Ready or Not

by bookish_bogwitch

Summary:

Fulfilling this prompt:

NSFW magickal mishap based on the spell Come at once if convenient. If inconvenient come all the same. It causes the target to sporadically orgasm, at random and without warning.

Notes:

Please heed the tags. I mean this to be lighthearted, but it arguably contains a strong element of dubious consent.

Chapter 1: Elementary, My Dear Watson

Summary:

Baz comes in his pants fifteen times.

BAZ

There’s almost never any warning when my orgasm hits.

Warmth in my belly rushes to my groin. My bollocks tighten and I’m coming hard and fast, waves of pleasure crashing through me. I try not to shudder as the sensation recedes, leaving me spent.

“Mr. Pitch?”

My eyes refocus and I realize I’ve just been asked a question. “Sorry, what?”

“I asked for the case of the noun ἀδελφέ,” Mr. Minos repeats with a bovine huff. 

The whole class stares. My hands clench the edges of my desk. An all-too-familiar warmth seeps stickily through my pants, and I’ve no choice but to sit in it.

“The vocative, sir,” I manage.

“Correct.” He resumes his lecture.

Two seats behind me, I know without looking, blue eyes goggle at the back of my head. 

I’m going to murder Simon Snow.

 

Earlier

SIMON

“What about Elementary, my dear Watson?”

Penny shakes her head without looking up from hard-bound reprints of The Strand. She said we might get something more out of reading Sherlock Holmes in its original format. Even though these are reproductions, they’re yellowed and brittle and I’m surprised Mrs. Thumbscrew let us touch them at all. 

Maybe she’s relaxed because the Mage is away this term. I wanted to spend my free time playing intramural football, but Penny said it was the perfect chance to inventing new spells for next year.

I didn’t argue because I know I need it—it will be a miracle if I can cast an advanced spell, let alone invent one, even with a head start. And it’s not like I’m busy with Agatha now we’ve broken up.

“That’s already a spell,” Penny tells me now.

“What for?”

“Revealing the atomic composition of matter. Here.”

She raises her fist and casts on the apple I brought from the dining hall. There’s a puff of pressure and tiny piles of powder have replaced the apple.

“What did that reveal?” 

“Each pile is one of the  chemical elements that made up your apple,” Penny explains excitedly. 

“That doesn’t look very edible,” I pout.

“You should be more impressed, but fine. As you were.” The powders solidify into an apple-shaped lump of coal the size of a raisin.

“That’ll be the carbon,” Penny frowns. “The hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen must’ve already mixed into the air.” 

“Pen,” I groan. I knew I shouldn’t have skipped the fourth scone at tea. Now I’ll be hangry by dinner. “I wanted to eat—”

“Snow! ” Baz slams his book shut at the end of the table. I thought we were far enough away, but apparently vampires hear everything. “For someone who can barely speak, you really need to shut the fuck up.”

Baz stands, shoving books into his bag, even though they’re not his—I just saw him pluck them off the shelves. He grabs all seven of his highlighters in his fist (he had them all laid out, Roy-G-Biv) and shoves those in too. 

“Where are you going?” I jump to my feet, coal-apple in my fist.

“None of your business,” he snaps, and that’s no good. The only reason I agreed to spend a perfect spring day in the library was to keep an eye on Baz. Without Mage missions, I have way more time for Baz surveillance, and I don’t plan to waste it.

“Oh yes it is.” I snarl. “I—”

“Simon,” Penny hisses. “Your spell?”

I sag. She’s right. I should just keep working on it.

I slump in my chair as Baz stomps away. Come back, I think. I don’t want him to leave. He could be up to anything if he’s not here where I can keep an eye on him. 

Come back come back come back. C’mere. Baz ignores my silent chant.

I glance down at The Strand, where I’d been flipping through “The Adventure of the Creeping Man.” And then I see it. 

I point my wand at Baz’s back, already halfway across the spacious reading room. 

“Come at once if convenient—if inconvenient come all the same.”

Baz spun around when I first started speaking, his ridiculous lip starting to curl. But then he feels my magic catch.

Instead of shooting some vicious hex at me, Baz gasps and slumps forward, catching himself on a stone pillar. His eyes are squeezed shut and he presses his forehead to the stone. I can’t hear him from here, but it looks like he’s panting. His mouth is hanging open and his fingers dig into the pillar. 

Is Baz in pain? What did I—

Baz’s eyes pop open, his eyebrows shoot up. I have not seen this expression on Baz since he stole Philippa’s voice.

But instead of cursing me, Baz just stares in horror, then turns and runs out of the library.

