to try talking anymore, or to have our stupid too-bright light in my eyes, or to be awake at all, so I don’t ask if he’s got anything else, instead laying back onto my pillow before squeezing myself into a ball on top of my blanket. 

I hear Baz sigh as he turns the light off, but he doesn’t say anything else. I think I might be stuck awake in the dark for a long time. Or maybe just a few minutes. But eventually I sleep.

A wave of panic rushes over me as my alarm goes off, pulling me from whatever dream I’ve already forgotten. But it’s just my alarm: no bird, no knocking at the door. So I hit snooze and take a deep breath and let myself lie back down, staring at the ceiling. 

I’m not sure if the Mage knows exactly when I wake up, or if he expects me to come as soon as I do or wait for him to summon me. Usually he summons me, but it’s typically a reminder of something I already knew was coming. Maybe this is a test…

I roll onto my side. He doesn’t know I’m up, surely. How would he know? Maybe I take a while to get ready. Maybe I think I should get breakfast before heading over. (I know I shouldn’t, he didn’t have to say it.) Maybe I slept through my alarm. I’ve done that plenty before, especially these days. Ask Baz.

Speaking of, it’s only as he wacks the alarm off, eyes still closed, that I realize it’s gone off again. “Sorry,” I say. 

He mutters something I can’t hear before rolling away, cocooning into his blankets.

I stare back up at the ceiling… I really should get ready.

Even so, I do it slowly, taking my time grabbing my clothes, showering, staring at my face in the mirror. I don’t think I’m trying to, I’m just slower this morning. Or, likely this week. 

However long it takes me to exit the bathroom is long enough for Baz to be fully up, apparently having gotten dressed while I was in there. As soon as the door is open he’s shouldering past me to get in, shutting it behind him. 

He’s still in there when I finish tying up my shoes and grabbing my things, but I find myself waiting, sat at my desk, until the door opens again.  

His hair’s done now, slicked back. I watch him walk over to his desk, shoving a few things in his bag, eyes flicking towards me every few seconds.

“…What?” he asks.

I shrug, but before he can say anything, start up talking. “I… I’m training more today. In the Wavering Wood again, I bet.”

“Will you be back at 2 a.m. again?”

“Hope not,” and I can tell from the way he looks at me now that it was rhetorical. But I still want to say it. He shares all this with Penny, or he’s supposed to, according to her. They made some sort of deal, which is weird to think about, so I haven’t really. Thought about it. But even beyond that, as I start talking again, I realize, I just want Baz to know.

“That’s why I’m out of classes and stuff. To train. Go on missions, deal with stuff, practice for… well you know.”

He nods. Good. I hate saying it all more and more these days. All the things I’m expected to do.

“So, what? He just decided being able to fight was more important than your schooling?” Baz asks.

I shrug. Then nod. I should leave it here, I think, but I don’t want to. It’s weird. With Penny, I hate talking about this stuff. I just want to sit with her and listen to her and pretend it’s all still normal. But nothing about Baz and I right now is normal. So really, I just want to tell him everything. I want to get it all out, like maybe once I have, it won’t be true anymore.

“He was going to pull me entirely. Take me somewhere else, away from Watford. But, uh…” I think back to when he’d first insisted I needed to go, and I’d started crying and smacking my hand against my head and the room got all shimmery and my skin was burning and he was coughing it out: Fine, you can stay. Fine , spat like the word was poisonous. I feel my magic rising up now. “Well, he agreed to let me stay, but I still have to… yeah.”

“Does Bunce know all this?” Baz asks. He’s really staring at me.

“Yeah,” I say, then “mostly,” because I know I talked to her about it, but I can’t recall exactly what I said. 

Baz is clearly about to say something, but then a sudden tapping from the window seems to startle us both. He rolls his eyes and goes to open it, as I stay sat, trying to manage the sinking feeling in my stomach. 

Baz

I thought he’d just be training for the day. I was hoping he’d be back before 2 a.m., but now it’s been two full days with him gone. I thought Bunce might turn on me. I told her he’d be back by the end of the day, and I thought she’d accuse me of lying to her when he wasn’t. But all she did was pull me aside the next morning after breakfast to say “So he’s still…?” less like she was interrogating me, and more like she might not just be concerned about Snow. I wish she was angry. Having her know how much this is affecting me, after just a few conversations, is so much worse. 

I’ve just finished getting ready for bed, about to turn the lights off when I hear him thumping up the stairs. There’s a bang against the door, like he’s thrown himself against it, before it opens. 

He looks panicked, breathing heavily, eyes wet. At first seeing me seems to shock him, but then it’s overtaken by relief. 

“Baz.” He leaves the door open as he walks towards me, so I go around him to shut it. I keep doing those types of things, little tasks and errands for him without thinking.

After the door is closed and I’ve turned back to him he’s right in front of me, his hands palm up between us. Hands I only realize now are covered in burns. All the way up his wrists too. 

“What in Merlin’s name—” 

“Baz, please,” and I realize as he pushes his hands out farther until his fingers hit my chest, and he cringes, but leaves them there as his magic begins to flow through me starting where we’re connected, that he’s asking me to heal him. He’s giving me his magic (and staring at me with those watery eyes, and saying my name again, his voice shaking) without hesitation. 

So I don’t hesitate either, drawing my wand. He shuts his eyes tight and lets out a whimper when I take one of his hands in my own.

“Get Well Soon,” I cast, first on the hand I have held, and then on the other. That horrible red shine that was on them before vanishes as I do.

Snow sighs as I tuck my wand away, eyes cast down at our hands as his grip tightens on the one holding my own. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak.

“Are you okay?” I ask. 

He draws his hand away. When his magic leaves with it, it feels like the ocean tides dragging themselves back off the shore.

“Fine now… thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I say. 

The way he looks back up at me then doesn’t surprise me. I’m not sure I’ve ever said that to him.

“I’m going to bed, don’t be loud,” I say, stepping around him, because I really can’t stand him staring at me like that, all close and soft and so clearly hurting even if his wounds are healed. 

I hear a quiet “Okay” as I’m getting into bed and spelling off the lights. “Goodnight Baz.”

It’s become a weird little routine we all go through, this thing with Snow and Bunce. He comes and goes, and I keep Bunce up to date. When he’s hurt, he comes back and he gives me his magic before he’s even come up with the words to ask me to heal him. And I do, everytime, without him needing to say it. And then we move on like it didn’t happen. 

I’ve gotten so used to updating Bunce in the morning that I’ve accidentally made a habit of spending breakfast with her. One day I was just stopping by to let her know what had happened with Simon, and then I was bringing my tea with me, and now I don’t bother getting up once I’ve told her all I know, and she asks me about classes and football like we’re friends. Maybe that means we are, if only for the time being. 

Dev and Niall noticed, obviously. At first it was a quick quip from Niall — “So what, are you taking over for Snow now?” and I gave him a look that seemed answer enough given his silence the rest of the day. About a week after that Dev spoke up.

“So you and Bunce then?”

“What about it?” I asked, glaring at him as I stabbed at my food.

“Nothing. Just didn’t see it coming, that’s all.”

“We’re not together,” I say, too shocked by the assumption to sound anything but defensive.

“Right. Just hanging out together then. Every morning.” I don’t bother responding to that, and soon he and Niall are onto some other topic anyways. 

So now my friends think I fancy Penelope Bunce of all people. I don’t care. At least it’s not the truth.

Chapter Text

Baz

I’m not sure when Simon left exactly, but it’s been a few days since I last saw him. Bunce was talking to him over lunch, holding his hand once they’d both finished their food, and then they both left as usual when classes were about to start up again. And then he wasn’t at dinner that night, or back in our room when I went to bed. 

Now, three days later, I can tell he’s back before I’ve entered our room from the way his magic is wafting through the air, heating up the whole area.

Usually, when Snow’s magic is pouring out of him like that, I know I’ll find him pacing the room, or kicking at his bed, or pulling at his hair. He’ll be wound up, ready to growl and scream at me until I leave it alone or push him over the edge. 

Today isn’t like that. I open the door to find the lights off, but even in the dark I can see him sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. When I flick the light on, I can only see him fully, with his clothes and hair a mess, for a moment before it’s off again, and Snow’s magic is growing a bit more intense around me. 

“Right. Guess I’ll just stumble around in the dark then,” I say. He doesn’t respond. 

I slowly move to set my bag down on my bed, noticing now that the window is open for the first time in ages. I think about closing it, just to get something out of him.

He’s still just sitting there. 

“Have you finally gone mute?” Nothing. I huff, but try not to make too much noise as I gather up my pajamas before slipping into the bathroom.

The way I can feel his magic through the door makes me rush as I change and get ready for bed, but by the time I’m coming back out I try to look somewhat unaffected, even as I make my way towards him. Head still in his hands. This close I can see shallow scrapes up the lengths of his forearms, where he’s shoved his shirt sleeves up. It’s not bad enough to need Simon’s magic to fix, but I still bring my fingers to his skin to feel the scratches beneath them. When I do, I see the muscles move as he grips his head harder. 

“Snow?” No response. “What happened?”

I keep one hand on him, slide my wand out with the other, and cast Get well soon . As I do, Simon growls and jerks his arm away from my touch. 

“For Crowley’s sake, I’m just trying to help.” His magic hangs thicker in the air as I speak. 

I really don’t know what to do to help him. How am I meant to when he won’t talk, or look up, or even let me turn on the light? I spend a few useless minutes just knelt down in front of him, waiting for something to change, to clue me in on what he needs. Nothing does. Eventually, I leave.

It’s awkward walking the path to the dining hall in my pyjamas. Cook Pritchard should still be cleaning up. I’m not sure what I’m going to say to her when she asks what I’m up to, so it’s good she doesn’t. When I walk into the kitchen she looks annoyed, until she realizes it’s me and gives me a nod saying “You can take some leftovers if you want, just don’t touch anything I’m prepping for tomorrow.”

So I end up with a plate of roast beef and potatoes, heading back up the stairs in Mummer’s House. Because last time Snow was back from some mission, not looking at me and struggling to speak (well—more so than usual) he was hungry. And I guess I don’t really care as much as I used to that I might be showing my hand.

I’m prepared to set the plate on his desk and leave, since whatever’s up with him, it seems he doesn’t want me around. But before I’m opening the door I can tell his magic has pulled back for the most part, and as I am, I see the light’s on, and he’s sitting back against the wall instead of on the edge of his bed, hair twirling between his fingers. He stops and looks my way when the door shuts behind me. 

“Baz.”

“Yeah.” I walk to the side of his bed. “You alright?”

It takes him a moment, but he nods. “Mhm. Thank you. Just for, ah, leaving… I guess.”

I slowly sit across from him on his bed. It’s weird—we don’t do this. We didn’t do this. But I guess we do now. 

“Sometimes—lately, I’ve just—oh. And for the food, too.” He’s eyeing it now. “Thank you.”

His thanks feel awkward, like they’ve been lodged between my ribs where they don’t really fit. It keeps me from saying anything in response.

“I’ve been sort of, ah—I don’t know really—just… turning off, sometimes. When I’m not…”

He’s talking while he eats, already stabbing away at the beef. 

“Chew with your mouth closed,” I say.

He finishes his bite. “Sorry.”

I roll my eyes. “So you ‘turn off.’” He nods. “What do I do when it happens? What helps?”

I shouldn’t be asking this. I don’t know why I’m saying any of this, why I’m sat on his bed. It’s one thing when he comes to me begging for help. This, I’m doing entirely on my own. 

He takes a few bites before he answers me, and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s caught up in thought, or if he’s just that hungry.

“Dark,” he says. And then, after another bite, “and quiet.”

So you want me to fuck off? I don’t say that. I just nod. And then I guess I just watch him eat, but he doesn’t seem to care, so I don’t stop myself. When he’s done, I take his plate and wash it off in our sink. He thanks me and I try not to look too pained as he does. 

At breakfast I sit with Bunce while Snow’s getting food.

“He was shut down when I came back to our room last night. Not talking or moving.”

She nods. “That’s been happening more and more. Never for very long, but…”

“I don’t know how long he’d been there before I came up, but starting with when I did he was alright after about thirty minutes.”

“Over half an hour, Hell's spells…” She shakes her head. “It helps when you hold him.”

I’m glad I haven’t fed in the past 24 hours. “What?”

“He says it helps to be held.”

“To be held by you .” I’m not going to hold Simon Snow.

She shrugs. Crowley, this whole situation has more than Simon acting strange. 

“He made it pretty clear he didn’t want me touching him. I couldn’t even turn on the light.” 

She looks confused. “Really?”

Simon

Baz leaves the table as soon as I start heading over. I think he was in the middle of a conversation, too. I don’t know why he does that. Or—I guess I do, but I wish he knew he didn’t have to. 

“What happened last night?” Penny asks as soon as I’ve sat down. 

I shrug. I don’t really want to talk about it.

“Baz says you were completely shut down.”

I shrug again. Take a bite of toast. Nod. 

“He says you wouldn’t let him turn on the light.”

I feel embarrassed, the way she says it. I know she didn’t mean it like that. It still sounds pathetic. “It was bright.”

“…Yeah.”

“I don’t know. Too bright.”

She doesn’t respond. I try to just let the silence go on until she does, but after a few more bites, the way she’s staring at me makes me continue. 

“It was all just too much, I guess. Sometimes, lately, it’s just… so much happens and I get overwhelmed and then everything is too much. The lights, people talking. I don’t know.”

“What happened yesterday then?”

I definitely don’t want to talk about that. I’ve been trying to stop thinking about it all morning: some training with the Mage in the Wavering Wood, and then being in his car, and camping out in the middle of nowhere trying not to be sick hearing him talk about… I can’t recall now. Something about me. Something about the prophecy. 

And then those bloody bugs. Flibbertigibbets, a whole swarm. I’d known a spell to deal with them, the Mage was yelling at me later. Only a couple got in my ear—buzzing and buzzing and buzzing so loud I felt like I was drowning in it—before I went off, and then they were all dead, and then the Mage was yelling at me. Apparently the spell to deal with them was one we’d just practiced. I can’t remember it any better now than I could then. Somehow, even killing them all, I’d fucked it up. And then there was the drive back, with a silence so thick it felt like some solid thing weighing me down in the back seat. And then when we got back, and he was close to yelling again, lecturing me, volume rising when I didn’t respond because my voice was just gone , and he raised his hand, and… well, he wasn’t going to… he just let it fall and then he left. And I felt like stone dragging myself back to Mummer’s, and once I was in my room, without really thinking, I kicked hard at the corner of my bed. 

It still hurts, my foot, now that I’m focusing on it, this throbbing pain. 

“Simon.” 

I shake my head. “I don’t know. Nothing. Same as usual, I guess.”

I don’t know why I’m lying to Penny. Immediately, I feel guilty about it. But I don’t correct myself. I just keep eating and she stops asking me questions for the morning. 

I spend a few hours in the library with Penny later, after dinner. She studies while I do… I guess nothing. I watch her. I try not to drift off. Eventually she says she’s done for the night and walks me to Mummer’s. I think she’ll keep studying in her room afterwards. I think she just wants me to sleep.

Baz is on his bed when I get to our room. “Snow.” 

I nod his way as I head for the bathroom. I might take a bath.

“Can you talk for a second?” he asks.

I stand by the door briefly, before turning back and nodding again. And then, after a beat of silence, sitting on my own bed, across from him.

“What happened the other day? When you ‘turned off.’” He does air quotes and everything.

“Penny told you to talk to me?” 

He nods. Merlin, I’m starting to feel babysat. It’s embarrassing. I feel like whatever I say will only make it more so. I keep getting caught on it, this feeling of stupidity whenever either of them is helping me with all this. Caught between that and the niceness of it, of having people looking out for me. The relief

Right now, there is no relief. I feel like I’ve got something lodged in my throat just trying to plan out the right words to say to get this dropped for the night. 

“You know. Just had a mission with the Mage.”

“Obviously.” He rolls his eyes. “What happened during it?”

“Same thing as always.” There is some truth to that. It’s always bad. That’s just how it has to be. I’m supposed to be able to endure it. It’s supposed to be easy. 

“Right, and that’s why you nearly went off just hearing me cast a spell?”

