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By the time the sun rose, Baz would be in the living room, reading, or throwing on a coat to buy groceries, or doing any one of those crazy things early-risers do to fill their time.
Simon would never admit it, but just once he would love to roll over and see Baz sleeping next to him (but he also likes breakfast in bed, so an awake Baz has its uses). This morning Simon tumbled out of bed, and for the third time this week his wing caught the lamp, sending it skittering along the floor.
He would pick it up later, after coffee. After the overly strong potion he would have to covertly sneak sugar into. Baz watched him stumble into the kitchen, stifling a laugh as Simon collapsed over the back of the sofa. Morning person was not a descriptor that could be employed with Simon Snow.
“Cereal?”
“Toast.”
A plate of suitably butter-drowned toast slid down the counter. He grabbed it and inhaled a slice before turning to Baz. He had something important to say, he was sure of it. But Baz’s eyes were closed, and he was smiling in that early morning way.
“Something catch your eye Snow?”
“Mmph”
“So yes.”
“Mmph.”
Simon was grateful for the mouthful of toast; he was prone to embarrassing himself in the mornings, it was a problem. Baz was already dressed, a blue jacket that made him look far better than he had any right to. Simon felt underdressed for his own kitchen, as he sat in ratty t-shirt and pyjama bottoms.
Poaching a slice of toast Baz whirled out of the house, ducking back in to grab his bag, and then he was gone. Leaving a half-awake Simon in an empty house.
He went back to bed.
***
Baz was just the kind of person to agree to play sports on a Saturday; more than that, he was the kind of person to meet his friends earlier to practise. To actually practise, not just goof off.
It was that kind of disregard for sleep that landed you a place on a university team.
Simon did not approve. Simon’s Saturday was much more sedentary, but today he had things to do.
He had a man to see about green paint. So he hauled himself into clothes, some his, some Baz’s. Left a note on the fridge (“Gone out, put the pizza in the oven love”), grabbed his keys and left.
Maybe he took a little something extra, a little something sealed in a blemished red box, a little stone that shone a little too like gold. It fitted easily into his coat pocket, a negligible addition to his ordinary equipment.
The ordinary equipment being his hands, maybe even a pen. He returned home with the green paint, a horrible emerald: perfect. Put his keys back in the drawer, took the note off the fridge, and settled down at his desk.
Baz’s desk was all post-it notes and folders, well organised, but messy, somehow simultaneously. Simon’s was covered in a healthy layer of scrap paper, with coffee cup circles dyed into the wood, his current project stacked up against the wall.
He pushed back a sheaf of paper. Pushed a rust red needle back into the desk drawer. Pushed his pen across the paper. Pushed back his chair and slipped the paper into an envelope. He settled back down, resuming the work he got paid for, not his project.
Baz arrived back soon afterwards, jubilant and sweating. He jumped into the shower, singing a victory chant as he did so--
“--chaaaampions, my friends--”
echoing back into the living room, making Simon smile, before Baz wandered into the room, humming now, Ride of the Valkyries. He flopped onto the couch and grabbed Simon by the waist, pulling him down as well.
***
Baz leaves for uni before Simon heads to work. Setting a coffee cup on the bedside table. He is awake before the door shuts, and eyes the coffee, put in a novelty dragon mug. Something about the arrogant swish of the dragon’s tail, the handle of the mug, fuels a temper in Simon, waking him up.
The coffee is dumped in the sink, his pyjamas on the back of a chair. And earlier than he's ever seen to move, Simon is out of the house, clutching a sheaf of papers to his side, and holding a box against his chest. As alway, he stops at the bakery, buying a scone; old habits die hard. Then at the newsagents to peruse the stationary, and at the hotel on Ford Drive. Before he walks through the studio’s doors and Jake drags him away to their station.
Lunch is a boring affair, a leftover turkey sandwich eaten hastily in the break room. Jake and Cinds, Cindy he supposed now, were too busy alternating between devouring each other and devouring their lunches to pay him much attention.
Returning home was nearly a mirror image of the journey in. Only he spent a little longer at the hotel. He stopped to chat to the busker outside, stalling. Eventually Simon pulled open the door--too light and nondescript for this; he felt the door should creek like the gauntlet of an old castle. Not swing open like plywood on cheap hinges.
He rushed to the bathroom, trying not to inhale the smell shared by all public toilets, of humans at their most embarrassing. He grabbed the box, tucked away under the cistern, and pulled on the mask.
Three weeks had gone into creating the most handsome, and most disgusting face he’d ever attempted. Goblins resided firmly in the uncanny valley.