 

BAZ

I sink the ball neatly into the goal, winning the match just as the ref calls time. The crowd explodes at the same moment I explode into my pants.

Oh no. Snow’s unspeakable spell must still be in effect. He’s out there now, in the bleachers; I made sure he was looking before taking my winning shot. And my other shot.

I weave my way off the pitch, straight for the locker room shower.

 💦 💦 💦

“—had roast beef,” I continue, “this little piggy had none.” 

Miss Possibelf nods at my perfect delivery. I preen.

“This little piggy went hn—hn—hnnnng” and I’m coming again. My blood rushes down so fast I almost black out.

That’s not how the piggy went, I think as my vision clears, panic dousing the afterglow.

The whole class stares. I can’t see Snow seated behind me, but smoke starts to fill my nostrils.

I purposefully raise a handkerchief to my nose. “Achoo.”

💦 💦 💦

The high notes of Sibelius’s concerto sing from my violin. I savor its ache then suddenly crush my instrument to my face, biting the chinrest. I’m coming and I feel like I’m the high note, a melisma of pleasure pulsing through me. 

As I come down and realize I’m still in a practice room, horsehair tickles my nose, making me sneeze. I’ve wrecked the bow.

💦 💦 💦

When I’ve imagined Snow giving me orgasms, this was not what I had in mind. I imagined I’d at least get to kiss him. I imagined he’d at least be touching me. Not off fighting magickal crime while I soil myself in the tea queue.

I'm back in our tower now after hunting. I’m exhausted. It’s been three days and the sticky torrent rages on. Eight, nine, ten times a day I’m minding my own business, then boom. Vampire soup. 

At least I learned a better spell than Clean as a whistle, the pitiful effects of which make me wonder how often people jack off into whistles. I was on the verge of buying adult nappies when I found So fresh and so clean, which removes all (physical) filth.

I still feel phantom damp, though, and need a real shower. Snow’s already asleep. 

For once I’m quick, feeling no urge to wank. I might never wank again. These are not gentle orgasms. Not for me the desultory spasms of a dehydrated fifteen-year-old trying to break his own record. I've never come so hard in my life. Leave it to Snow to supercharge a sex spell he didn’t even mean to cast. 

At the same time, I do sort of miss it. Wanking, that is. It’s not that I’m sexually frustrated. As my fifth-year summer research proved, even vampire endurance has its limits, and I’m way past mine. 

But I’ve realized, now, that going from zero to sixty in a magickal instant means missing the fun parts of getting off. The parts that make the difference between the erotic and the merely spasmodic.

Noticing you’re in the mood, usually because your idiot roommate decided to practice swordplay indoors or roll up his sleeves or some other blatant provocation. The moment you decide to indulge. The fantasizing. Feeling the pleasure build, until it feels inevitable, until—

Or, if you’re me, getting hard so fast it almost hurts then climaxing instantly. Faking a cough in the crook of your elbow. Soaking your pants in the middle of Magic Words. 

Well. At least another day is done, and I’m finally clean, warm, and dry. It’s heaven to dust on jasmine-scented talc, don soft boxer briefs and crisp cotton pyjamas, and slip into bed.

I roll onto my side, glare at my sleeping tormentor, and come all over myself.

 

SIMON

Baz has cursed me. 

I mean, I know I cursed him first. And of course I’ve figured out what my spell did—I’m not an idiot. I've spelled Baz to cream his trousers all day, every day, right in front of Watford, my salad, and god. And I don’t know how to fix it.

No one deserves humiliation more than Baz, after the shit he’s pulled, but I’ve crossed a line. It’s fucked up, making someone have a sexual experience they don’t want. I’m basically a long-range sex pest. 

It reminds me of fifth year, when there was a fad of boys casting Candle in the Wind on each other, so you’d have to walk around with a stiffy all day. I thought it was funny, but after Penny’s rant about rape culture normalizing something something, I promised not to participate.

(And I didn’t, but that didn’t stop Gareth from getting me when my back was turned. I was so embarrassed I bailed on my date with Agatha and didn’t even follow Baz around the Catacombs. I just hid until it wore off.)

This is a hundred times worse. Baz, singled out, incapacitated with this—this thing he didn’t ask for. He’s an evil git but this is fighting dirty.

At least I’m pretty sure no one else knows what’s happening to Baz. Because he’s become a master of camouflage.

I’ve figured out that when Baz feels—when it happens, he can’t keep quiet. The sounds he makes—I can’t unhear them. 

(I don’t want to. I wish everyone else would, though.)

Baz can’t keep quiet, so he pretends to cry out in rage or pain. Like he’s stubbed his toe or is so frustrated with Astrology that he needs to bite down on the textbook, eyes squeezed shut. He’s always been such a drama queen that people barely bat an eye, but they do stay out of his way. 