I look down at my hands, fiddling with the bottom of my blazer. Merlin, I wish he’d leave me alone. Why did I ever let my walls down around him? Why did I ever come to him for help?

“Just…” he sighs. When he speaks again, his tone has softened. “Walk me through the day, alright?”

“…Dealt with a swarm of Flibbertigibbets. Went off on ‘em. It wasn’t anything that dangerous.” I can hear the Mage saying that to me now, after several silent minutes in the car. They weren’t even that dangerous. If you can’t handle this …

“Flibbertigibbets,” Baz repeats.

I nod. Silence. “Couple got in my ear, but I went off, and they were gone.”

I can almost still feel them in there. Hear them. I shake my head. 

“Flibbertigibbets got in…” Baz takes a deep breath.

I shrug. “Yeah. Not for very long.”

“What was the Mage doing?”

“What?”

“The Mage. Before you went off—what was he doing?”

I try to remember. All that’s coming up is the buzzing. “I don’t know. Instructing me, I think.”

“Instructing you.”

It doesn’t sound like a question, but I answer it like one anyways. “Yeah. What spells to use…” 

“He didn’t cast anything himself?”

I shrug. I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. He doesn’t usually. He did at first, but less and less… He’s usually just yelling at me. “I don’t think so.”

“After you got Flibbertigibbets in your ear.” I hate the way he keeps repeating what I’ve already said. It makes me feel like a child.

“He was trying to help. Tell me what to do. I’m supposed to be training, improving, he’s just trying to—”keep me from fucking it all up. Again and again and—“he just wants to help me get better.”

“Is he?” Baz asks.

“What?”

“Helping you get better?”

I look back down at my hands, my vision going a bit blurry. How am I meant to answer that? He is. That’s what all this has been about. It’s not his fault I’m such a screw up.

I just shrug. 

I think the conversation might end there when quiet takes over the room. But it doesn’t last: “So you went off. Then what?”

My stomach feels like it’s dropped into my feet. “He drove me back. I came back to our room.”

I think Baz knows I’m leaving things out. I can just tell. When I glance up and see his face, I’m sure of it. 

“Well, we talked first. About what I’d done wrong.” I can see the way he bites his tongue. “It was my fault, I forgot the spell. I didn’t need to go off.”

“You didn’t need to go off because he could have spelled them himself.” 

I shrug. I guess. “I was supposed to be able to handle it on my own.”

“But you couldn’t. He should have helped you.”

“He is helping me,” I say. “Everything he does, he does to help me. He doesn’t have to.”

“To do what?” Baz is getting angry. “Work you half to death with drills? Let you get beat up without doing a thing?”

“He’s the reason I’m even here,” I say, louder than I mean to. “Sorry, I just… I’m not supposed to need all this training anyway—I’m the bloody Chosen One, I’m supposed to be good at all this.” I have so much I have to attend to, you know that? With Watford, and the Old Families, and the Council. I don’t have time to be helping you when you fall short, but I am. You’re lucky I am. “I’m lucky he has the patience for me.”

“That’s his job. He’s your guardian.”

“He doesn’t have to do that either.” You should be grateful.

“Snow,” Baz says when I look back down. He’s staring at me now. “What the Mage is doing… You shouldn’t be going through all this.”

I have to. If I don’t then— 

“You’re not in class, getting all sorts of injuries, missing meals.” He pauses a moment. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Baz so clearly planning out his words. “Whatever training you might need, it’s not worth that. There has to be a better way to do it.”

I shrug. I don’t want to tell Baz there isn’t. 

Another long silence passes before he’s stood up, making me feel even smaller looking down on me. “Please, at the very least, tell us what happens when you’re off with him.” (“Us” meaning Baz and Penny. It’s still not an “us” I’m used to.) 

I feel the guilt of everything I’ve still left out spread through me, but I nod. Baz nods back, lingering just a moment before leaving. For a while I just sit there on my bed, trying to stop the way my brain is circling through the conversations I’ve had all day, and the memories from yesterday, and everything the Mage has said to me since term started. 

I do end up taking a bath. A long one. It doesn’t feel long, but all of a sudden, I hear the door opening outside, and I realize the water’s gone cold, and after drying off and brushing my teeth, I come out of the bathroom and it’s past midnight. 

“Crowley, what did you do to your toe?” Baz says, staring at my feet.

He’s getting out of bed before I can respond. “Nothing—it’s fine. Got frustrated and kicked my bed. Just a bruise.”

“It’s broken.”

“It’s not broken .” I’d know if it was broken, it’s my toe.

He’s got his wand out. “ What’s up doc .” He mutters—”For Crowley’s—” and then he’s grabbing my hand. (It’s nice. He feels cold.) It takes me a moment to realize he wants my magic. I let him have it. After he casts Good as new , I believe him about it being broken. I didn’t realize just how much it hurt. 

“How have you been walking around all day?”

I shrug. He’s staring at me like he’s trying to burn a hole through my head. “My magic, maybe. I’ve done it before.” 

“Don’t do it again. You’ll kill yourself.”

I don’t respond. But I’ll try not to.

Chapter Text

Baz 

It’s been four days since Snow returned from his last outing with the Mage. (Bunce and I talked—it seems like it was just a day of spell training. He didn’t need to be healed at all when he got back. That should be a low bar.) The first couple days of it he seemed alright—as alright as he ever is. Sleeping plenty, spending meals with Penelope. He even sat through a couple classes, though I can’t imagine he learned much, being as behind as he is. 

Today though, his magic gathers in the air around him like smoke. He’s far enough from going off to avoid causing a panic wherever he goes, but not enough to make it comfortable to breathe. In our room this morning, in the dining hall at breakfast and lunch, even through the walls when he was nearby, I could feel it. And whenever I saw him, he was all blurred edges and restless energy, picking at his food, not talking. 

Now, after classes as I’m coming to drop off my things before dinner, he’s pacing the length of our room. He jolts to a stop when the door shuts and glances my way before hesitantly sitting on his bed, biting at the edge of his thumb. He smells like a campfire. I wonder if anything in the room’s been burned or if it’s just him.

“Alright Snow?” I ask as I sort my things out at my desk. 

After a long enough silence I turn around. His foot’s bouncing, and he’s got his eyes trained on the ground in front of him, though I don’t think he’s really looking at anything. Just staring off. I step away from my desk, a bit farther into his field of vision. His eyes flick to me. He shrugs.

“That’s not an answer.”

He takes his thumb from his mouth for a moment, opening it like he’s got something to say. He stays silent, replacing his thumb. I see now how heavily he’s breathing. Focusing, I can hear his heartbeat pounding. 

“Snow?”

Simon

It’s been too long. Four days? I can’t remember the last time I had four days to myself. He didn’t say anything to me about “continuing tomorrow” the last time I was training, I don’t think. If he did, he would have been banging down my door about it days ago. There’ve been no birds. But it’s been too long. And I feel like I’m doing something wrong being here, in my room, instead of off somewhere with him.

But I feel worse whenever I think about going to his office and asking him about it. It makes the nausea I’ve been feeling since last night triple and my head go sort of light. But if this is some sort of test, if I’m supposed to be coming to him and telling him I want to keep training instead of wasting time around campus, the longer I wait the worse it’ll be when I finally do talk to him.

Baz is staring at me, I know it, but I can’t look at him—don’t want to. I feel a stinging on my thumb as I bite a little too deep into the skin around my nail and it starts to bleed. I don’t stop though. I don’t know what else to do.

“Should I go?”

That gets me to look up. (I must be a sight by the way Baz's expression shifts after I do.) 

I shake my head, ”No— no, just…”

He’s stepping closer to me, kneeling down so his face is level with mine. It makes it harder to look away. I hate the pity I see in him. (Hate’s a strong word… I guess it’s nice in a way. I hate thinking that it’s nice.) I keep waiting for him to say something, ask something, do something, but he doesn’t. He just waits. 

I shrug. “It’s been too long,” I say around my thumb. 

“Too long?”

“Four days. Too long. I’m supposed to be…” I shrug again. It feels like something’s stuck in my shoulders, or my chest, or in all of me, but I can’t get it dislodged. I roll my shoulders back and try to focus on something outside of myself. It’s hard. The only other thing to focus on is Baz with his face right in front of me, and that just makes me feel more… something. Restless, nauseous, guilty, whatever this stupid feeling is. 

I feel his hand, gently, settle onto my shoulder, and push all my attention to the weight, the cold lingering through my shirt (I took off my blazer… I don’t know when). I open my palm over my mouth and close my eyes before letting my hand slide up to my forehead. 

“Breathe, Snow.”

I do. I didn’t realize how hard it was getting. 

“I’m supposed to be doing something. He’s expecting me to—I don’t know. I missed it.”

“What did you miss?”

“ I don’t know ,” I say, my voice getting all caught on the way out. I’m really trying not to cry. “I don’t get this much time off. I’m meant to be doing something, and he’s going to be angry with me about it.” 

That awful suffocating feeling is bubbling up more and more in me. I groan and sink my fingers into my hair. Baz’s hand runs down my shoulder to where my fingernails are digging into my knee. (That, I hadn’t meant to do.) He takes my hand in his. Merlin, it’s nice. I breathe out as slow as I can.

“Has he told you there’s something you need to be doing today?” Baz asks, swiping his thumb over the back of my palm. I breathe in.

“…No. He hasn’t.”

“Then there’s no point working yourself up over it. If he expected you somewhere, you’d be there. Since when does he hesitate to let you know what you’re meant to be doing?”

I let the hand in my hair slip back down into my lap before shaking my head. “Doesn’t. He doesn’t.”

“Right. So it’s fine.”

I take another deep breath. Then another. Yeah. I suppose it is. I nod.

“Good.” He stands up, releasing my hand as he does. “The Mage may not be pissed off, but Bunce certainly will be if I let you skip dinner.”

“Right,” I say, taking a moment to breathe, swiping at my eyes, and then standing. My blazer’s hung over the back of my desk chair. I consider it for a moment, but decide to leave it off. I still feel like I’m sparking with energy, like if I put it on it might catch fire the moment I do. 

Baz waits for me as I tug on my shoes, even as I have to pause and take things slower when I rush and frustration flares in me when I fuck up the laces. He opens the door for me and everything when I’m done. As we start down the stairs, I find myself itching to hold his hand again. It really was soothing. 

Maybe I’m staring, or maybe my magic’s doing something to give me away, or maybe he’s a mind reader, but a few steps in he does take my hand. Or maybe I was going too fast, he’s sort of tugging me back to a slower pace. Either way, it’s calming. 

He drops it as we leave Mummer’s House.

Baz

It’s the middle of the night when Simon’s magic fills the room and makes me cough myself awake. I toss the blankets off myself, prepared to shout at him to calm down, but he isn’t here. He hasn’t been here for three days, off on another mission. I’m getting out of bed to check the bathroom (I’d know if he was in there, I’d hear him, but he isn’t out here) when a flash of light cracks over his bed. Once my vision recovers, I see him sitting there, in his pajama bottoms, arms wrapped around his head, knees tucked up into himself. His magic retreats almost entirely.

“ Crowley , Snow.” 

His head snaps up out of his arms. “ Shit .” 

So that’s the teleporting thing then. And to do all that without a word, without even meaning to. 

He’s stumbling out of bed, still muttering, “ Shit, shit, shit. ” I can’t smell any blood on him this time, at least.

“Slow down.” He’s flying to his dresser, tugging open a drawer hard enough that it rocks back against the wall with a thud.

“Sorry—sorry.” He pulls a wrinkled shirt out, struggling to get it on with his quick, jerky movements.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not—I wasn’t supposed to—I need to get back.” A couple of the buttons are done wrong, but he’s moved on to socks. 

“Get back where? What were you doing?”

He groans, slamming a newly socked foot on the ground and tensing up from the pain of it. “Nothing—bloody nothing . Sleeping.”

“That’d explain the clothes,” I say, my judgmental tone coming out of habit. I try to shake it off. “What’s the big rush then?”

“I’m supposed to be there still.”

“Why? Just so you can sleep on the ground?” He’s got his other sock on now and is sat down struggling with his shoes. I crouch beside him and grab one. He glares at me, but it’s cut down by the fear in his expression. “Just sleep here.”

“No—he’d just woken me up. Something was…” Simon groans again, and throws the shoe he’s still holding on the ground. I can’t help my hand from meeting his shoulder. He goes tense for a split second before he softens beneath my touch. 

“There was something nearby, and—and I’m supposed to be dealing with it.”

“He’s a grown man, and a talented mage—” Something I never thought I’d say “—He’ll be okay.”

“He’ll be… he’ll be angry with me.” All that fire in him is dying down. Now he just looks scared. “I have to go back.”

He shrugs my hand off him, reaching for his shoe again, but I grab it from him as soon as he does, putting them both behind me before taking him by the shoulders. “No you don’t.”

Tears well up in his eyes. It feels like a knife through my heart. 

“Please,” his voice cracks, “just give me my shoes.”

Simon

Fuck, he’s giving me that awful, awful look again, like I’m some pathetic thing he’s stuck dealing with. Like I’m disappointing him just as much as I am the Mage. But I need to go. He doesn’t get it—I wish he just understood .

“Snow, you’re not going back.”

“I have to.” I could see it in his face when the Mage realized what was about to happen. I didn’t even realize. But my magic was growing and growing, and suddenly he stopped talking and took his hands off me like I’d burnt him and then he was going to say something, but I was gone. “He’ll—he’s going to—”

“You’ve already done it. You think he’ll be any less angry if you go back now?” 

He’s right—I hate that he’s fucking right, but he’s right. I’ve already fucked it up, there’s nothing I can do. (Why is there never anything I can do?)

I still want to go back. Even if it won’t solve anything, at least it’s something . It shows I’m trying, even if it doesn’t make any difference. It shows I didn’t mean to, that I’m sorry. (He never cares if I’m sorry. If I’m sorry then that means I’ve already done something I shouldn’t have—that’s all that ever matters.)

Baz’s hands have shifted to the base of my neck, sort of making me look at him. Part of me wants to yell at him to quit staring at me. Another part—a bigger part—really really doesn’t want him to stop. 

I shrug. I don’t know if I’ve just started crying, or if I was already, but I am now. “No…”

“Then don’t go.”

If I don’t go back, then there isn’t anything for me to do, anyway to fix this. The thought coils up in me like a spring wound too tight. I can’t stand it, not having anything I can do. My hands are on Baz’s arms now—I don’t know when I moved them—and I think my nails are digging into his skin. 

When Baz says “Simon,” I can hear the emotion in it, the word brimming with pity. Pity and concern and comfort and his hands are on my back, pulling me into him. And I’m still crying, into his shoulder now, with my arms around his middle, putting all my energy into squeezing him tighter and tighter. He lets me. 

I’m repeating myself, over and over as I cry. He’s going to be so— I don’t want to go— I don’t know what to do. Baz doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t stop holding me. He runs a hand over my back. He keeps me here.

Chapter Text

Simon

Of course he was livid the next morning. Baz had just left, telling me to go back to sleep, he’d bring me something from breakfast, and then there was pounding on the door, and then the Mage was shouting—or trying not to shout, but it still sounded the same. And then he was dragging me down the stairs, by the wrist. He dropped me right before the door, just like Baz had the day he held my hand. 

He was right—Baz—I think. It’s no worse than it would’ve been. The rest of the day is a blur. Worsegers. That’s what the Mage had been waking me up to deal with, that’s what I deal with today. It takes a while to find them, but they’re not so bad. I get nipped at a bit, but I’m able to deal with them. The Mage tells me where I fucked up. (I try to focus on my breathing when he does. I imagine Baz’s voice—“Breathe, Snow.” I imagine his hands at the base of my neck.) We get back late, and there’s a bird at my window early the next morning, waking Baz up, and then he wakes me. 

“Snow,” he says. By the time I open my eyes he’s softly shaking me by the arm. “Bird.”

He reads the letter over my shoulder. I let him. For a second I think maybe I shouldn’t. It passes. I do. 