Walking up the back stairs with his new face, and a filled syringe, Simon should have been thinking about how stupid this plan was, but he was Simon Snow, and the Chosen One doesn’t think.
So the powerless boy knocked on the door, and right where an expression of fear should have been, resided an arrogant smirk. And exactly when he should have been planning an escape, he was remembering the bat that smashed across the back of Baz’s head, with its accompanying red grin. Remembering how Baz had nearly poisoned himself when he drank the black bile it had for blood, remembering how scared Baz had looked when the snarl faded.
He couldn’t show fear now. He was too busy remembering what they had done to him.
The door opened, and a set of hooded eyes peered out at him, near black they blended with the ebony skin. That is, until the colour rippled away, leaving stark pupils staring out from his sickly, lime green face. Quickly, Simon reached for the syringe; at the sight of the blood within the goblin squeaked and tried to close the door. But it was too late, Simon’s foot was in the door, and the needle was buried in its flesh.
Simon wrenched the needle from its neck and watched the creature shrivel, red smoke draining from the puncture wound. An acrid sour smoke that stung his eyes and forced a cough from Simon’s throat.
Penny was a good friend, she hadn’t asked many (any) questions when he came to her looking for an easy way to kill goblins. Other than the good old beheading method, which, sans sword was a little harder to execute. And when she told him about the old methods, the ones deemed unsafe or ridiculous, she hadn’t omitted the facts, not like the history teacher. She was a good researcher too. She sent him her notes from the library: apparently the Americans were a lot more unforgiving to vampires-- they experimented before they killed them outright. Found great methods of killing goblins.
Vampires are top of the food chain after all.
But Penny wasn't perfect; she never thought he would use any of them, she thought he was just being careful. It wasn’t shocking though, no one would have expected him to attack. It was sort of the whole idea. The green bastards wouldn't expect it either.
Simon padded through the door, a new syringe waiting in his hand, looking expectantly for another red-lipped monster to loom from the shadows. He forced himself to relax, to stand idly. Before his shoulders had dipped two green flashes skittered towards him.
Flooring one was easy, it ran at him, dodging, Simon struck it with the needle. Its momentum carried it forward. Until it collapsed a few feet away. It too wilted, but this time it let out a high, keening sound, much like a balloon when you hold its neck.
Baz was a deep sleeper. That was lucky. He never woke up when Simon disinfected the needles, or when he rubbed numbing gel on the inside of his elbow. But it still hurt Simon to see Baz’s face twitch in pain, and to watch his sluggish blood crawl into the needle.
One a night, two weeks. Simon had a veritable arsenal, but that was no use when you couldn’t get them out of your coat pocket. As the second one rushed at him, Simon’s hand caught-- try as he might, no needle was emerging. And the stinging smoke from the felled goblin was making the room swing like a carousel.
The dagger in the goblin’s hand was very sharp, very silver, and now it was very very close. Simon was grateful for the mask; it was perhaps stopping the goblin from beheading him straight away. In fact, had the goblin not picked Simon up by the collar all would have been fine. In fact, even if it had picked Simon up by the collar, it still might have been fine.
It was throwing him against the … wall? Celling? Floor?
That did the damage.
Partly to Simon, he heard an ominous crack as he connected with the brickwork but mainly to the mask, a strip running from the neck to an ear was still firmly in the goblin’s grasp. On the other side of the room.
“Shit.”
Less than thrilled at this turn of events, Simon lay on the floor and tried yet again to force a needle out of his coat, now nearly impossible with newly numbing fingers. The goblin stalked towards him just as Simon got a grip on a syringe. The goblin grabbed him, and Simon felt the cold blade on his neck. But before the goblin could lacerate him, it staggered back, yet more foul smoke billowing out of it. Simon glanced down at the hole in his jacket, grateful for cheap fabrics.
He dragged the corpses into a pile in the centre of the room. It was disgusting, yes, dragging their leaking bodies together. But goblins don’t do diplomacy.
***
He didn’t know how long it had taken, but now he shook the the bile off the dagger (if nothing else, goblins clearly had good ironmongers). Finished, Simon walked out of the dishevelled hotel room. Taking the blade with him, just in case.
Leaving behind a simple message, carved across the bellies of the three corpses.
Leave us alone.
***
Baz looked pointedly at the cooling plates of pasta as Simon walked into the kitchen.
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, I got held up at work.”
Baz pushed the plate of pasta down the counter to Simon, who grinned back at him around his fork.
Grabbing the plates, the pair landed on the sofa. And settled down to watch Come Dine with Me, Baz scratching absentmindedly at his elbow.