When there’s no excuse for an outburst, Baz pretends to stretch, his whole body taut like a bow, neck flung back and fingers curled. Or he fakes something really strenuous. He’s started carrying around a pickle jar that he pretends to try to open, eyes shut, neck corded, biting his lip. He never gets it open. 

He hasn’t eaten a single pickle.

The evening after I cursed him, when I started to apologize, Baz spelled me silent and ignored me. And then did it again every time I tried to talk to him. 

He’s done it again just now, as soon as I’ve opened the door to our room.

“Cat got your tongue.” Baz doesn’t even get up from his desk, just points his wand over his shoulder and goes right back to studying.

I ball my fists but feel no real urge to use them, even though I hate this spell. I really do need to apologize. Apologize, and find the counterspell, and turn myself in to the Coven. 

Maybe. About that last bit. I don’t want to get thrown in a tower for accidental magic, but this is bad. Almost as bad as stealing someone’s voice with a tape recorder. Worse, maybe. 

Still, fuck him and his fucking spell. I can make noise, even if I can’t talk. I kick my shoes off against the wall and dump books out of my rucksack, onto my desk. I slam into my chair and open a book at random.

Baz ignores me, taking notes in a margin. He writes constantly when he studies. He hasn’t spoken to me in days except to spell me, but his pen never shuts the fuck up.

That’s a thought.

I rip a sheet from my notepad and scribble Baz, I’m really sorry. I want to help. Please unspell me so we can talk about it. I ball up the paper and toss it onto Baz’s desk. 

Without looking up Baz incinerates the paper in his bare hand.

Okay, fuck this. I cross the room, lean a hand on Baz’s desk and loom over him and his stupid notes. 

“Baz,” I snarl soundlessly. He ignores me.

“Baz,” I mouth again, shoving him back in his chair to make him look up at me. 

Next second I’m sprawled on the stone floor. I barely saw Baz move. He’s standing over me now. 

He doesn’t look so calm anymore.

“Listen carefully, Snow,” Baz grits out. “You have nothing to say to me. You only open your mouth to stuff your face and to spew out disgusting, illegal magic.”

Not only for that, I think.

“Touch me again and you lose a hand.” He yanks on his blazer and stomps to the door. He’s so angry, he’d probably storm off right now even if it wasn’t rat o’clock. I’m still sat on my arse, full of unspoken shouts.

Baz turns back from the door to look at me again. “And if you think—” 

His words cut off as his body goes rigid and his face twists up, one fist at his mouth, the other white-knuckling the doorknob. 

I can’t stop my eyes flicking to his crotch, then back to his face. His eyes are squeezed shut in what I’d swear was anguish if not for the stain darkening his trousers.

Baz heaves a shuddering breath, punches the door without looking at me, and slams it behind him. 

There’s a dent in the oak, flecked with blood from his fist.

 

I shower while Baz is gone. I’ve always showered at night—well, ever since Baz trained me to. (I didn’t have a shower routine before then. I was 11.)

I’m not keen on elaborate grooming rituals like he is. Get in, get reasonably clean and get out. But the shower gives me a good chance to think.

Sex used to be right near the top of my list of things not to think about—ever. Baz was on the list at first too, but what a joke. I kept having to narrow it down. 

No thinking about Baz at the final battle. No thinking about Baz with my blade through his heart. (My brain shies away from that on its own.) No thinking about Baz draining me dry. (That one’s tougher, if I’m being honest.)

This week has unlocked a whole new sub-list of things I’ve been not thinking about so hard, I didn’t even know I was trying. And now all day my brain’s just chanting stop, no, don’t think about— or about—

I just have to focus on what I’m doing. On the present moment. Just doing the next thing, and the next. 

I am carrying my pyjamas and towel to the ensuite. I am brushing my teeth. I am taking a piss. Not—

Baz, gasping, muffling himself with his fist.

I am pulling off my shirt. I am shucking off my trousers and pants.

Hiding his face into his shoulder.

I am turning the tap. Feeling the spray on my hand.

Hair falling loose, eyes squeezed shut.

Stepping into the shower. The water’s still warming up.

Plush mouth dropping open, pink-grey tongue gleaming.

Popping open the 3-in-1 that Baz says smells like flea dip. 

Angling up his brows like he’s begging.

Washing my hair.

Face down on the pitch, feigning cramp.

Washing my armpits, my chest.

Clawing the grass. Twitching hips, tiny pulses.

Moving my hands lower.

All that power, restrained.

Pressing my forehead to the tile.

I did that. That was me, making Baz come, again and again.