It’s telling me about training today, which I knew. It’s telling me I need to make up for my performance yesterday, which I knew too, though I can’t remember now what it is I did wrong this time. I’m always making up for something. It’s telling me to be quick. My stomach is in knots by the time I finish reading. I hand it to Baz and get ready. He mutters something, some dig at the Mage I think, but I don’t really hear it. I don’t shower or brush my teeth. I get dressed, grab my wand, and leave. 

Baz 

Simon’s just about slept through the past two days. He was asleep when I returned to our room after dinner the day he'd been doing spell practice with the Mage, and when I went to breakfast the next morning. Penelope didn’t seem to mind me leaving breakfast early to bring him a plate. He was still asleep then. If the food hadn’t vanished by the time I returned that evening, I’d think he’d slept straight through the day. The next was the same, save his appearances in the dining hall for lunch and dinner. By the time I returned to our room last night, he wasn’t quite sleeping, but he was in bed in his pajama bottoms, clearly trying to be. 

Now, it can’t be past 5 a.m. I was sleeping, but something’s waking me up, touching me, grabbing my arm. When I open my eyes, Simon’s sat beside my bed, breathing through his mouth, his heart racing. The hand he’s got on me is trembling.

“Baz,” he says, all breath, and not for the first time I think.

“What is it?” I ask, rubbing at my eyes. 

He just stares at me for a moment, panting like he’s run a marathon. “I… I don’t know.”

He doesn’t know. “Why are you waking me then?”

I sit up when he doesn’t respond. The hand that was jostling me awake is hovering in the air now, fingers tensed, shaking. “I… 

When I take his hand in mine, it’s sweaty and burning hot. His mouth is opening and closing like he’s trying to say something else, to answer my question, to give me some clue as to what’s happening. 

“Simon?”

And then he’s on me, arms wrapped tightly around my torso, face pressed to my chest. I don’t hesitate to hold him. When I do, I realize his whole body is trembling. 

“It’s alright, Snow,” his hands are dipping beneath my shirt, fingers digging into my sides, “you’re alright.” 

He doesn’t say anything, just grips me for dear life.

Simon

It only takes a few minutes to get through. I think maybe I should let go of Baz now that it’s done, but I don’t want to. So I don’t, just loosen my hold a little.

I’ve never come to him when this happens to me before. I’ve always either gotten help from Penelope or gone through it on my own. But I was waking up into it and he was right there and he held me before and it felt so lovely then. Now too.

“Sorry,” I say, my head resting on his shoulder.

“Don’t apologize.”

I struggle not to say it again. 

A moment passes before he pulls away. I let my arms slide off him, back to my sides. “You’re alright?”

I nod. “Yeah. S…” his eyebrows have shot up. “I’m fine.”

“What happened?”

I feel awkward having to say it. Penny tells me it’s not embarrassing, it’s just something that happens to people sometimes. Still. “Just woke up like that.”

“Like that.”

“Like, uh… it was all hard to breathe, and I felt way too hot. Not like I was going off, though. Just… feels like I’m dying. Sort of. I mean, I’m not. But it always feels that way.”

“This has happened before?” 

I shrug. “Few times.”

He makes a face at that, but it’s hard to fully see. It’s gone fast anyways, back to concern.

“And you’re really alright now?” he asks.

“Yeah.” I make sure to find his eyes when I say it. It’s tricky in the dark to feel like I’m fully meeting his gaze. “‘M alright.”

“Right,” he sinks back down, pulling the covers up and turning away from me. “Go back to bed then.”

So I go back to bed.

Baz

“Good morning,” Penelope says as I sit down across from her with my tea. 

“Morning, Bunce. Snow’s still asleep. He was up in the middle of the night.”

“Why?”

“Had a panic attack.” She nods. “How long’s that been going on?”

She blows air through her lips. “I mean, he's had a few here and there over the years, but it was always rare before this term.”

“How often this term?”

“I mean, I’m not always there, so I don’t have an exact number.” I wish she did. “Pretty often. Maybe once a week, when he’s around.”

Crowley. 

“This has got to stop,” I say, keeping my voice low, like the Mage may be hidden round a corner listening in.

“Obviously,” Penny says. “But what are we meant to do? Simon thinks it’s for the greater good—he won’t put an end to it. If any teachers took issue with it in any actionable way something would have been done by now.”

“They must take issue with it.”

“How could they,” she’s waving her fork in the air, “if they don’t ever see it? It took us ages to get the full picture, and he spends more time with us than anyone. How on earth would his teachers realize how bad it’s gotten if he’s not even in class?”

I know how: he’d tell them. But of course, he’d never do that. He thinks this is all his burden to bear, and he’s terrified of what people will think if they know how much it’s hurting him. From the look on Penny’s face, she knows it too.

“If we told them—” 

I shake my head. “I don’t think it’d mean anything unless it came from Snow.” I swallow around the lump forming in my throat. “And if they go to him after we’ve told them what’s going on, he might lie for the Mage’s sake. Even if he doesn’t… he thinks this is all happening because of him. Because he can’t live up to the Mage’s expectations.”

If we told someone and something was actually done about it… I try not to think too hard about what that’d do to Simon if he wasn’t ready.

“Morgana and Methuselah,” Penny mutters, taking a sip of tea.

The rest of the morning is spent mostly in silence.

Chapter Text

Baz  

He told me it was just going to be a day of training and he’d be back that night. By now I should know not to get my hopes up. 

I’d already been sitting with Penny for breakfast even when Snow was around. (He asked me to one day, when the meal had ended and I was heading to class. “You don’t have to leave when I show up, you know? I mean—you have your own friends, but I wouldn’t mind you sitting with us.” I said: “Well, as much as it pains me to imagine the sparkling conversation I must be missing, I’ll have to think it over.” And then I sat with them the next morning.) Now, I’ve started sitting with Penny for lunch and dinner, too. Because it’s nice to spend time with someone in the same headspace as me, someone who I can discuss my concerns for Snow around freely, and because she reminds me of him through all their shared mannerisms from years of friendship. And I suppose because Bunce and I are friends now, too. One morning she was telling me whenever Snow’s gone, she’s down a friend, which is a big deal when she only has two and a half, and part way through a rant about how Wellbelove has been ignoring her since splitting with Simon, I realized I wasn’t the half.

Three days into this new meal set up, Dev and Niall approach me while Penny’s grabbing food. 

“It’s fine if you’ve got a girlfriend now,” Niall starts, “but I didn’t think you’d be the type to ditch us entirely for her.”

I sneer at them. “I told you, we’re not together.”

“Mate, you’ve been talking with her everyday,” Dev says. 

“Merlin forbid I’m friends with a girl.”

Dev rolls his eyes. “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s just—of all the girls to pick, Baz, why on earth are you going out with Snow’s sidekick?”

“How many times do I have to tell you, we are not going out?” 

“Oh, I get it,” Dev says. “She turned you down, did she? And you’re still hanging around her like a dog?”

I spend a few days sitting somewhere else at meals, and they lose all respect for me. After years of practically doing whatever I suggested.

“I do not fancy Penelope Bunce. Now, sod off.”

“Why else would you put up with ‘the Chosen One’?” Dev asks.

 “You know,” Niall says, “maybe it’s not Bunce he fancies.”

I can see the shift in Dev’s face when he catches on to what Niall means. I should say something, when they’re both looking at me, the implication hanging over us. A million things pop into my head, things I’ve trained myself to spit out to deny and deflect, but they never make it to my lips.

I can tell Dev’s about to speak by the way he’s already smiling at whatever he’s thought of, but Penny cuts him off.

“Excuse me, can I get to my seat?”

They both shift out of the way, which makes it obvious that when she knocks Niall’s shoulder with her own while sitting down, it’s purposeful. 

“See you around, Basil,” he says, and the two of them go back to their usual table. 

“Pricks,” I mutter. 

“What’s up with them? I thought you all were friends.”

I shrug. (Snow’s rubbing off on me.) “Let’s call them halves.”

The next day at dinner, I can hear them talking about me. They’re quiet enough that I can’t make out every word, even with my enhanced hearing, but I keep catching my name and seeing them look towards me. From what I can gather, they’re discussing whether it’s actually possible that I have feelings for Simon Snow. 

“Why are the three of you all glancing at each other like that? Are you planning a heist or something?” Penny asks.

“They’re talking about me and think I can’t hear them.” I catch Niall saying something about my feelings changing over the summer. Then Dev says something I can’t quite understand that makes them both laugh.

I can see Penny trying to listen for herself. “What’re they saying?”

Against all odds I find myself considering being honest with her for a moment, before the dining hall doors slamming open interrupts my train of thought. 

“It’s Simon,” Penny says, standing up and waving him over.

He looks to be in alright shape from a distance, though as he approaches I see he’s got one of his hands cupped around the other in a way that sets off alarm bells, especially with the cuts on the skin I can see, blood dried around them.

When he reaches us, he doesn’t sit down, and this close I can tell he’s been crying.

“What is it, Snow?” I ask, my voice low.

He shifts between his feet. “Can we go outside?”

Bunce is already up, and I’m close behind. Before leaving I think to wrap a couple bread rolls in napkins and pocket them. As I do, Snow stops and waits, even as Penny keeps going a moment, though she pauses too when she realizes we’re both behind. 

“Thanks,” Snow says. 

I grab him by the arm and catch up with Penny. “Of course.”

Dev and Niall are staring at us as we leave. Holding the door for Snow and Bunce, I take a moment to glare back at them before letting it shut.

Simon keeps walking once we’re out, leading us to the side of the Weeping Tower that doesn’t face the courtyard, where fewer people can see us.

“Simon, what’s up?” Penny asks. 

Even away from crowds of students, he looks a bit frantic, looking around like we’re doing something we shouldn’t and are about to be caught. I extend my hand out in front of his, and, hesitantly, he opens them up. The thumb on the hand he’d had covered is hanging on by a thread.

“Circe,” Penny says, covering her mouth.

I work quickly, taking his hand, and trying to be gentle as I hold his thumb in place. I can tell he’s trying to contain it when he cringes. His magic floods into me as I inhale. “ As you were. ”

Penny’s eyes are wide as we watch the finger reattach, torn skin and tendon regrowing.

“Merlin and Morgana, Simon. Morgan’s fucking tooth.” I’ve never heard Penny swear this much before. I don’t blame her. 

“Sorry.” His voice comes out so small.

“You’re alright, Simon,” I say at the same time Penny says, “No, don’t apologize.”

“It’s just—” Penny pushes out a breath. “How did that happen?”

Simon’s looking at his shoes. I bring my other hand to our two that are already connected, his magic thrumming through me. I’m not sure he realizes it’s still happening.

“Ne’er-do-wolves. I’m… I—if it’s okay—I’m tired. I want to go to my room.”

Penny looks at me concerned for a second. I stroke my thumb over Simon’s newly attached one. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.”

She continues staring a moment longer before she nods. Snow’s hand slips out from mine as we start walking, and his magic rushes out of me. I Clean as a whistle his blood off my skin, but I can still smell it. When we’re back in our room, I give him the rolls before locking myself in the bathroom, and I scrub at my hands until it doesn’t feel like my fangs will drop at any second.

When I come back out, Simon’s finished the bread, leaving the napkins and crumbs littering his desk. His blazer is over his chair, his blood stained button up in his hands. 

“Could you… fix this?” he asks. “It was my last good shirt.”

“Give it here.” He passes it to me. Holding it up I see the sleeves are torn up in ways I didn’t notice when he had his blazer on, like teeth sliced through them in several spots. A Sunday best and Clean as a whistle do the trick. 

With Snow standing there with his shirt off, I can see the slicing went deeper than his sleeves. I step closer, grabbing his arm and holding it up. He looks embarrassed. 

“‘S fine. It’s mostly healed already.” I don’t know if he means to lie. It’s certainly not mostly healed.

“Hush,” I say, before casting Good as new .

This close, I can see there’re more than just the scrapes on him. Older scratches from further back litter scars all over him, mingled in with brown and purple bruises. 

“Do you ever try to heal these yourself?” I ask, tracing my fingers over some bruising on his wrist.

He shrugs. “Why bother? I never get it right.”

I meet his eyes for a second, his lids hanging low. He always looks so tired.

I try Good as new again on him, but with things like this, older injuries, especially bruises, it’s less effective. 

“Sit down,” I tell Simon as I drop his hand and head to the bathroom, returning with a wet cloth and sitting next to him on his bed.

“You don’t have to— I’m alright, really,” he says. When the cloth meets his skin, he closes his eyes. “I could just shower.”

“You’re fine,” I tell him. 

I wipe away the dried blood from his arms. 

“So the Ne’er-do-wolves,” I ask as I do.

“Yeah. They weren’t so bad. Just got my arms, really.”

“And your back.”

“A little.” He sighs as I rub at a bit I nearly missed on the back of his head, right where his hair begins.

“How long ago?”

“Not long. We weren’t far from school.”

“Did he see your hand?” I ask.

He shakes his head. He’s watching me use the corner of the cloth to get at the blood beneath his fingernails. “Didn’t want him to.”

“Why not?”

“Didn’t know if he’d fix it,” he says. “I think he would’ve, with it falling off and everything, but I didn’t want to risk it. Either way, I’m sure he would have been… mean.”

I stop cleaning and really look at Snow. He doesn’t say anything else, just looks back. I drop the cloth on our nightstand before grabbing his newly cleaned wrist with one hand, setting the end of my wand to it with the other. 

“ Kiss it better ,” I say softly, before bringing Simon’s wrist to my lips. 

The bruise dissolves back into his normal skin tone. When I meet his gaze again, he’s still staring at me. I continue on, casting it on every damaged area. It’s nothing like I’d imagined a moment like this with Snow before, where I kissed every inch of him. Never did I think I’d be wishing there were fewer places to kiss. Every now and again, I get worried by his silence, but when I find his eyes, he looks so open, and more peaceful than usual, and he gives me some sort of half nod or smile and I continue on.

There’s a mole on his neck without any bruising around it, but I still cast the spell before I kiss him there.

Simon

I don’t understand why Baz is doing this. Most of the things he’s healing now don’t even hurt unless I’m really focused on them. Part of me wants to speak up, tell him again that it’s fine, but every time his lips meet my skin my voice goes.

When he kisses my neck, I sigh without meaning to and close my eyes.

“There,” he says. 

I’m trying to find my words, but he continues before I can. “You shouldn’t hide when you’re injured from people, you know.”

“Those were just little bumps,” I say, my eyes still closed. I try to stay on the feeling of his lips on me in my memory, but it’s slipping away too fast.

“The bigger things, I mean. I could have healed you in the dining hall.’’

I shake my head. Enough people were staring as it was. “I don’t want to worry anyone else.”

“They should be worried. If they’re worried, they could help.”

I open my eyes and let myself stare at Baz again. This concerned look of his kicks up guilt in my gut. I glance down at my hands.

“I’m… I know I’m not— I’m sorry you have to be the one dealing with me.”

“Don’t be.”

“I mean it, you shouldn’t have to.”

“I don’t mind.”

I blink away the clouding in my eyes. “Right.”

“I want to.”

It feels like something’s lodged in my throat. “Baz, you don’t… don’t have to lie.”

Baz

“I’m not lying.” Why wouldn’t I want to? I’ll do anything I can to make his life easier. Can’t he see that by now?

“I know—no, I mean, I know you’re fine with this, but you don’t have to lie and say it’s what you want to be doing.” He looks miserable as he speaks, his shoulders turning in and making him look so small. 

“Simon—”

“You hate me, I know you hate me, I know we’re meant to be enemies.”

This would be my opportunity to keep my distance. To keep Simon away from the truth of my feelings. He’s practically serving me an out on a platter. 

“I don’t hate you.”

Simon’s still staring into his lap.

“I don’t help you because I feel like I have to, or because Bunce tells me to. I do it because I care for you, Snow.”

We’re not enemies, really. We’re not now, and I don’t think we have been since I first came back at the start of term and something in Simon was broken. 

“You’re…” my friend, my love, my world? Merlin, too much to say. “I don’t hate you.”

Simon finally looks up at me again, though he doesn’t quite make eye contact. “Yeah… yeah, me too.”

Simon

I don’t hate him. Of course I don’t hate him. He knows I don’t hate him, doesn’t he?

“Me too,” I repeat.