Bracing myself upright. Thrusting into my fist.

I make him come with my magic. It’s wrong.

Wishing he was here, coming undone with me—

What if I used my hands or my mouth or, or my body—

I come gasping into the back of my free hand, imagining him knelt in front of me, my come on his face, in his soft hair.

As my vision clears I realize the real Baz is pounding on the ensuite door. I’m not sure when he returned.

“Snow, I swear if you make me wait another minute for a shower—”

“Alright, alright,” I holler back, angling the shower head to rinse off streaks I’ve left on the tile wall. I don’t bother drying properly, just pull on pyjama bottoms over my damp skin.

When I open the door Baz glares at me, smelling of dust and decay and sex.

I don’t meet his eye.

 

PENELOPE

Cook Pritchard has been branching out into international foods this year. I’d complain about all of Indian and Anglo-Indian cuisine being reduced to “Curry Special,” but there are upsides. Deli Night is one of them.

I take a bite of whitefish salad as Simon sits down across from me with three laden plates. “Hi, Simon.”

“Pen,” Simon asks around a mouthful of knish, “what would you do if someone needed your help but didn’t want it?”

“I’d help them anyway.”

“Even if they told you not to?”

“Especially then. They’re clearly too thick to be trusted with their own welfare.”

“But what if—what if you caused their problem in the first place? So they have a good reason to want you out of it.”

I frown. “Are you asking for any particular reason?”

Simon shakes his head, then nods. “Yeah. But I can’t explain.”

“The pact, Simon.” 

“I know, no secrets.” He tugs at his hair. “It’s just, I don’t—I don’t think this one’s my secret to tell.”

“What are you—”

Behind me, a crash of crockery. I turn, along with everyone else in the dining hall.

Baz Pitch has just dropped a mug of tea on the stone floor. He’s seated with Niall Kelly and Dev Grimm, but he’s not looking at them—his eyes are squeezed shut and he’s clenched both fists in his hair.

In the suddenly quiet room, his moan takes a year to decay into silence.

“That’s,” Baz croaks, crossing one knee over the other, not opening his eyes, “that’s a very good sandwich.”

The room refills with noise as a queue of intrigued students forms at the serving table. 

“Cheers to Cook Pritchard.” I raise my cream soda in her honor.

Simon shakes his head. “Baz would never eat pastrami.”

Merlin and Morgana, this again. Like we really need to reopen the fifth-year Baz Food Ledgers.

 

BAZ

Snow’s acting weird. And I know that’s rich, coming from me. Me, who last night achieved orgasm while slitting a rat’s throat.

But it’s true. He’s been watching me from the corner of his eye all morning. And now, in the corridor between classes as I feel something coming on (so to speak), Snow slams me up against the lockers before I can even reach my pickle jar.

“I know what you’re up to, Baz,” he says loudly. Unnecessarily loudly for how close he’s standing, forearms pressed against my chest. Why isn't he wearing his cross?

If I weren’t already in the middle of an orgasm, his hot breath and the flecks of spit hitting my cheek would have got me halfway there. I could buck my hips just slightly and I’d feel him as I pulse and shudder.

“Wha, ah, what the fuck, Snow?” I pant instead.

He bites his lip and glances side to side. “Play along,” he hisses. 

The stream of students flows around us again. It’s April and I suppose our rivalry is old hat by now, even for first years. 

Snow gives one last showy growl, blinks both eyes in what I fear he means to be a wink, and stomps off.

What the fuck just happened?

 

SIMON

If Baz won’t let me try to unspell him, I can at least create a diversion.

He was confused, at first—Baz always acts angry when he’s confused—but I think he’s caught on. He’s started leaning into it.

Literally. This afternoon, I was following Baz to his violin lesson and saw the telltale flex of his hands. (Merlin, he has long fingers.) I lunged in his face, so he’d have a reason to grimace, when he grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me to him. 

It probably looked like Baz was roughing me up, but when he pulled me close, my body also shielded his from view. So no one could see him hard in his trousers, thrusting into empty air as he came, a hair away from pumping against my belly. 

I held my breath until Baz finally went boneless, almost hanging off me. Then shoved me away and kept walking. 

It was dead clever of him. 

 

BAZ

You don’t know me very well if you think I’d pass up the chance to hump Snow’s inflamed sense of moral rectitude.

It’s happening now. Snow was tailing me after classes, as usual. And I swear I didn’t try to advertise. But he must’ve noticed something, because he spun me round and pressed me to the wall of Mummers’ House. 

I don’t resist him anymore, now that I know what he’s about, just let him move me. I grab his lapels and pull him in.

“Sn-snow,” I try to snarl, but it comes out a whimper. 