How could I hate him? When I’m hurt, he’s the one who helps me, even when I tell him he shouldn’t, he doesn’t need to. Even when I try to keep him from bothering with it. He’s always there.

He wasn’t at the start of term, when all this started. I spent all day with the Mage, hating it, hating how much I was missing, hating what I had to do instead, and then I’d come back to our room and Baz wouldn’t be there, and it felt like a blank space in the universe, an unfinished corner of my life. I didn’t hate him then, either, did I?

I tip my head towards him until I’m leaning it on his shoulder, until I can breathe in and smell him, right here, with me.

“Me too.”

Baz

“I’m sorry we spent all those years… fighting.”

I say it softly, because he’s close enough to hear me even if I’m quiet, and because even though it isn’t really what I want to tell him, it’s still close enough that it feels like loading a gun, like this all could still somehow blow up in my face if I’m too loud.

I want to tell him I never hated him. I want to tell him I’ve spent years wishing for something like this, where I was allowed to help him, to reach out to him. I want to tell him I’ve been in love with him since fifth year, and then that I’m sorry it took all this happening to him for me to show it. I can’t say any of that. I hope it’s what he hears.

“Me too,” Simon says. His face is pressed against my shirt, and his arms are wrapped around me. He’s shaking now—“me too”—and I can hear that he’s crying through his voice. 

“I know,” I’m saying, holding him as he keeps muttering it, again and again, like it’s a spell he’s trying to cast. “It’s alright, love, I know.”

Chapter Text

Baz 

Before lunch starts the next day, I go back to our room to see if Simon’s there. He’s half asleep when I open the door, shifting in his bed and barely opening his eyes to smile at me. When he does, I head to my desk and pretend I have things to rearrange in my bag so I have an excuse to turn my head so he won’t see my expression while I compose myself. 

“Morning,” he says, sitting up.

“It’s past noon. Lunch is starting.” 

That gets him fully out of bed. 

Halfway down the stairs his hand brushes mine, and I take it, keeping it held even as we exit Mummer's. We don’t detach until we’re in the dining hall and he’s breaking off to get food before I’ve even gotten to our table to set my bag down. Penny’s already sitting, looking cheery. 

“Morning, Basil,” she says. 

“Good morning.”

“How’s Simon?”

“Alright, all things considered. Been asleep all day so far, but he seems to be in a good mood.”

“How’re you then?”

“Fine. The political science test was a nightmare.”

“I know! I swear I studied like a madwoman for it, but half of that stuff wasn’t even from this unit.”

I feel myself suppressing a grin. Casual friendship with Penelope Bunce is never something I thought to want, but now that I have it I’m glad.

“Are you sitting with us for every meal, now?” she asks.

“Hope so,” Simon says, setting his piled-high plate down before sitting next to me. “I’ve been asking him to.”

“I’ll have to move back. I can’t encourage Snow’s begging.” They both laugh. 

It’s rare, moments like these, where things feel almost normal. Not our old normal, but some sort of ordinary, where we’re all friends, and the most stressful thing to be dealing with is class, and we get to laugh without worrying about anything. It’s rare Snow’s in a bright enough mood for it, if he’s around at all. 

I can’t help looking to where Dev and Niall are sitting, listening in on their conversation as best I can. They don’t seem to be paying us any mind.

I guess I’m not being as subtle about it as I thought. “Should we invite them over too?” Snow asks.

“No,” I say. “They’ll be fine on their own.”

“Good,” Penny says. “I didn’t sign up to be their friend.”

Just mine, I guess. I’m trying not to smile again.

Penny and I get up to grab our food just before Simon is getting his second plate. I let him eat some of the food off of mine too, and it seems to keep either of them from noticing that I don’t eat any myself. 

Just as Simon’s standing up to grab more, a cardinal lands on the back of his chair, a folded piece of paper in its beak. When he notices, he slumps back into his seat, face falling before he’s wiping his hands over it. He groans.

“ Lost and found ,” Penny casts, and the note flies to her. The bird hops where it's perched, but doesn’t leave. They usually don’t until Simon’s got the letter.

Penny doesn’t read it aloud. When she’s finished, folding it back up, she says “Can’t spell practice wait until after lunch? He’s going to starve you for magic’s sake.”

I know she doesn’t mean it entirely literally, but I think back to all the times Snow’s come home ravenous after days spent with the Mage.

“I don’t wanna go,” Snow grumbles from behind his hands. 

“Then don’t,” I say. 

He drops his hands with a sigh. 

“Seriously. Don’t go.”

“I have to. He’ll be cross if I ignore him.”

“You didn’t ignore him, you never got it,” I say, sliding out my wand. I grab the note from Penny, holding it out towards the bird. As you were replaces the paper in its beak, and Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home sends it back the way it came.

When I turn back to him, Simon’s shocked still. Then he stands up, looking ready to leave.

“Merlin, Baz, why’d you do that?”

“If the bird goes back with the letter still held, he’ll know it never got to you.”

“But it did get to me. He’ll know it did.”

“Even if he uses a spell to track where the bird went, you never touched it,” Penny says. 

“Right,” I say. “How could you, the bird flew off before you could.”

“They don’t do that,” Simon says.

“Well, then I sent it away to mess with you.”

“He won’t believe that.”

“I’ve done it for seven years, Snow, it’s sort of my passion.”

I’m trying to get him to laugh again, but he doesn’t. After a moment of standing, looking at once frozen and ready to bolt, he settles back into his chair. 

I push my plate in front of him. “I’ve just about finished, have the rest.”

He eats slower than before as Penny and I go on talking, but he does end up picking through the half of my food he didn’t already scarf down. His good mood form earlier has entirely dimmed.

It’s towards the tail end of the meal that I hear the doors open behind me and watch Penny’s face fall. Hearing the taps of his boots as he briskly walks our direction, I can tell it’s the Mage. I take Simon’s hand beneath the table without thinking. For a moment, he gives me a hesitant sort of smile, before it falls as he glances behind us. He turns back, looking down at the table for a moment with an expression like he’s about to sink into the floor.

“Simon!” the Mage says a few paces before he’s at our table. As he does, the dining hall goes quiet. Simon drops my hand, and sits up a bit straighter, face shifting to something neutral.

“Sir,” he says, now that the Mage is stood beside us. He stares directly at me for a moment, and I meet him with as cold an expression as I can get away with before his eyes are back to Simon.

“Did you get my message?” he asks.

Snow seems miles away as he swallows and shakes his head. “No. I’m sorry.”

“That’s quite alright,” the Mage says with another brief glance towards me, then one to Penny. “I was just calling on you to practice your spell work this afternoon. If you’re done eating.”

He says it looking at Simon’s empty plate. 

“Yes, sir,” Snow says, abruptly standing.

“You’ll be back by dinner, right Simon?” Penny asks, though I think all of us know it’s not really a question.

I just barely catch the Mage’s eyes flare, his mouth drawn into a tight line, before his expression is back to normal. “Of course he will. Good luck with the rest of the day’s classes, Miss Bunce. Mr. Pitch.”

And then he’s walking away. Simon is right behind him, not even pausing to say goodbye. 

As soon as they’re out the door I ask Penny “Do you have a mobile?”

“They’re not allowed,” she says. I raise an eyebrow and she rolls her eyes. “Yes.”

Before the end of lunch we exchange numbers.

Simon

Training today is different than usual. As soon as we’re out of the dining hall he starts questioning me.

“What spell are you using when you teleport?” he asks. 

My chest feels tight knowing I don’t have any new answer to give him. “I’m still not sure, sir. It just happens.”

“What are you doing then, when it ‘just happens?’” He doesn’t look at me while he speaks, walking a pace ahead of me, fast enough that I have to pay attention to my own speed to keep up.

“I… I don’t know.”

Even with his back to me, without seeing his face, without him saying a word, I know it’s the wrong answer.

I’m not lying. I don’t know exactly how it happens. But I know everytime it does, I want to leave more than anything. I don’t tell him this, even though I know I should. The Mage doesn’t say anything else during the rest of the walk. He leads me to the football pitch, and I bite at the skin on my lips. 

Once we’re there I’m informed of what exactly I’ll be working on today. The Mage tells me if I can’t stop myself from teleporting away, I’ll just have to learn spells to teleport back. Now you see me, now you don’t is the first one I’m meant to try. Apparently, it’s typically an invisibility spell, but it’s been used for teleportation before. He tells me with my magic I should be able to figure it out. The way he says “should” I can tell he’s saying it not because he thinks I can, but because he thinks I’m supposed to. 

He stands at the far end of the field, in the goal, and makes me walk to the other end. “You’ll try it until you can get to me. Then we’ll work on longer distances, teleporting to places out of sight.”

I nod as he speaks, even though I don’t quite catch everything he’s saying, stuck in my own head. If I have to teleport back, I can’t stay in my room when I teleport there. I can’t stay with Baz, let him help me. If I do, it won’t be some big accident anymore. I’ll be going directly against the Mage’s wishes, and we’ll both know it. 

By the time I reach the far end of the pitch, I feel breathless, and I’ve left a few scorched footprints behind me. 

I try to calm down. I even manage a few spells— Stay cool , Keep it together , Suck it up . They do something, but not much. 

I look towards the Mage. He’s too far now to be heard unless he used magic to amplify his voice, or really shouted, so I figure I’m meant to start without him telling me to. I take as deep a breath as I can manage.

“Now you see me, now you don’t. Now you see me, now you don’t,” I say a few times, without magic.

The first time I push magic into it nothing happens. The second and third are the same. The Mage is far enough away I let myself squeeze my free hand in and out of a fist by my side. Really, I wish I could pace, shake my arms, sit down. That he’ll be able to see, though. I breathe out, in, and try again, “ Now you see me, now you don’t .”

It hasn’t worked again. Or—something’s happened, I think. The Mage isn’t staring me down anymore, looking around him like he’s expecting me to appear. 

I glance down at my hands. They’re gone. My legs are gone. I breathe out. It’s not what I was meant to do, but I did it, I cast the spell. I briefly feel proud of myself before the Mage starts heading this way. 

“ As you were ,” I say. Nothing happens. I feel my magic rise and push it out through my wand. “ As you were .” 

Now I’ve reappeared, and the Mage stops walking towards me. 

“ Don’t use it as an invisibility spell!” the Mage shouts. “It’s never going to work if you think of it that way!”

He doesn’t return to the goal. After a few seconds he shouts “Try again!” 

I do try again. I try again and again and when it doesn’t make me disappear, it doesn’t do anything at all. Everytime I use it incorrectly, the Mage yells for me to stop thinking that way or focus on movement . He tells me I have to want to come over there. My heart feels like it’s going to beat right through my rib cage after that. I keep thinking he must know why it won’t work, that across the field to him is the last place I want to go.

I’m not sure how long it’s been by the time he beckons me over with a bend of his hand. I walk to him until he does it again and I jog. Something so easy never used to tire me out, but by the time I’m to him I have to bend over to breathe for a second.

“You’re not getting it,” he says, his voice harsh. “Are you imagining teleporting when you cast it?”

I nod, still panting. 

He pushes out a sigh. “Let’s move on to the next one.”

We end up going through three other possible spells. I only manage to get one. The sun has been set for a while, and I’ve attempted it with no luck a few times already by the time I cast Ready or not, here I come and find myself standing in front of him in the blink of an eye.

The way he says “Good. Finally.” smothers the sparks of pride I felt at getting it right. “Now, go to the bleachers and try again.”

When I start to walk he follows up with “Hurry up!” so I end up jogging again. My side starts to ache just as I reach the stands and only gets worse as I make my way to the top. 

This far, I’m sure he can’t tell that I’m not saying anything as I take a moment to stand there, breathe, and stare over the pitch. From here, I can see the window to Baz and I’s room, the light on inside. I wonder if he’s in there, or if he just left it on. It’s not like him to leave it on. I wish he would open the window now, that he would see me down here and… I don’t know. I just wish I could see him

“Simon!” I jump at the sound of the Mage’s voice right in my ear. He must have spelled himself. “Cast it!”

I take a deep breath and try to focus on the Mage again. When I use the spell, I end up back on the pitch.

“Good. Now we’ll try farther. Go to your room, then right back.”

I nod, turning to start the walk to Mummer's. It won’t be long, but I’m relieved to have that time away from the Mage, even if it’s not meant to be a break. 

He grabs my forearm before I get too far. “No, the spell, Simon.”

“Right, sorry, sir.” I fight the urge to pull my arm out of his grip.

He releases me a moment later. The first time I try it, I don’t go anywhere. I apologize again, close my eyes, and picture my room. I imagine being in my bed. I imagine Baz beside it. 

“ Ready or not, here I come .”

I can tell it’s worked before I open my eyes, because it’s brighter, and warmer, and I’m not standing anymore, but sitting on my bed, just like I’d pictured. I can hear the shower running. For a second I wish it weren’t, that Baz was out here, but then I imagine how he’d react to me learning the spell, how he might tell me to stay. The stew of emotions it kicks up in me is overwhelming, the comfort that comes from the idea and the sinking anxiety knowing I’d be punished if I did.

I picture the football pitch, the Mage standing by the goal. I imagine him looking impatient, telling me to try again in a tone that makes me feel like a wild animal being cornered. I cast the spell again and I’m back there.

“You were in your room?” he asks. I nod. “Well done, Simon.”

Well done . I let myself smile. “Thank you, sir.”

“Again. This time, to your room, then to forest with the Nevermores. Do you remember it?”

I nod. “It’s far.”

“Right. There, then back,” he says. “Go on then.”

I close my eyes again. The shower is still running when I’m back in our room. I let myself sit and listen to it for a moment. I think it’s not for long, but when the water turns off, I think maybe I drifted for a while. Now, I picture the forest, the birds. I remember the way they dove towards me, their beaks slicing through my clothes. I cast the spell and I’m on my feet, air colder around me, wind rustling my curls. I did it, I’m back here. It’s dark, and the trees seem to reach down for me with the way they curl above my head. I did it . I teleported far from Watford, on purpose, with a spell. I didn’t even have to give it a few goes. I let myself swing my arms by my side and laugh. I really am proud of myself, a feeling I’m not used to. Maybe all this training is worth something, is paying off. But with that thought, my mood sours, and the idea sinks in me like a stone. I don’t know why—of course, it’s supposed to be true. That’s the whole point, that this is working for me, helping me to improve. But the idea that this is proof that what I’m going through is effective makes me feel like throwing up. 

I want to get back to Watford. I close my eyes and try the spell again. I don’t go anywhere. I’m breathing faster than I mean to, and now I can really feel my magic ripping across my skin. Watford, Watford, back to Watford. “ Ready or not, here I come .”

For just a second, I’m relieved that it worked. But I’m not where I’m supposed to be, back on the pitch with the Mage. I’m in my room, and Baz is opening the bathroom door in his pajamas with his hair wet.

“Snow, you’re—”

“ Ready or not, here I come ,” I’ve shut my eyes again, but even without them open, I can tell it hasn’t worked.

I’m thinking of the Mage— think of the Mage . Football pitch, the Mage, the grass, the cold air, the stands. “What are you trying to—?”

I cast it again, and this time it works. I open my eyes, and the Mage is looking frustrated. I close them.

“Did you do as I asked?” I nod. “Took you a while.” 

“Sorry.”

“Alright, again. To the forest and back.”

Baz

By the time Simon returns, it’s nearly midnight. He seems unharmed, but dead tired.

The look he gives me communicates that he knows what I’m about to say before I say it. “What were you doing, Snow? Where did you go?”

He shuts the door by leaning back on it, standing there for a moment, sighing, before making his way to me and sitting down on my bed. I mark my page in the book I was reading and set it on our nightstand.

“Spell training. Teleportation.”

“That’s what he’s having you learn now?” I ask. Simon nods.  

I have a suspicion I know why this is suddenly a priority. 

“Did it go alright?” I ask. He’s sitting close enough to me that our knees touch. I let my hand settle onto one of his. 

He rolls his head on his shoulders. “Enough. I got it. One of ‘em. That’s good.”

I don’t know that either of us thinks that’s good.

“It took a long time, though.” 

“Not really. Made me do it a lot.”

“Why?”

He shrugs. “Don’t know. To perfect it.” 

“That’s not worth staying up until midnight for.”

He sighs again. “No, but, you know.” 

I know the Mage doesn’t care. I know what the Mage thinks is worth this extends far beyond what it should.

“Are you hungry?” I ask. 

Snow shakes his head. Then he pauses, opening his mouth before shaking his head again. “Tired.”

“Here.” I grab a mint aero bar from the drawer of our nightstand. I moved them there not too long ago, but I don’t think he ever takes them without me offering first. “Then sleep.”

“Thank you,” he says before unwrapping it. I nod.

While he eats, I go to use the bathroom and brush my teeth. When I come out, he’s only wearing his pants, and he’s lying down, covers pulled over him in my bed. 

“You’ve got to brush your teeth before sleeping,” is the only thing I can think to say.

He groans, covering his eyes with his hands, before slowly rolling out of bed and walking past me to the bathroom. He takes a long time in there, during which I text Penny that Simon is back, turn out the lights, get in bed, and start to drift off.

“Baz,” I hear him whisper from the side of my bed. 

“Mm.”

“Alright if I…?” 

When he trails off I open my eyes. He’s got the edge of my blanket held in one hand, half stood half crouching like he’s about to get in and lie beside me.

“Sure, Snow, come here,” I say, and he does.

It’s a small bed, so it's not like he could get too far from me anyways, but he ends up settling with his knees knocking into my side, his fingers resting on my arm, and his breath puffing out against my shoulder with each exhale.

“Night, Baz.”

“Goodnight.” 

It’s barely a minute later that he seems to be completely asleep.

Chapter Text

Baz

Simon’s been gone for a couple days, but I can tell he’s back because his magic is already threatening to suffocate me and he hasn’t even gotten through the door yet. I wait for it to swing open, but it remains shut. When I focus, I can’t hear him coming up the stairs at all. 

I’m just standing up from my desk when light flashes under the bathroom door with a clap like thunder. Just as quickly as it happened, the room is silent again, and dark, but Simon’s magic still fills the air, and I can hear his heart hammering through the wall. 

I give him a moment to come out; when he doesn’t, I open the door myself. He’s sitting on the toilet with his elbows on his knees and his head held in his hands. The door is barely open a few seconds before his magic gets heavier around me as the light in our room goes out. 

Dark and quiet . I shut the door as gently as I can. 

I feel useless, sitting beside it, my back to the wall, listening to Snow’s heartbeat on the other side, but I know there’s nothing else for me to do. So I wait. Ten minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. I don’t mean to be timing it, but I can’t stop myself from checking every so often to see how long it’s been as his magic gradually inches back. Forty five minutes. An hour. I text Penny that he’s back. She asks if he’s hurt, and I tell her no, before correcting to I don’t think so . It’s nearly been an hour and a half by the time I hear movement from inside. Then, the sink running for a few minutes.

Finally, the door clicks open, and slowly Snow shuts it behind him before sitting against it, beside me. He doesn’t seem hurt. There’s blood on him, but I can tell from the smell that it isn’t his.

His arm slides through mine, his head falling on my shoulder.

“Alright, Simon?”

He shrugs. “No.”

With the arm he hasn’t got held, I cautiously bring my hand to his head. He sighs when my fingers comb through his hair, so I continue.

Simon

I’m still struggling to talk. It never comes back all the way, all at once. Takes a while. But I’m trying, because I think I do want to talk. 

“I just…”

Baz is moving his hand through my curls. It’s sort of hypnotizing. 

“I’m so sick of this.”

Baz hums, gently encouraging me to continue. (I’m trying.)

“I’m so sick of this. All this. Him. I…” I feel like saying “hate”, but I don’t want that to be the word.

"He…”

What are the words, then? I can’t find them. I’m running over the memories, but I can’t find the words.

(Today, there was something I needed to get from this cave. I’d been floating off when he was telling me about it, I didn’t even really know what I was looking for. Something important. I wanted to ask him to repeat it, but I couldn’t form the question without freaking myself out. I was in the cave, I was looking for it, for something, for something important. I was trying not to drag my feet, I was trying to keep my hold on the Sword of Mages steady, I was trying to reach inside myself and find the boy who surged forward into things with no hesitation. 

I heard movement, muttering, and then there were three (four? Maybe four) goblins, with daggers approaching me. And I found myself wanting to run, but they were behind me too, so I was swinging at them, letting my blade meet their limbs until one by one, they were dead. And for the first time since I could remember, the sight of them, blood, bodies, death, made me feel sort of sick, but looking away didn’t help, and I was still feeling sick stepping away, almost tripping on myself as I started walking back out, because I felt like I was going to fucking explode, and my heart was racing, and every step I took echoed and still everytime I heard it I panicked thinking maybe another goblin was coming at me. And I gripped the hilt of my sword harder and harder, walking faster towards the entrance to the cave, thinking what the fuck is wrong with me , why can’t I just keep it together because I’d dealt with things like this before, worse things, deadlier things, and been fine, but now, I felt electric—overloaded—terrified—and I was trying to quiet it all down, shut it off walking back to—

The Mage was getting up as he saw me coming out, as I channeled what little leftover effort I had into moving towards him and keeping everything put together inside me. And I was standing in front of him, and he was saying something, asking about something—the shield—it was a shield I was getting, right. And he was asking again, he was looking at me with this sour expression, I was trying to speak but I couldn’t, and the longer I tried the more I couldn’t even really tell what it was he was saying—yelling. And he was grabbing my shoulder, hard, and I was panicking, and wanting to go, leave, be anywhere else—

And then I was.)

I can’t find the right words, so I settle for “He was yelling.” And then “Hate when he yells” because that’s true. And “Hate doing this.” And “Hate leaving.” And “Hate all of this.”

I hate him , I keep thinking. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him . I can’t say that. It’s not true. That can’t be true. And even if it is, I can’t say it because then it will definitely be true. 

“I can’t keep doing this.” 

I don’t know how long Baz has had his arms wrapped around me, but they are. I’m clinging to his shirt like it’s a life raft. My head is buzzing, going over the same thoughts again and again. Baz is running his hand up and down my side. 

“It’s okay, Simon, it’s okay, it’s just you and me.”

It’s just you and me . It’s just me and Baz. He repeats himself, saying the same gentle words a few times over, and I listen, and I swear, I’m just starting to feel alright, when a familiar and harsh set of knocks land on our door. 

I want to try and convince myself that I imagined it, made it up somehow, but my name in the Mage’s voice from outside our room is definitely not in my head. I’m standing up, out of Baz’s arms, though he’s on his feet too a moment later.

Shit shit shit, I was supposed to go back. He told me if this happened again, to teleport back, and I didn’t even try to. 

Another round of knocks. 

Baz 

Simon looks like he’s caught in time, stuck on his way to the door but frozen in place, unable to answer it. I don’t want him to, but I’m sure if the Mage has to knock one more time, the next thing he’ll do is get the door open without our help. 

“Simon, let me in.” The Mage’s voice is loud, and stern, and certainly not doing anything to help Simon calm down. 

I hear him start to mutter something, at first quiet enough that it’s hard to tell apart from his breathing, and then I think he’s trying to say something to me, but when I step closer, it becomes clear that he’s trying to cast a spell. Just as I’m able to make out the words— Now you see me, now you don’t —he vanishes. For a moment, I think he’s teleported, put what he’d been taught to good use in the opposite way the Mage had intended for him to. But I can still smell him, and hear him, and feel him as one of his hands grips my shoulder. He’s entirely invisible, along with his clothes. Very useful spell indeed.

I was right about the Mage—the door swings open, hitting the wall as he steps inside, turning on the light and looking infuriated. As soon as he does, I try to seem unimpressed, when really, I feel like lunging at him. Simon stands so I’m between him and the Mage, still with a hand on my shoulder, though he holds tighter than before, enough so that I worry the Mage might see the outline of his fingers in the fabric of my blazer. But trying to shake him off would only draw more attention to it, so I stay put.

“Mr. Pitch,” the Mage says, glancing around the room. “Where’s Simon?”

“Are you supposed to open students’ doors without permission?” I ask.

He’s toned down his expression, but still looks insanely irritated. “You’re supposed to answer your door when asked to. Where is Simon?”

“Last I saw him, he was with you.”

He puffs out a harsh breath, briefly closing his eyes. “Does it look like he’s with me now?”

I let the silence drag out between us for a moment. “No, it looks like you’ve lost him.”

Simon tugs on my shoulder, and I do shake him off now, trying to make the gesture look organic, like I’m just rolling my arms back. 

“Tyrannus—” the way he says my name makes it harder to stay composed “—I believe Simon returned here. Have you seen him?”

“Like I said. The last time I saw him, he was leaving with you. He hasn’t been here since.”

He can tell I’m lying, I’m sure. Not just because of the untrusting look he’s sending my way, but because Simon’s magic has been growing more potent since the Mage first opened the door. But I’m sure he knows better than to go as far as to accuse me of hiding Simon, to drag him out of invisibility, and out of our room kicking and screaming. So he gives a final glance around the room, before turning back to the door.

“If you see him, send him my way,” the Mage says.

“I’m sure he’ll come find you if he wants to.”

One last glare from the Mage, and the door slams shut.

Simon

Even after the Mage has left, after I can’t hear him going down the stairs anymore, after Baz has turned to me and found my hands, I stay stuck for a moment, not wanting to say or do anything that might be heard. 

I used that invisibility spell. I hid from the Mage . Why in Merlin’s name did I do that? What was my plan? What did I think this would accomplish? 

Baz is talking. I focus—I’m trying to focus. (My heart is racing.)

He’s saying “…gone now.” I know. I still feel like ice. Or wooden. No—I can’t find the words for it. 

Baz lets go of me for a moment, walking to flick the lights off again, and I find myself stepping back until I’m stood against his desk without his hold tethering me in place. Baz stumbles around, looking straight through me with his hands swiping at the air. Right. Invisible. 

I want to spell myself normal, or at least tell Baz to, but my mouth feels wired shut. He’s smart though, and he reaches that conclusion on his own, resetting me with an As you were pointed in the right direction.

I’m able to move when he leads me, and I end up with him in his bed, sitting in his lap, clutching his arm and trying to breathe while he rubs my back again, chin resting on the top of my head. 

Baz

After what I’m sure must be at least a half hour of silently letting me hold him, Simon whispers into my shirt “Can I sleep here again?”

Again, like he did a few days ago, when he was back late from practice with the Mage. 

“Course,” I mutter into his hair. I let him fall asleep in my bed again. I let myself fall asleep holding him.

Chapter Text

Simon

It’s not the first time I wake up in Baz’s bed, but it is the first time he’s been holding me when I do. We’ve shifted since I first fell asleep, lying down fully, but I’ve still got one of his arms held, and he’s still got the other wrapped over top of me. I’m not facing him, but I know his face is to my shoulder, because I can feel his breath on every exhale. 

It’s nice to lay here for a moment with Baz; so nice I’m briefly able to keep reality out of my head. But too soon I’m remembering the Mage’s appearance in our room last night, and that I still haven’t talked to him since teleporting away. I find myself holding Baz’s arm a little tighter, trying to breathe through the clenching in my chest.

I think I’m waking him up—his puffs on my shoulder have broken their steady pattern. For a moment he doesn’t move, and I think maybe he’s still asleep, but eventually I can’t help turning over to check. His eyes are open. 

“Morning, Snow,” he says. 

Turned this way I can’t hold onto his arm anymore. I kind of wish I hadn’t turned. 

“What time is it?” I ask.

“You’re the one near the clock,” he says, but then he’s sitting up to check. (Sitting up, and letting go of me. I kind of wish I hadn’t asked.) “Breakfast starts in ten minutes.”

That wasn’t why I had asked, but now that he mentions it, I realize I am hungry. 

“I shouldn’t go,” I say anyway.

“Why not?”

“The Mage… I should—I need to go to him.”

“And you can’t eat first?”

“No,” I say, then, “I mean—” because that doesn’t sound right, but there isn’t really any other way to put it so I continue. “No, I’m supposed to go straight to his office.”

“Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t need to.”

Baz sighs. I’m still lying on his pillow, looking up at him where he’s sitting against the headboard. 

“Let’s get ready first, then maybe you can come grab something quick from the dining hall, even if you don’t stay the whole time.”

I’m rolling my bottom lip between my teeth. It’d be good to get some breakfast, and the Mage doesn’t know I’m awake yet, probably, and I’m a fast eater anyway, and I won’t need to grab seconds. Baz is right, I can get something quick, just a couple scones maybe, and then go. I don’t have to leave right now. 

I feel a bit of the tension in me release as I exhale and nod. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeats, before climbing over me and out of bed. He gathers up a change of clothes and slips into the bathroom. 

I take a deep breath and roll over so I’m laying where Baz slept, on my back staring at the ceiling. I hear the toilet flush and then the sink run for a minute before it turns off. Maybe on the way to the dining hall Baz’ll help me figure out what to say to the Mage when I talk to him. How to tell him what happened without really telling him at all. What to say to make everything with him okay, to keep him from getting angry. Or—any angrier than he was last night. 

I’m drifting back to that moment, when he knocked on the door, and my heart leapt into my throat, and I felt like the world might open up beneath me and swallow me whole. I’m hearing those thuds—I’m hearing them again. I’m hearing them now .

By the time I realize this knocking isn’t just from my memory, but real, happening in this moment, the door is opening, and I’m scrambling to my feet

The Mage looks less upset than he was yesterday, for a moment, until he sees me rolling out of Baz’s bed. 

Baz  

I’m in the middle of texting Penny about everything that happened with Simon last night when the Mage shows up. I’m about to slam the bathroom door open, make a real show of being here so he knows there’s an audience for whatever he says and does, but then I hear him say to Simon “Why weren’t you in your own bed?” and feel paralyzed. 

“Baz isn’t here,” Simon says. “I mean—he isn’t here, s—so I—”

“Enough,” the Mage says. Simon falls silent instantly.

As the Mage continues, I turn my attention back to my phone, starting an audio recording. “What did I tell you to do if you teleported away again?”

“To…to use a spell.” Simon’s voice is so small I worry it won’t be picked up by my phone through the wall. I crouch down and quietly set it on the tile, right where the crack at the bottom of the door is. 

“Speak up, Simon.” The Mage’s voice is stern. 

“Use a spell… to go back.”

“I waited for you to do as you were told—” Simon is trying to say something, I can tell, but he’s not getting through any full words, “—but you didn’t. I had to come all the way back to Watford! What was the point of learning the spell if you weren’t going to use it?”

The Mage pauses long enough now for Simon to answer. “I know—I’m sorry.”

“Where did you go?” Simon’s still apologizing. “Where did you go, Simon?”

“Here.”

“You weren’t here. I came to get you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Where did you go?” the Mage asks again, harsher. 

“I came here, but then I went—I was walking around,” Simon lies.

“‘Walking around?’” I can hear the Mage pacing the room, his boots clicking on the floor.

“Outside.”

“You should have come back!” I can hear something’s been knocked to the floor. I think it was the cup of pens from SImon’s desk—I can hear them rolling on the ground now. 

“…I’m sorry.” 

“Stop apologizing!” 

I hear Simon start to say sorry again, before cutting himself off. 

“Why didn’t you come back?”

A moment of silence stretches out before Simon says “I forgot. I know I—”

“You forgot ?”

“I know. It won’t happen again sir.”

“You’re right, it won’t,” he says. He sounds livid. I fight the urge to go out there and strangle him. To spell him into oblivion. But what I really want is to protect Simon, and I know going out there now will only make things worse for him in the end. So I grit my teeth, and I stay put.

“When I say you come right back, you come right back, you understand me?” A beat of silence. “Good. Come on, it’s time to go.”

“I have to get dressed.”

“You are dressed, Simon.”

He fell asleep in his uniform. I’m fairly certain he fell asleep in his shoes.

“Right. Sorry.”

I hear the door to our room open, and then slam shut. I stop the recording. 

Later, when we’d usually be in the dining hall having dinner, Penny’s eyes widen listening to the recording. I thought about texting it to her, but ended up telling her to come to my room instead. When the door slams at the end, she flinches. 

“He didn’t know you were there?” Penny asks.