If I didn’t already have a Simon-attacking-me fetish, I would now, after two days of coming in my trousers while he pins me against this wall or that tree. Yesterday he tackled me in the middle of the quad and it was all I could do not to moan his name as we slammed into the grass.

“I’ll find you out!” Simon says theatrically, and honestly, who’s he performing for? The first-years who’ve already scuttled out of our way? There’s no one around.

Not like in class this afternoon, when he heard me gasp and dove at my desk yelling something about a plot. 

The Minotaur simply told Snow to sit down. Anyone but Snow would have got detention for a month, but such is the naked favouritism the faculty shower on this idiot. 

(I wish I could shower my favour on him. Naked.) (Or at least ooze a bit.)

“I think it’s working, Baz,” Simon hisses in my ear now. 

Oh, it’s working, I think as I come down. I’m still hanging off his blazer, savouring the feel of his breath. 

“Baz.” He's still standing close, for what audience I don’t know but I’ll not question it. “Can I talk to you? In private?”

This is my life now. A life where Simon Snow carries on one-sided conversations while I wish he’d come a half step closer, so I could press against him as I soak my pants. 

But the moment has passed. I open my eyes and sneer.

“I don’t know. Can you?”

 

SIMON

Baz makes me wait while he showers. Which is fair, but that doesn’t make it any easier to keep my mind off Baz in the shower during the five years he takes to wash up.

He is a lot quicker than he used to be, though. Like a lot quicker. Maybe because he’s given up slicking his hair back, although I don’t see how anyone could spend forty minutes styling their hair, not even Baz. 

His hair looks nicer like this anyway. Loose and falling in his eyes. Sweeping his forehead when he whips to the side to hide his face.

So apparently that’s a thing I do now. I notice how nice Baz looks, even when he’s not coming. 

And I notice how sharp and cool his shoulders feel when I pretend to pick a fight with him. How his hair smells when I growl a fake threat in his ear.

And, okay, I wank to him in the shower. 

(I mean, when I’m in the shower.) (But also to thoughts of Baz in the shower.) (Like he is right now.) (Probably washing his cock really thoroughly.) 

I mean, fine. So I’m attracted to Baz now. 

It doesn’t mean anything. You try watching someone come at close range a few dozen times, and see if they get linked to sex in your brain. It’s just biology. Pheromones, or something. 

Baz is still a complete wanker and a bully and a dark creature I’ll probably have to kill someday. Knowing that his cheeks go dusty pink when he comes doesn’t change any of that. 

Even if I kind of wish it did. Change things. 

It sucks to know all this about Baz now, but I’m not a victim here. I brought this on myself. 

I wish I could bring Baz on myself right now. He’d still be warm from the shower. He’d be wet and water would trickle down the V of muscle on his belly. I know it’s there, I’ve seen it during football matches. 

And he’d cross the room with that same predatory look he has when he plays. He’d shove me backwards where I sit on my bed, and he’d straddle me, and his towel would slip aside and he’d be hard, and he’d suddenly come all over me, on my belly and chest, or on, on my face—

When the sound of water stops I realize I’m palming myself through my trousers. I tuck myself into my waistband with a parting squeeze, grit my teeth, and wait for Baz.

 

BAZ

Even though classes are over, I put on a fresh uniform and comb back my hair before attending Snow’s little summit. I want to feel put-together, in control, and this is the next best thing while my bespoke suits are off-limits. 

When I emerge Snow gets up. “Baz.”

“Snow.”

“So. Er.” He scratches the back of his neck. “How’s it going?”

“Snow, if you think your revolting magic has made us how was your day friends, fucking guess again.”

“Look, I’m asking you for real. Are you okay?”

“Would it matter if it I weren’t?”

“You— We could ask for help. From the Coven.”

I snort.

“Or Dr. Wellbelove.”

I cross my arms. “He’s an orgasm doctor now?”

“It’s just … You don’t have to deal with this alone, okay?”

“Actually, I do.” I can hear myself going shrill but I don’t care. “Because ‘this’ is private. It’s personal, and it’s not something I should need reinforcements to—to deal with.”

“I know. I’m—I’m so sorry.” Snow does look genuinely upset. Good.

I snort. “Why should you be sorry? Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?” He flushes. “Now you don’t have to convince the world of your inane theory that I’m a vampire. You can just expose me as the degenerate you’ve made me.”

“Baz—”

“I’ll be a laughingstock. An outcast.” 

I pull my arms tighter around myself. I didn’t mean to be this honest. But this is what I’ve always feared. Being exposed as what I am and turned out of the only world I know. 

I always knew it would happen someday, but not like this.

Snow looks anguished, though what’s bothering him I can’t imagine.

“Baz, I’d never do that.”

I roll my eyes. “Then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

“Seriously, Baz.” He takes a tentative step toward me. “Just let me help you. Help you look after your—after your privacy, and find the cure.”

“What’s in it for you?”

He reddens. “Christ, Baz, I don’t know. Just—truce? I don't tell anyone what's happening, and you let me help, and we don’t fight until we’ve undone the spell. Okay?” He holds out a hand I’ve wanted to hold since I was 12, but that’s not what this is.

Still. It’s not a punch or a shove or a performative grab-pull up against the nearest flat surface.

And don’t actually want to be alone in this. I'll take his scraps.

I take his hand. “Truce.”

He nods, smiling a little, and starts to pull away. I don’t let him.

“Swear it with magic.” I flick my wand into my free hand.

He groans. “I promised to help, you tosser.”

“Then you shouldn’t mind swearing.”

“Do we need to?”

“Backing out already, Snow?”

“ No. I just mean—you can—” He tugs his hair. “ We’re in this together, okay?”

“Lovely sentiment,” I sneer, ignoring the accidental magic tingling up my arm. That fresh hell can wait. “Cross-stitch it on a pillow. I’ll use it to cover my next—”

Simon jerks my hand forward just as I clench it. I'm coming. We nearly knock heads and wind up with our faces pressed into each other’s shoulders. I keep my hips carefully away from his, squeezing my eyes shut as I explode.

I’m good at that now. Coming inches away from Snow without letting myself collide with him, however much my cock wants to slam into his thigh of its own accord. I shudder, panting into the collar of his jumper while the pleasure recedes.

Simon’s gone slack, his sweaty fist still wrapping my hand, and for a moment all I can feel is his breath on the side of my neck. 

As I come down, I raise my head to Snow. His eyes are huge. When they flick down my body, I can’t help returning his gaze. 

And now. 

Now I see the stain darkening his trousers.

Now I know what his magic did.

Now we match.

Chapter 2: Right Now, Over Me

Notes:

We start earning the dubcon tag in this chapter--see end notes for details.

SIMON

I’m going to go off.

It’s been building all day. Ever since yesterday afternoon, when I spelled myself to come in sync with Baz.

Baz saw what I’d done, cleaned up in the ensuite and left for dinner without a word. He brought his pickle jar for the first time in days.

Good thing, too, because we came in the middle of the dining hall. I’d just taken a bite of pork pie when it hit hard. I bit down on the fork and felt my magic flare. I must have spewed smoke because Penny said “Great snakes, Simon, calm down!”

When I managed to open my eyes, people were staring—they always stare when I leak magic. By then Baz was calmly sipping tea, talking to Niall as if nothing had happened.

But I could see the blush in his cheeks. They were still grey, but pinker grey than usual.

Baz has always had amazing self-control, but Merlin. It was a minute before I could speak to Penny and tell her I was just riled up by something that Baz did.

Technically it was something he did—I just did it too. And as soon as Penny heard Baz she changed the subject, so that was all right.

It happened again in the night. I was just drifting off when I felt a tingle at the base of my spine and was coming again.

With my face pressed into my pillow, I could only just make out the shape of Baz rhythmically grinding down into his mattress.

If we were in public he’d keep still, I thought as I came. He’s letting me see.

I thought Baz might say something after, even only “good night” or “you’ve ruined my life.” But he just rolled to face the wall.

And I came three more times today, just trying to eat meals and go to class and exist. I must’ve looked like I was having a fit. I try to clean myself up in the loo, but bog roll melts if you run it under the tap.

(I know better than to try magic. Never point your wand at your own cock.)

At least I’m getting better at sensing when an orgasm is on its way. It’s nothing like a normal one. I don’t get hard until it actually happens, which is fucking weird. But sometimes there’s maybe five, ten seconds of warning, a tingle at my fingertips and spine.

Which isn’t enough time to get somewhere private, but it is enough time to think oh no oh no and start spewing magic.

Because I can’t exactly pretend to fight Baz now, can I? Even if I could improv my way through an orgasm, I can’t invade his space while I’m coming in my pants. I’d be taking advantage.

Now I’ve stopped creating diversions, I realize that I miss being so close to Baz, getting to touch him while he came. I see now it wasn’t just for his benefit. The benefit to his privacy, I mean. It’s not like he enjoyed having his worst enemy growl in his face while he lost control of his body.

He’d hate it even more now that I’m coming too. The one time Agatha and I tried sex, she was clearly put off when I came. She looked away, and sort of froze, and I knew there was nothing remotely appealing about me red in the face and fucking grunting and—and—

If my own girlfriend couldn’t stand me like that, forget my nemesis.