“No.”

We sit in silence. 

Eventually she stands up and starts pacing.

“We have to do something.”

“I know.”

“We have to do something .”

“I don’t know what we can do that won’t just… make it worse.”

“Right,” she says, stopping in front of me, clearly with an idea ready to go. “But if we can get Simon to do something, to tell people.”

“He won’t.” 

“He might, if we talk to him. I mean, we can’t make him—”

“No, we can’t.” We won’t. 

“But if we talk to him…”

Chapter Text

Simon

I’m walking back to our room. It’s late—after dinner, otherwise I’d go to the dining hall. I’m hungry, I think. I still haven’t eaten.

I’m walking back to our room, same as always.

I can’t remember what exactly led up to it, but the Mage was already holding my shoulder with one hand when he hit the side of my face. After I’d gone back for the shield, after I’d come out of the cave, and we’d gone back to Watford, just outside the gates, we were talking, I think about the shield, or maybe just about me. And then he was holding my shoulder and smacking my cheek.

It happened so quick, my first thought was that I’d made it up, thought too hard about it happening and tricked myself into remembering the thought like it did. But my cheek stung. Whatever expression I was wearing, the Mage dropped me right after he’d done it.

“Just—that’s enough for today. You can go.”

And then I walked away. The same as always, like nothing was wrong. And now I’m walking back, and telling myself, it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t that bad, really. It doesn’t even hurt anymore—or, it does now that I’m thinking about it, but it’s easy to forget when I’m not focusing on it. It wasn’t that bad. It didn’t feel like it was any worse than what he usually does, and I don’t feel any worse than I usually do coming back to Mummer’s after a long day. I feel tired. I feel like I might throw up, but I think that might be the hunger. 

I wonder if Cook Pritchard would give me food like she does Baz. Does she know that sometimes what he’s grabbing is for me? Maybe she knows. She’s nice enough to me anyways. Now that I’m thinking about being hungry, it’s really starting to bother me. If I go get food on my own now, I won’t have to talk to Baz until later. I change course and start towards the dining hall, squeezing my arms repeatedly to my sides as I do. 

Apparently, I was wrong on the time. Dinner seems to mostly be over, but a few kids are still eating at tables, and the food hasn’t been fully packed up. I didn’t expect the lights to be on in here. I feel my magic surge to change that (I still don’t really know how I do that. I just want it badly enough and it happens), so I close my eyes for a moment and try to quiet it enough to walk to where the food is being put away without turning the lights off. 

Someone from the dining hall staff is just picking up a tray full of rolls when I walk up, clutching my stomach, which is really hurting now, and trying to find it in me to talk, but the light is too bright. Embarrassment flares in me as I close my eyes and breathe for a second.

“Alright, Simon?”

“Sorry I’m late,” I push out, making myself open my eyes as I do. “I didn’t get dinner.”

“Oh. I’ll make a plate for you. Just one moment.”

I watch her as she grabs a dish, piling it with roast chicken and a couple rolls.

“Everything else is put away, so this is what you get, okay?” I nod as she hands me the plate. We’re not supposed to, but I leave the dining hall with it as soon as she turns away. Some of the kids still eating are watching me. My magic still feels like it’s itching under my skin. I just don’t want to be in here.

I sit in the grass, against the Weeping Tower, to the side so I’m out of the way of the doors. It’s dark enough out here, with the sun down. I didn’t think to grab any utensils, so I have to eat with my hands. I try to take it slow, but I end up tearing through my dinner quicker than usual. And then I sit for a moment, with my empty plate, just to let myself be still. It’s mostly quiet. There are some kids talking nearby, though not within my line of sight. Every now and again the dining hall doors open as people leave.

Eventually, I get up and bring my plate back inside. I don’t see anyone, but I don’t want to go back into the kitchen in case I’m not supposed to, so I just set it on the counter and leave.

Walking back to Mummer’s, I find myself trying to plan out what I’ll say to Baz when I get there, but I keep getting stuck when I try recounting the moments before the Mage let me go for the day. Whenever I think through how I might phrase it, I imagine Baz’s response, and I don’t like it, and I try to redo it, but I’m starting to think there isn’t any way to say it that won’t lead to this reaction I’m imagining, where Baz’s eyes go wide, and he’s too angry to keep it in, and he’s telling me this is a really big deal, even though it still doesn’t feel like one, not unless I’m thinking of him telling me it is, and then, now, suddenly, I feel like I might start crying before I can make it to my room. So I stop trying to plan out what I’ll say, and I stop feeling like I might cry, but I do still feel my magic, a little too close to the surface, buzzing, waiting for an opportunity to rise up.

On the way up the stairs, I hope Baz will be out, and I’ll be able to fall asleep before he’s back, and I can put off talking until tomorrow. But when I open the door, he’s here, sitting on his bed. And then I see Penny sitting at his desk. They stop whatever conversation they were in the middle of and turn to look at me as I step inside. 

“You’re not supposed to be here,” I say to Penny.

“It’s not like Baz will tell anyone,” she says, and then she turns to look at Baz, who raises his eyebrows, and mouths something before Penny nods, and suddenly I wish I hadn’t come up here at all. “We wanted to talk, Simon.”

“Okay,” I say, still standing by the door, like I can keep whatever’s happening from happening if I don’t walk any further. 

There’s a twisting in my gut, and a voice in my head telling me that somehow, they know what happened with the Mage today. 

“We know you’ve been wanting to keep everything that’s been going on with the Mage between the three of us,” Penny starts, and I realize as I reach the door that I’ve been backing up without meaning to.

Now, Baz stands up and comes towards me, gently grabbing my wrist. When he does, I suddenly feel like I can’t get enough air, and I want to pull away, but I don’t think I could get my arm to move even if I tried. He leads me over to sit on the end of his bed, stuck between the two of them. He drops me once I do. 

“But,” Penny continues, “next time something happens, we want you to go to the nurse.”

I don’t say anything. I busy my hands picking at my cuticles, and I stare down into my lap.

“The way you’ve been treated, Simon, the amount you’ve gotten hurt,” Baz says after a long enough silence, “It wouldn’t be allowed, if people knew.”

That’s not true . I think, biting the skin around my thumb nail. 

“The Mage has to be held responsible,” Penny says. “And the only way for that to happen is if we let people know what’s going on.”

No, that’s not true . He’s the Mage, he’s in charge, there’s nothing anyone could do. There’s nothing anyone would want to do, because this is what I’m supposed to be doing. No one’s supposed to know how much it’s affecting me. No one’s supposed to know how much I want it to stop.

Baz is saying something again now. They keep alternating, like they have this whole thing scripted. (Maybe they do.) 

I’m stuck imagining telling someone, the disappointed look they’d give me if I talked through everything that had happened. I imagine talking to Miss Possibelf about the events of the day, and I can already feel the shame taking over me before I can think through how exactly she’d respond. 

And then I can’t help imagining how the Mage would react if he discovered I had been complaining to someone. 

I can taste blood in my mouth as I bite too far into my cuticle. Penny’s talking now. 

“…won’t have to go alone, but we,” I’m shaking my head, “want you to talk to someone .”

“No,” I manage around my thumb, still shaking my head.

“Simon…” Baz starts.

“No,” I say again. My magic drips from the word, but it doesn’t seem to go anywhere. “I don’t want to.”

“We know it will be difficult—”

“It won’t make a difference.”

“You don’t know that, Simon.”

“I do,” I say, harsh. I need them to drop it. My skin is burning, and as I start to tap my foot on the floor, a few sparks fly out. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t want to either way. I’m not going to.”

They’re looking at each other like I’m a child throwing a tantrum—like something they don’t know how to deal with. 

“We just want you to think about—”

“No. I’m not doing it.” I cut Baz off, and then I’m standing up, my magic sloshing over me as I do. “You can go now Penny, I need to take a shower.” 

They look at each other again. God I wish they’d fucking quit it.

I don’t wait for her to get up and leave to lock myself in the bathroom. I lean against the door and listen until I hear her go. When I push off the door, I leave a burnt spot on it. I groan at the sight and rake through my curls with my fingers. I hear Baz saying my name through the wall, but I ignore him. I do need to take a shower, but I’m frustrated, and trying to get my clothes off in jerky motions only makes the feeling worse. I catch my face reflected as I fumble with the buttons on my shirt, and one of my cheeks is redder than the other. I feel like my heart’s lodged in my throat seeing it, and my breathing gets jagged as I give up on the buttons and yank my shirt over my head. As I do, it drags across my skin and catches like a match. I curse as I toss it into the sink. I see a hole burnt through the back, the fabric around it brown and black. A growl starts in the back of my throat, and I don’t know what to do to get the energy out, so I bang my forearms against the counter. I force myself to exhale as the pain shoots up my arms, and force myself to stay there, crouched over the sink, breathing, until I don’t feel like I’m about to go off. I can hear Baz coughing outside. Breathe, breathe… just fucking breathe.

Once I’ve cooled down enough, I turn the shower as cold as it will go, prepared to stand under the water for as long as I can bear it. I expect the freezing water to feel harsh, but when it hits my skin, it feels like it’s putting me out. I stand under the stream for a long time, long enough that after I get out, Baz is gone. I go to sleep before he gets back.

When I wake up in the morning, I spend a long time lying in bed feeling guilty, worry stewing in my gut. Worry that I’ve gone and fucked up the one good thing I still have, and now Baz and Penny won’t want to talk to me. But then Baz is next to my bed, softly poking at my side insisting I get up or else we’ll be late for breakfast. And at breakfast, Penny talks to me about her classes, and her roommate, and not about telling anyone about the Mage. So I relax, a little.

Chapter Text

Baz

It’s been nearly a week since we tried to talk Snow into telling someone about what’s been going on, and Penny and I have agreed not to bring it up again for the time being. Because Simon almost went off when we did, and because we both know if we try convincing him again right away, without giving him plenty of time to think, his decision won’t change. So we pretend the conversation never happened for the first couple days afterward, before he’s off on another multi-day trip with the Mage.

It’s the fourth evening of him being gone, and I’m in the middle of showering, when his magic clogs up the room, and I hear that booming signal that he’s teleported back. I dry off and get dressed as quickly as I can. My hair’s still soaking wet when I open the door and see Simon, with his curls a mess, and his blazer missing, and his shirt covered in dirt and blood. He’s all tucked into himself, sitting back against the wall on my bed. 

I walk over to him. As soon as I climb onto the bed, he snaps into the present, head coming up and eyes wide. 

“Shit,” he says. “No, no, no.”

“It’s alright, Simon,” I say, reaching him and taking his hands. 

“No, it’s—” he stops mid thought, pushing out a breath before closing his eyes. “Go back, go back.” The blood and dirt from his shirt disappears, but he stays put. 

“Simon, talk to me,” I say. “What was going on?”

“Fuck off,” he says, before opening his eyes again. “Sorry. No—sorry.”

“It’s fine—”

“I have to go back, I’m sorry, I have to get back there.” The words tumble out of his mouth all jittery.

“Slow down. What was happening?” Because I can’t watch him send himself away without knowing what it is he was teleporting away from.

“Nothing—driving back. We were almost— I could see the gates.”

“You were coming home. Why do you have to go back then?”

“I do ,” he pushes out, and then his eyes are closed again. “ Ready or not, here I come.” 

“No, you don’t.”

He doesn’t move, growling when he realizes the spell didn’t work. “Ready or not, here I come , ready or not, here I come , ready or — ” 

“It’s not working, Simon,” I say.

He yanks his hands out of mine. “I fucking know that!” And then his expression gets soft again and tears start gathering in his eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m—”

“Stop apologizing,” I tell him, but somehow that only seems to make him more upset. 

He opens and closes his mouth a few times, before letting out a shaky sob, his head falling down between us. I want to take it in my hands, hold his face, but I’m not sure if I should.

“I need to go back,” he says. “I need to go back.”

I sigh, trying to think of anything else I can do before I find his hands again. He tenses when I do. I rub my thumbs over the back of his palms, and he releases somewhat.

“I’ll do it,” I say softly. “Give me your magic, I’ll do it.”

He looks up again. I nod. He pulls one hand back for a moment to wipe at his face, and I slide my wand out from my sleeve as he does. For a moment after, he just stares at me, and I’m about to say something when his magic finally flows into me, warmth flooding my body. I huff out breath, trying to stay balanced. 

“Wait,” Simon says, and I hope that he’ll tell me to stop, but he doesn’t. He’s pushing forward, dropping my hand only once he’s already wrapping his free arm around my waist, hugging himself to me.

“Thank you,” I hear him mutter, his face to my chest. With his magic, the rush of love for him that pours through my body feels like it’s threatening to burst out of me, like I might go off the way he does. But I don’t want him to thank me. What he’s asking me to do doesn’t deserve thanks.

“Are you sure you want to go, love?” I ask, dipping my head down to speak by his ear.

He doesn’t answer, just squeezes my torso. I take a deep breath, pointing my wand to his back.

“Back from whence you came,” I say, and the force around my middle disappears as Simon’s teleported, his magic along with him. I feel sickeningly empty afterwards. 

Simon

I apologize as soon as I realize I’m back in the car with the Mage, as soon as the weight of Baz surrounding me is gone. We’re parked now, the gates just as far in the distance as I remember them being. The Mage is pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Took you a while,” he says, dropping his hand and looking at me. My gaze shifts down.

“Yeah it took a few tries… to get the spell,” I say. The dread that made me teleport back in the first place isn’t dying down. If anything, the way he’s staring at me is making it worse.

The Mage sighs before starting up the car again. “Well, you did good coming back. Eventually we’ll find a way to fix the problem so you won’t have to.”

I swallow and nod, even though his eyes are on the road now. 

I go to buckle my seatbelt. When the strap hits my right side, a painful pulse sends out from where my ribs are bruised. It’s been a couple days since that happened, when I tripped over my own feet backing up and I hit the ground at just the right angle to really hurt something. Mostly, I’ve been ignoring it since then, but now, as I let my seat belt go unbuckled, hoping the Mage won’t notice, it’s pulling my attention. 

Something could be really damaged. Broken. I can never tell how bad an injury is until I’m watching Baz and Penny react to it, but I know it’s at least bad enough to warrant concern. Bad enough for a trip to the nurse…

I haven’t gone. I can’t. A couple times since talking to them about it, I’ve tried to think through how to properly explain to Penny and Baz why, how to get through to them, but I never figure it out. I just can’t. I don’t want to anyway. Whenever I’m hurt, I just want to go back to my room. To Baz.

When we’re back on campus, and the Mage lets me go to my room, I hope Baz will be there. He just was. Would he be waiting for me to come back? He knows I was heading home when I teleported.

He’ll be there, and he’ll hold me again, like he did before spelling me away, like he did after the Mage came to our room, looking for me, like he always does when I’m falling apart and need someone to hold me together. And I’ll be safe. We’ll both be.

I take a deep breath. I’m picturing it, Baz’s arms around me. And then I’m picturing his expression all soft, and then I’m picturing his lips on my neck, imagining the feeling, like when he used Kiss it better. Except, in the version in my head, he hasn’t cast the spell. He’s just kissing me.

My body almost flies out of my seat as the Mage stops too quickly, but I catch myself with my hands on the dash. We’re back at Watford. Good. I need to get back to Baz and I’s room.

I don’t think before trying the door handle, but the car’s still locked.

“Simon,” the Mage says, and I turn to face him.

“Sorry, sir. Am I free to go?”

He doesn’t answer my question. “When you teleported back to your room,” he says, “was your roommate there?”

He says my ‘roommate’ like we don’t both know Baz’s name. 

“Yes,” I say. I regret it immediately, wishing I’d lied before I know why the Mage asked in the first place.

His eyes narrow, just a bit, and I can see him thinking. My throat feels blocked waiting for him to continue.

“I know you’ve been spending a lot of your downtime with him,” the Mage says. His tone makes me nauseous. “I don’t understand why.”

“He’s…” I trail off, not sure if he wanted me to explain or not.

It seems he didn’t. “He’s of the Old Families, Simon. He’s working against us. I know he’s your roommate, but you really shouldn’t be hanging out with him anymore than you have to.”

He’s nice to me I think. He helps me .

“Be careful.”