Where is he, anyway? I’ve been too distracted to follow him. And now—

Now I’m about to come. Here. In the middle of the quad, between classes.

There are people everywhere. There’s a buzzing up my spine and it’s too much. I’m smokey, and still sticky, and a predator and a freak and—

A black-and-grey blur slams me to the ground.

“Gotcha.”

 

BAZ

Snow threw his arms around me reflexively when I tackled him. I’m laid half on top of him, he’s on his side and we’re coming. I’ve barely the self-control not to thrust into his hip.

(I couldn’t let him go through it alone. He’s so obvious—he’d have given us both away.) (And I needed to touch him again.)

I don’t want this to be over, but I do want to see him, so I force my eyes open.

Simon’s are squeezed shut. His hips are rocking in place. If I hitched my leg up just a little, he’d come against my inner thigh.

“You—you,” Snow pants now, “you’ll pay for that, Baz.” His eyes are still closed. He’s smiling.

I’m coming down and I could kiss his cheek, now. I’d hardly have to bend my neck.

Instead, I get to my feet, spit, “Prove it, Chosen One,” loud enough for passersby, and leave him where he lies.

 

SIMON

It is fucking on.

 

BAZ

Snow, that lunatic, lay in wait outside Elocution just in case we came between classes.

Lucky thing.

I catch him as he lunges, spinning him against the wall and pinning his wrists above his shoulders. I hold him easily at arm’s length, though every cell in my body wants to mould itself against him.

“N-nice try,” I sputter.

“You—you—Baz,” Snow gasps.

And I know it’s just the spell, but I swear it’s my name in his mouth that makes me come.

 

SIMON

“—always translated οί ἔκγονοι τοῦ ἡλίου as ‘children of the Sun.’”

Baz is really into his Greek presentation. He’s talking fast and he’s got chalk dust on his trousers.

It’s kind of adorable.

“But if you read the original Thrasylus, you’ll see the so-called children formed when mortals literally crashed into the sun, and therefore—”

Baz cuts himself off.

He felt it too. We have six seconds, tops.

Five.

“And … therefore …”

Four.

Baz is facing the blackboard now, but he’s not writing anything.

Three.

“OUTSIDE, PITCH!” I spring and drag Baz out the door.

Our orgasm hits just as we spill into the hallway. I had Baz by the wrist, and now somehow our clenching hands find each other.

Baz squeezes my hand so hard I think it’ll break. Before my eyes close I see he’s pressed his face into his free palm.

When we come down, I find Baz staring at our clasped hands. I squeeze.

“Mr. Snow,” rumbles Mr. Minos from the doorway behind us. Baz drops my hand as we spin around. “Since you feel so strongly about Συμπόσιον, you can present your own interpretation next week.”

“Yes, Professor.”

When Mr. Minos turns away Baz spells us both clean.

“Thanks,” I say, but he’s already returning to class.

 

BAZ

I had no idea folding laundry was so soothing. At school I use magic, and I’d never step on the laundry maid’s toes at home. But now I’m hoarding magic for cleaning spells.

There you are. Another renegade sock, sorted.

Snow’s at his desk, mauling his curls over his Greek dictionary. His presentation is going to be a disaster.

(I refuse to feel bad that he got in trouble. He shouldn’t have cursed me in the first place.) (I’ll clean up his notes when he’s not looking.)

I can’t help looking forward to the spectacle. He’ll bluster and turn red and trip over the English as much as the Greek. He’ll grip his textbook like he’s trying to rip it in half, and his forearms will flex, and—

The mattress hits my knees as Snow topples me sideways onto my bed. I was so spaced out I didn’t even notice the tingle in my spine or the fourteen stone of boy rushing at me.

He’s on all fours now, bracketing my face and hips. I clench the duvet to keep from touching him.

“You—you’re—ah—” he gasps above me.

I’m what, Simon Snow?

I bite my lip. If I open my mouth I might surge up to kiss him. I might pull him down and grind into the warm place between his straddling thighs.

The last wave rolls through me, and I open my eyes. Snow’s staring down at me open-mouthed.

“Snow.” It comes out horribly soft. “There’s no one here.” And yet—

Snow scrambles off my bed. “Right, sorry,” he says, busying himself at his desk. “Force of habit.”

I let myself lie still for a count of three before going to the ensuite to clean up.

 

SIMON

Fuck fuck fuck.

I forgot this was just for show. Not because we want to be near each other. (I want that. Baz doesn’t.)

I’m sat on my bed now while Baz washes out the stain of my stupid magic. Even in my distress my brain starts a chant of wet naked shower Baz, wet naked shower Baz.