Now when he pauses, I know it’s my turn to speak. “I am being careful,” I say. The quick sigh he lets out after I do tells me it was the wrong answer.

“Don’t be stupid , Simon. You can’t trust him.” 

I want to tell him I can, I do, but the words are barely there in my head, and when I try to grab onto them, turn them into physical things in my mouth, they crumble away. 

“I don’t want to see you with him anymore. It’s too dangerous.”

My stomach churns. It’s not dangerous. He’s wrong , I know he’s wrong. He doesn’t know Baz like I do. Or—maybe he does. Maybe he knows that Baz cares about me, that he objects to the way the Mage treats me, and he doesn’t want him saying anything. 

“Okay,” I say, because that’s what he wants to hear. That’s how I get out of this car. 

The Mage stares at me until I have to look away because the eye contact is becoming too much. 

“You can go now,” he says, and the car door clicks open. I don’t say anything as I leave. 

I’m fast on my way to Mummer’s, looping through images of Baz and I only occasionally interrupted by snippets of my conversation with the Mage. But it doesn’t matter—I’m done for the day, he’s not around to tell me what to do. He has no say in how I spend my time when he’s not around. It’s fine, it’s all fine. 

I’m at the top of the stairs before I know it, opening the door and—Baz is still here, thank Crowley Baz is still here. I’m out of breath, I think from nearly running my way up, or because I can’t quite breath fully with whatever’s up with my ribs, or maybe just from everything. My fingers are tingling with it. I shake them out.

“Are you alright?” Baz asks, standing up from where he was sitting on his bed. Has he been sitting there since I left?

I walk over until I’m right in front of him, and my hands hover between us, still thrumming with magic, or maybe just nerves, unsure of what to do. No , I know what to do. I force my hands to keep moving, until I’m holding Baz’s cheeks. His face becomes a stone wall, except for the way his eyes are blown wide. 

This is what I want. 

Baz

Simon Snow is holding my face, his hands like fire, and staring at my lips. 

Simon

This is what I want . Baz is here, right here, in my hands, close enough so I can feel his breath on my face as his mouth hangs open. But suddenly, I feel frozen. I want to kiss him. But I can’t. I’m not supposed to.

Baz

“Simon?” I ask, because despite the way my mind is running a marathon, it’s the only thing I can think of to say in this moment.

He doesn’t hear me. He’s still out of breath, and his eyebrows are drawn in.

Simon

I can’t. The Mage will know. He’ll find out, somehow, he will, and I’ll be caught. I’ll be…

Baz

He’s shaking his head now, barely, back and forth. His hands have started trembling where they connect with my cheeks.

“Simon,” I say again.

No response. He’s still staring at my mouth.

I can hear him start muttering something through gritted teeth. Focusing, I catch it. “ I can’t, I can’t, I can’t .” Over and over. And then his head tips down a bit between us, and his eyes fall to the floor. 

I gently slide a hand over his waist, but before I can speak, he cringes at the contact, and his fingers press into the skin near my eyes.

Despite the voice in my head screaming at me not to, I remove his hands from my face. He looks at me as I do.

“Sit down, okay?” I say, and after a long enough pause that I almost go to repeat myself, he nods, and settles onto my bed. I sit beside him.

Simon

Baz has the bottom edge of my shirt in his hand, eyebrows pulled in. 

“Can I?” he asks, and I nod before I really process what he means. 

He lifts up the fabric a moment, looking at the bruising underneath, before he drops it to start on the buttons instead. I feel electric watching him.

Baz 

Simon’s staring at me so strongly I’m worried I might catch fire just from the intensity.

Simon

Once my shirt’s off, I can tell it’s bad because Baz’s expression goes suspiciously neutral as he grabs for his wand before taking my hand. I let my magic pour out.

“Good as new,” he casts, and I feel something shift in my torso in a way that makes me feel like I might throw up for a second before I sigh with relief at the ease of pain that follows. 

Baz does not look as relieved. The area is still bruised deep purple. He sets his wand to it again, saying “Kiss it better.”

And then he ducks his head down, and when his lips meet my side, it sends a chill across my skin that I almost can’t stand. Then he’s casting the spell again on my forearms, kissing away the bruises there. And my head is thrumming with this dizziness that makes it hard to focus, and suddenly I’m trying not to cry—because it’s all too much. The pain and the relief, and stress of the day still heavy on me, my conversation with the Mage still playing in my head. Having Baz right here, wanting him, knowing, finally, that this is how I want him, and still feeling like I can’t have it. Because it’s too dangerous. Because it’s too much .

I’m holding Baz’s head in my hands again—when did I do that?—and he’s still kissing me, but now his lips have moved to my chest, trailing up and over my shoulders, finding the same spot on my neck that they did the first time he kissed me like this. 

Baz

“Is this okay?” I ask, because I have no idea what I’m doing, or how I’m even doing it. And I don’t like when he gets this quiet, and I can’t fully tell if he’s alright. 

He hums something affirmative, encouraging, and I return to his neck, before moving my lips to his jaw, then to a lovely mole on his cheek. 

His hands tighten on me when I kiss just shy of the edge of his mouth.

Simon

“Stop,” I say before I realize I’m talking, and Baz pulls back immediately, face moving out of my hands. My magic floods back into me. I clench my fists.

“Sorry,” he says, and I shake my head, but I can’t say anything else. 

I can’t… 

Don’t be stupid, Simon. You can’t trust him.

I can’t do this. 

I don’t want to see you with him anymore.

I just can’t do this. 

Baz

Simon is staring through me, looking at me without seeing me at all. 

I shouldn’t have kissed him anymore than he needed me to. He trusts me—he put his trust in me in his time of need, and I crossed a line. 

“I’m sorry,” I say, and he seems to come back to me a little. “I shouldn’t have—I don’t know why I—”

“No,” he cuts me off. 

He’s still shaking his head, and I risk putting a hand on his cheek to steady him. Now, he really looks at me. 

“It’s— it’s not—” His breathing is too fast. I push down my own worries and insecurities, and I place the hand I don’t have on his cheek to his chest.

“Breathe,” I tell him, and he mimics me as I take a few deep breaths in and out. I feel his lungs expand beneath my fingers each time. 

“Baz, I… it’s not that I don’t…” he shakes his head again, and I swipe my thumb over his cheek. Breath in, breath out. 

“I want to… kiss you ,” he says, and my heart feels like it swims in my chest. “I want to, but… the Mage. He told me not to spend time with… he’ll… if he finds out…”

Simon

I’m remembering the way he said it again. The way he said he didn’t want to see me with Baz anymore. He can’t… I can’t not see Baz. But I can’t spend time with him… like this. The Mage didn’t have to spell that out. Doing this with Baz is different. Worse. Much worse. 

“I just… I can’t,” I say, and Baz’s hand is still on my cheek, swiping across my skin. I should tell him to stop that too, push his hands off me, go to my own bed and sleep through the rest of the day. I don’t.

“…Okay,” Baz says. “That’s okay.”

It doesn’t feel okay. I open my mouth just to close it a moment later. I don’t know what to do. The only thing I want to do is kiss him, but I can’t do that—just thinking about it sends a wave of fear crashing back over me. So I just sit there, leaning into his touch and feeling more and more like the world could crumble around me at any minute.

Baz

I have no idea what I’m doing, sitting with Simon, silently waiting for the next step to become clear. 

The Mage told him not to spend time with me. I know why—that this is about my influence on Simon, my views on the Mage. It has to be. There’s no way he knows how I feel…

Either way, if Simon’s not ready, he’s not ready. Even if his words— “I want to… kiss you ” —are still echoing in my head, sending an electric feeling through my system each time I remember them. Even if I’m still itching to kiss him again, properly. I’ve been in love with him for years—I’ll wait for as long as he needs.

Chapter Text

Baz

Simon is still asleep in my bed after I’ve gotten up and gotten ready for breakfast, so I let him stay there as I head down. Even when he gets home at a reasonable hour, he always seems so tired, I’m sure it’s good for him to sleep as much as he can.

It’s strange, heading to the dining hall the same as usual, like nothing’s changed. Nothing has, really. Except that Simon Snow wants to kiss me.

Thinks he wants to kiss you , I keep telling myself. Wants to kiss you for now . Because with everything going on, there’s no way of knowing if these… feelings of his will last once everything is settled. When we’ve dealt with the Mage, he’ll probably realize he got his wires crossed in the chaos, and he’ll reconnect with Agatha, and they’ll have a nauseatingly heterosexual wedding. But who knows, maybe after all of this Simon will consider me a close enough friend to be invited to the ceremony, and I can help him pick out a tux, and we can both pretend the way I look him up and down when he tries on a new option is completely platonic.

I try to clear my head as I reach the doors to the dining hall. This is the least important thing I could be thinking of right now. 

Penny waves me over as soon as I enter and starts talking as soon as I sit down.

“Is Simon back?” she asks.

Right. I texted her after he teleported back to the Mage, but not once he had returned to our room again.

“Yes. Still sleeping.”

“And he was alright?”

“He’s alright now. I think his ribs were broken. At least bruised.”

It hurts to notice how muted her shock is, but I can’t blame her. It’s a little less surprising everytime.

“How’d you heal him?” she asks.

“ Good as new .” Her expression shows she isn’t satisfied by that answer. “And Kiss it better for the bruising.” 

“That’s a family spell,” she says.

“Yeah, well…” I trail off. 

Her expression settles into something knowing. She was going to find out eventually, I suppose. 

It doesn’t seem to phase her. “Do you think he’ll be up by lunch?”

“Probably. He got to sleep pretty early, all things considered.”

“Right,” she says, before poking her finger towards the table in front of me. “Now go grab food already.”

Simon

I’m holding my palm over my eye, because it hurts, and even though it hurts more to touch it like this, it feels worse to do nothing. And because if I don’t cover it, I think more blood will get in.

It was a gryphon. I was doing alright, I think, with my sword, but then its claws were in my face. It got my eye. I’m not sure how bad it is—I haven’t removed my hand—but it hurts . I went off then. It hurt worse as I did, but I kept my hand to it, and I went off, and it was dead. And the Mage was angry, but apparently not enough to keep him from asking if I needed him to “do something about the eye.” 

I did. I said no. He never heals me. It felt like a test.

I’m running up the stairs to our room now. The eye I can see out of has gone all cloudy, and the one covered just stings more. I’m trying not to focus on it, pushing harsh breaths out through my mouth.

The door opens without me touching it, I think. With my limited vision, it takes me a while to realize Baz isn't here. With the realization some frustrated growl starts in my throat and ends up sounding more like a sob when it comes out of my mouth. My magic is ripping over my skin now, but I can’t tell exactly how bad it is with all my attention getting pulled to my eye with each pulse of pain. 

I’m about to leave—to go back down, somewhere, to find Baz—when I hear feet on the stairs, and then he’s here, stumbling over the last few then through the still open door. 

“What on earth did you—” his sentence ends as really looks at me, face falling.

I’m already taking his hand with my free one, releasing my magic.

Baz

I was coming up the stairs when Simon’s magic hooked in my gut and started dragging me forward almost too fast for me to stay on my feet. It was like the Crucible all over again—impossible to ignore and not letting up until I was in front of him.

I want to ask him how he did it, if he even knows he did, but there’s dried blood down his arm from where he’s holding a hand over his eye. 

“Please, just—” He’s grabbing my hand, pushing his magic into me. It feels alive, flowing through me. 

I wrap my fingers around the wrist of the hand he’s got on his face, but he doesn’t move it. 

“Simon,” I say, and he breathes out before pulling his hand away. 

It’s nauseating. And still bleeding. I’ve got my wand out casting As you were as quick as I can. I watch the skin mend and the eye heal. And the blood vanish. My fangs buzz beneath my gums, but don’t drop, thank Crowly. 

Simon’s taking deep breaths in front of me, and sort of swaying as he closes his eyes.

“Are you alright?” I ask, squeezing his hand. He pulls it away, and his magic goes with.

“Yeah, I think. Thank you.” When he goes to wipe at his eye, he smears blood back into place.

I tell him he should wash up, and as he heads to the bathroom, I text Penny. For a moment I can see that she’s typing a response, but then my phone rings, her name flashing on screen. I glance over at Simon, with his face in the sink so he can splash water onto it, before taking the call.

“You healed him?” she asks before I’ve said a word. 

“Yes.”

“Give him the phone.”

He’s got the edge of a towel wet now, working it underneath his fingernails the way I once did. I sigh and walk over to him.

“It’s Penny,” I say, holding out the phone. He eyes it a moment before setting the towel down to take it. 

He leans back against the counter, his free hand holding the edge. “Hey, Pen.”

I can’t hear what she says, but his face goes flat as he listens. 

“No,” he says, and it comes out wobbly. After a few seconds, “Please, not right now, okay?”

I’m not sure if Simon wants me standing right here, but as he listens to whatever Penny is saying, his gaze meets mine for a moment before returning to the wall. I take it as a cue to stay, to let myself shift a bit closer until my hand settles lightly on his shoulder blade. He looks at me again, but doesn’t move. 

“Stop. It’s—” he shrugs my hand off him now. “Baz—It’s already healed anyway, so there’s no fucking point. Just drop it.”

He hangs up and pushes the phone back into my hand. Then he’s biting his lip saying, “I—can you text her I’m—I didn’t…” He runs his hands over his face, into his hair. “Never mind… never mind.”

“Simon—”

“I’m fine. I’m—I need to shower. I just—I’m gonna take a shower.”

“Alright,” I say, stepping out of the bathroom. As soon as I do he shuts the door.

Chapter Text

Simon

The Mage is pacing wide circles around me, watching and occasionally throwing out encouragement or corrections as I work on the latest batch of spells I’m meant to learn. 

He had me start with Now you see me, now you don’t.

“Ready or not, here I come has been working just fine,” I said. I didn’t want to waste another afternoon on a spell I already knew I couldn’t cast the way he wanted.

“No, Simon, I’d like you to work on casting it for invisibility, as it's traditionally used.”

“Why?” I asked, hesitantly.

“If your enemy in a fight can’t see you, you have the upperhand. It’s a worthwhile tool to have at your disposal.”

I didn’t get it. I mean—it made sense, but he never has me learning things like that. It’s always combative, offensive. Spells I can use in place of weapons. 

Now, after working on Now you see me, now you don’t and trying out Nothing to see here in a similar way, I’m trying to perfect Silence is golden. Each time I cast it, I’m supposed to stomp around and yell something out to test it. And each time, I expect to get something harsh from the Mage, discouraging, something like I’m used to hearing whenever I fuck up. But all day, he’s been different.

I cast the spell now, jumping a few times and shouting out “Did it work?”

He pauses his walking. “That’s better Simon. Not quite, but better. Try it again, perhaps whispering the spell this time.”

It reminds me of how he treated me when I was a kid, still going to classes, and only training one on one with him like this a few times a month. Maybe I should be enjoying it. I just feel on edge.

I do as he says, whispering the spell this time and then going through the same routine. 

He hums. “About the same… try once more.”

I go through the motions again. As I do, I find my mind wandering, as it’s been all week, to what would happen if I went to a teacher or some other adult on campus. Penny is still pushing it, trying to get me to do it whenever I come back from time spent with the Mage, even when I’m not hurt. I never budge. But still, I’ve been imagining ways it might go. Most of the time, things end poorly in my head. They tell the Mage, or they don’t believe me in the first place, or they do believe me, but they just don’t care. 

The ones that upset me the most though are the versions I come up with where things go well, because no matter how I plan them out, they never feel possible.

“Something else then,” the Mage says after a couple similar attempts with little success. “As you’re casting the spell, think of something to say to test the spell that you don’t want to be heard. You’ve got to truly want to be silent, Simon. Magic always knows your intentions.”

I nod and try to come up with something I wouldn’t want the Mage to hear. I wish I wasn’t here. I’m thinking of ways to tell someone about all this. I hope something will change if I do. 

I want to kiss Basilton. 

I can’t say any of that. With my luck the spell won’t work and I’ll ruin the unsettling peace of the day. 

“Silence is golden,” I cast. When I kick at the ground, the Mage has a hopeful look on his face. 

“Can you hear this?” I ask. 

“Well done, Simon!” 

It worked. He seems genuinely excited about it. I want to shake out my hands, but I don’t while his eyes are on me.

He has me try it a few more times, resetting me with an As you were between attempts. Each time, I run through the list of things I’m afraid to tell the Mage, and each time the spell works, but leaves me feeling a little more anxious, like somehow, if I think these things too much, he’ll hear them as if I’ve said them out loud. 

“Alright,” he claps his hands, stops his circling, and stands before me. I straighten my posture as he does, preparing for whatever feedback he has. “You’ve done well today, and the past couple of weeks. It’s clear you’ve been working hard.”

I’m not sure why he’s telling me this, what it’s leading to. I’m sure it’s leading to something. I don’t know what I’ve done recently that’s any different than usual. 

“You’ll take this next week off.” He drops his hand onto my shoulder as he says it, and as soon as I feel the weight of it through my blazer I imagine him striking me with his other hand. I don’t flinch, I don’t think, but I’m sure he can feel me tense where he’s holding onto me. His hand remains. “Take time to rest. We’ll pick things up at the end of next weekend. Alright?”

I nod. “Yes sir, thank you.”

He nods back and lets go of me. 

“Enjoy the rest of your day, Simon.” 

I watch him start walking back towards the gate, leaving me alone at the edge of the Wavering Wood. Once he’s out of sight, I start walking back myself, dread slowly filling me as I do. Because this feels like a trick. Everything today has been too calm, too easy. And now I’m getting a week off? It’s just unreal. It’s like I’m stuck at the top of a roller coaster, looking down, knowing the drop is about to come, and it’s just not coming.  But the drop always comes, I know it does. I don’t understand why it hasn’t yet.

My hands feel jittery as I go through the gate, back into Watford. I’m heading for my room, but more and more, I feel like my legs are too stiff to move properly, and I’m running out of breath just from walking, or there’s something blocking air from getting all the way through my throat. 

When I make it back to Mummer’s, I peel off my blazer, burning up as I head up the stairs. I almost make it to our room before I’m stopping, sitting on a step with my head between my knees, just trying to fucking breathe, trying not to go off, because it feels like something horrible is about to happen, and my heart is going too fast, and I know what this is, but that doesn’t make it any easier to get through, especially alone. 

I don’t know exactly how long I sit there, trying to convince myself I’m not about to die, forcing air in and out through my mouth, but I know after it’s over I sit there even longer, too tired to want to move, with this hollow feeling like everything has been scooped out from inside me. 

“Simon.” 

I lift my head just as Baz sits beside me, close enough so that our shoulders are pressed together. I lean into him. 

“What happened?”

“Nothing,” I mutter. Nothing even happened. 

But Baz is giving me a look. “Snow.”

I sigh and drop my head back between my knees, folding my arms over my head. “Nothing, really. Training with the Mage. Just practicing spells. Silencing and invisibility and stuff. It was…” I trail off, because nice should be the right word, but I know it isn’t. “It’s the kinda stuff I’ve wanted to learn.”

“And how’d it go?”

“Fine.” I can hear his stupid face still looking at me like that. “ Fine . He was… he was helpful, I guess. Giving me ideas for how to cast them. He told me I’ve been doing good, I get the next week off.” 

I don’t know why, but I have to press my hands down on my head to keep them from shaking again. 

“And then he let you leave?” 

I sit back up, wiping my hands over my face before I grip my knees. “Yeah. I was going back to our room, and I just…”

I don’t think he needs to hear me say it. When I look at him, his face is all concern. PIty. I look down back at my hands. 

“I’ll do it next time,” I say before I can think about it too hard.

“Next time?” he asks. 

“Next time I’m hurt. You can take me to the nurse.” I shake my head. “You should take me. Make me go if I don’t want to.”

“I can’t make you, Simon.” He’s leaned a bit away from me, so our arms don’t press together, just lightly touch. I hate the sensation. I lean back into him.

“I’m telling you to.” I don’t know why I am, why today of all days, when things should be fine. But things aren’t fine, even when training goes well, when the Mage is helpful, when I get time off. So I guess it can’t really get any worse.

He pauses. I watch him thinking, watch his eyebrows dip lower, and right before he speaks, I imagine kissing him.

“Okay. I’ll do it,” he finally says. I don’t know if I believe him.

For a moment, I think about telling him not to tell Penny I’ve told him this, but the thought is followed by a wave of guilt for not wanting her to know, so I don’t say anything else. Eventually he stands up, offering me his hand, which I take, letting him lead me back to our room.

Baz

It’s two weeks after Simon told me to make him go that he first ends up in the nurse’s office. Penny and I are in the same room when the teacher’s phone rings and class is paused. A moment later, she’s looking right at Penny as she nods and “mhm”s through the call.

“Penelope, you’re needed in the nurse’s office,” she says as she sets the phone down, and the two of us are already on our feet and grabbing our bags.

“Only Penelope is needed, Basilton,” I hear as I’m heading out the door behind Penny. I don’t offer any explanation, letting the door shut once I’m through.  

“It’s him, right?” Penny asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, even as I come up short in my mental search for any alternative. 

“Would he go on his own?” 

“I don’t know.”

Simon

The nurse is grabbing a wet towel after spelling my shoulder back into its socket, and the cut skin on that arm back intact, when Penny rushes into the room only a few minutes after the nurse offered to call for her. Baz is close behind. Just as fast as they enter, Penny’s knelt down in front of my chair, hugging me tight, and saying something about the blood on my shirt (my last good one since the last time I had Baz spell them all clean and mended). She’s hugging me like she thought I might be dead, and it makes me feel like this is a huge deal, me being here. I’d been talking myself out of just that thought ever since I started heading to the nurse’s office when I got back to campus. 

“You’re alright, Simon?” Baz asks when Penny finally releases me. 

I nod, forcing my bouncing leg to a stop. 

“You did good, coming here. I know it’s not easy,” Penny says, taking my hand. I hate hearing it, nausea rolling over me as she tells me “I’m so proud of you,” but I don’t say anything. 

The nurse comes back round the corner now. “Penelope,” she says, then, clearly a bit startled, “Basilton. Simon’s looking alright now, but he got quite scraped up today. Things may be a bit sore, but everything should heal up in a couple weeks or so.” 

She hands the towel over to Baz when he gestures for it as she speaks, I feel him run it over my arm, wiping off the blood. I struggle to focus on what she's saying as she continues talking about me—all in the third person, like I’m not even in the room. My leg has started bouncing again. 

“If you’d like to take him back to his room,” I tune back in as Baz finishes, “I’ll let the Mage know he was here.”

I almost stand up, tensing my shoulders and squeezing Penny’s hand harder; ”No—don’t,” I say in a rush of air, a hissed out sound. 

She looks at me, then between Baz and Penny, confused. “Why not, dear?”

My mouth snaps shut, my head ducked down. My knuckles are going white gripping Penny, my leg’s bouncing is almost going too fast to be steady, and the dread I’ve been fighting since I first walked into the room is filling me, making me feel frozen and restless all at once. 

“Simon?” Penny’s voice. Heat is rising up through my chest over my neck, my face. I can’t help hunching over more, all the while cursing myself for not knowing what else to do.

But when I hear Penny continue on, not hearing exactly what she’s saying, but knowing she’s saying something , I jerk the hand of hers I have held farther towards me, which gets her to shut up. Now, though, forcing my head up to see everyone looking at me, I know I’ve got to say something myself or she’ll just jump right back in to explain.

I open my mouth, but can’t get anything out until I look back down, trying to ignore the feelings of their stares. 

“He…” I start, but I still don’t know what exactly to say, what will be enough to get the nurse to leave it alone without making this whole thing worse, me being here, barely able to speak while they all wait for me to.

“He already knows,” I get out. “About today.” 

My heartbeat is in my ears. The nurse says something—”He does?”—and I nod. “He was there.”

I don’t want to be here anymore. I didn’t want to be here when I first arrived—now I feel like if I stay any longer I’ll be sick. I let myself float off, only catching pieces of conversation as Penny and Baz take over talking for me. Part of my brain is desperate to tune back in, to get everyone to shut up, to keep them from telling her anything more, but it's not enough to bring me back to reality before Penny’s saying my name again, and moving her hand in a way that reminds me just how tightly I’ve had it held as she lets me know we’re leaving.

Much later, in my room with Baz after hours of trying to sleep, I’ll be so sick with anxiety about the whole thing that I’ll wake him up just to cry it all out onto his shoulder.

Chapter Text

Simon

When Penny first told her parents about everything, I hated her for it. I’d only agreed to talk to the nurse, going to her whenever I was hurt, even if I knew I was just going to have Baz use my magic to heal me later anyways. It was all I could handle at the time, still struggling with just that, and not even wanting to discuss what the next step was. And then one day after Penny’d visited home for the weekend, the Bunce’s were at Watford, Martin knocking on the door to my room while Mitali, I was told later, screamed the Mage’s ear off.

But soon I learned Penny hadn’t told them out of the blue. The nurse had been talking to teachers who had been talking to certain parents until one day Penny’s parents approached her looking for clarification on the rumors. And that’s when she told them everything. And then they were on campus doing something about it. And then I was pulled from Watford.

They apologized that that’s what things came down to, that I had to leave the one place that’d ever felt like home to me. And so did Penny, and Baz, and half a dozen other people I spoke to around that time, and I tried to reassure them without spilling that I didn’t care, because it’d been long enough since I’d felt a stable sense of peace there that leaving didn’t break my heart the way it would have just a year earlier.

For the next few weeks I stayed with the Bunce’s and spent a lot of time telling a lot of people things I didn’t want to share with anyone at all, all the details of the past few months that I’d worked hard to keep from everyone but Baz and Penny. Every time I tried to get out of it, I was told I had to tell people what had happened or else nothing could move forward with this case against the Mage, nothing could change. I didn’t want to have to tell them that I couldn’t come up with the energy to care if anything changed now that I’d left, so I just answered all the questions they had with my gaze never meeting theirs, always making Penny or Baz come with me so I could grip their hand the whole time. Never fully feeling in the room.

I was honest, as much as I could be. I didn’t plan on lying, but I didn’t plan on being asked for so many details. And I didn’t plan on them asking if the Mage had ever hurt me, directly. I answered that question without thinking, telling them no, no, never that. And then a month after everything had wrapped up, at least as far as I had to be involved, late one night when the guilt was eating me alive, I shook Penny awake and told her the truth, crying, apologizing for lying when everyone had stressed to me just how important it was for me to be honest. And she told me, over and over, it was okay, but for a long time, the guilt of it weighed on me constantly. So heavy, I found myself going to her for reassurance repeatedly. I’d come up with more details I’d missed, little things she stressed weren’t important, just so I could confess them to her and hear her tell me it was fine. Slowly, I got over that itch, and she figured out the right phrases to help me turn that part of my brain off. If I’m honest, I might still be doing it today if I hadn’t run out of things to tell her that she didn’t already know.) 

I still live with the Bunce’s. In the beginning, I worried about where I might be sent once everything was sorted through, but by the time my part in things was wrapped up, Penny and her parents had made it clear that they were taking me in for as long as I needed. It’s nothing official, but Penny’s siblings talk about me like I’ve been adopted, and I suppose I sort of have been.

One of the first things they did for me after I’d been fully moved in was find me a therapist—a magical one who I could be completely honest with without making them think I was having delusions about mages and gryphons and healing spells. 

For a while, things felt like they were worse after everything had settled, somehow, because at least before I didn’t have to think about everything so much. I found myself missing the training, the routine. The Mage most of all. My therapist says that’s normal. At first I tried not to share that stuff. I didn’t want them to know because it felt like I was moving backwards, but—I don’t know what they did—somehow they got me talking, and for a long time I spent a lot of our sessions just talking about the Mage. Not how he’d hurt me or what he’d done wrong, like Baz seems to think I spend all my sessions doing. Talking about how I missed him, hoped he was alright. How I still felt like this was my fault, really, like all the worst parts of my time with him were only a result of my wrong choices and inability to live up to expectations. 

“Was it fair of him to place those expectations on you in the first place, and then punish you for falling short?”

I shrug, but they sit and wait until I start talking (in this way, they sometimes remind me of Baz). “It wasn’t just him. The whole world of mages thinks about me a certain way. He was just the only one doing something to try and get me there.” 

I don’t say that stuff as much anymore. We’ve talked through it enough that I think about it differently. My therapist is always telling me I should be proud of that. I don’t feel proud about much these days, but I guess if I do about anything, it’s that. That I’ve stopped thinking of what happened as mostly my fault. That I’ve stopped feeling like I’m the one who hurt him. But it’s not an overwhelming sense of pride. When I think about it too long, I end up feeling like it’s not worth feeling prideful about at all, because really, it’s barely progress, and any progress I’ve made still leaves me behind where I should be, where normal kids my age are. My therapist says that’s spiraling. Lately we’ve spent lots of time working out methods to combat it. 

“Simon.”

The door to the backyard shuts behind Baz, and I come back to reality. I didn’t realize he had come over. He does more and more these days, now that the year’s wrapped up. (At first, he was set on dropping eighth year to spend time with me, or switch to something like homeschooling, like Penny had done with some help from her mum. Eventually, with enough reminding him that there wasn’t enough room for him in the Bunce’s house anyway, and it’d be ridiculous to stay in a hotel or travel all the way from Hampshire everyday, he decided to finish out the rest of the year.)

I’m outside practicing with my sword this morning. I spend a lot of time doing that. My therapist says it’s a good activity to channel my feelings into and a good way to give myself space to think. I know Baz worries it’s another way for me to continue training like the Mage wanted me to, like back when I would work on spells whenever I could get away with it, during the first few weeks after leaving Watford. With enough lecturing from Penny and explanations from my therapist and soft looks from Baz I still wasn’t used to, I stopped doing that. 

“Hey,” I say to Baz, letting my sword vanish.

“Everything alright?” 

“Fine, was just getting some energy out.” 

He nods. That’s always the right phrase to use with him. If I tell him I’m practicing, he’ll start speaking softly and trying to hold my hand. I don’t mind it, but I don’t need it right now.

I’ve been thinking I need to talk to him since he left a couple nights ago, and Penny’s youngest brother asked me when my boyfriend was coming back. He was teasing me, I think, in the same way he called me Penny’s boyfriend when I first moved in until she told him that was like calling Penny his girlfriend and he wrinkled his nose up and stopped. But it hasn’t left my head since. Because I don’t know if Baz is my boyfriend. 

He doesn’t treat me the way he used to, but back then we hated each other, so that’s hardly a high bar. All the things I used to think he might only be doing until the situation with the Mage was over he still does. He still checks in on me, and makes me talk through my feelings, and reassures me when I need him to. He still touches me like I’m something delicate and worth taking care of. 

And I still want to kiss him. I guess it makes sense, with everything I’ve been dealing with, but I’m still surprised I haven’t yet.

When Baz reaches me, looking lovely in a coral short sleeved button up and jeans that fit him too well, I don’t stop myself from guiding his hair out of his eyes. His mouth twitches into a smile I know he’s trying to keep controlled. 

“You should put your hair up,” I say. “It must be hot on your neck.”

He shrugs. “I only have it up for football.”

“I bet it’d look nice,” I say, gathering his black hair in my hand and holding it behind his head. I nod. “Yeah, but that’s about everything on you.”

Baz just looks at me, I think lost on what to say.

I’m leaning closer to him, my free hand sliding over his cheek. 

“Baz… I want to kiss you, you know?”

“You…” he trails off.

I’m still moving towards him, and as soon as his eyes shut, I let myself lean in the rest of the way, our lips connecting. I let his hair fall and take his face in both my hands now, wanting to hold him here, to live in this moment, for as long as possible. 

It seems he feels the same as his hands find my waist, tugging me towards him until I’m pressed against him and chuckling against his mouth.

“What’s so funny, Snow?” he asks, but when I open my eyes I see him grinning. 

“Just… glad I’m not the only one who was waiting to do this.”

“Who says I was waiting?”

But when I kiss him again, when he sighs into the kiss and his hands hold a little firmer on me, I know I’m right. 

Baz Pitch has dreamt of kissing me. And Merlin, I’m glad he finally is.