So when the next orgasm hits I’m already picturing him, head tossed back, hips pumping as he comes all over the tile.

I’m still thinking about it when the ensuite door creaks open. I startle; the water’s still running.

Ohmygodohmygod. Is Baz going to let me shower with him? Would we stand back to back? Take turns shuffling under the water?

Would he lean me against the tile, kiss me under the spray? Slide his—

A wet flannel sails through the door by magic and hits me square in the face.

“Thanks, Baz,” I mutter as the ensuite door swings shut.

 

* * *

 

After I jumped on Baz in our room he said it was time to get serious about finding a cure. Fair enough. It’s been almost a week.

We’re in the library now, Baz poring over books, me fetching more from a list he copied out of the card catalogue.

I’m in one of the more remote stacks when Penny appears and drags me by the hand to a pair of ancient armchairs.

“Okay, Simon. Spill.” Penny never beats around the bush. She sets the bush on fire as a show of force. “What’s going on?”

I don’t pretend not to know what she means.

“I accidentally spelled Baz. I mean, spelling him wasn’t an accident, but the result was—unexpected. And then I spelled myself too.”

There. That wasn’t so bad. Load off my chest, really.

“Spelled how?” Fuck.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Pact.”

“I know! But I promised Baz—”

“You promised me first. That voids any later conflicting promise.”

“Seriously, Pen, if it were just me I’d tell you. But it’s Baz’s private business. It’s—it’s really embarrassing.”

“Since when do you care about embarrassing Baz?”

“Since—” Since I found out that sometimes, when he comes, he likes to hide his face.

I don’t finish, which is visibly killing Penny. “Simon, please let me help.”

It’s so tempting. If there’s anyone who can fix this it’s her.

“I’m sorry, Pen.” I stand up. “I just can’t.” I scoop up my books, then drop them. Fu-uh-uck.

Pleasure’s pulsing through my body in thick hot waves, and all I can think of is Baz, sat at the table downstairs. Maybe his face is turned to one side, buried in one of his hands. Maybe his other hand is pressing between his legs.

When I come down I realize I’m biting my knuckles. I’d sort of like to keep my eyes shut forever, but I eventually open them to look at Penny.

She gapes back.

 

BAZ

I skip the hair gel this morning. Snow’s already left for breakfast and I want to catch up.

I don’t spend much time in our room these days.

In our room, when we come, we pretend nothing’s happening. Never again does Snow forget where he is, or who I am. We muffle ourselves as best we can, never look, pretend not to listen. Afterward one of us goes to the ensuite to clean up. (Me first. Always.) (Snow’s content to marinate.)

I’ve felt lonely in Snow’s presence before, but this is worse. Before, I could reliably get his attention by antagonizing him. That feels wrong now, though.

It’s so much better in public.

Like yesterday in the corridor when Snow pressed me into a doorway and hid his face in my neck while we came. I pulled his hair—we were supposed to be fighting, after all—and he made an animal sound that went straight to my already-spurting cock.

(Our hips were as ever carefully separated, like tweens at a chaperoned dance. Leaving room for Jesus or Baal or whoever.)

“Gonna get you, Baz,” he breathed afterward for the passersby, who were already ignoring us.

“Mmm,” I countered. Then, remembering myself: “Not if I get you first.”

Most mornings since Simon spelled me, I make it to breakfast before the scones run out.

 

*    *    *

 

There’s public, there’s private, and then there’s football.

We’re tied with Parmiter, three minutes left in the half. Last home game of the season. If we can break the tie, we advance to playoffs.

Snow’s somewhere in the stands. I’m not sure of his plan if the curse strikes. I suppose he can hide easily enough under the crowd noise and his giant foam hand. My plan is to cry foul, flop to the ground and hope I don’t leave a cock print in the grass.

But now I really have been fouled, and it’s time for my penalty shot.

“Goats! Goats! Goats!” chant the Watford supporters. Defenders spread out between me and the goal. I have the space I need for a perfect kick.

And I’m about to come.

I’m meters from the nearest other player. Neymar himself couldn’t take this dive.

I lift the hem of my jersey as if to wipe my eyes. I’ll just stand here like an idiot, and hide my face, and if I’m lucky perhaps I’ll suddenly die, and maybe—

My orgasm hits just as I’m knocked off my feet.

The crowd’s booing and the refs are whistling and I think I swallowed some dirt, but I can’t actually care. I’m still coming. And Simon’s hand is still pressed against my bare belly.

 

SIMON

I get banned from football matches for the rest of the year, but who cares? The season’s over.

It’s been two weeks since I spelled Baz and one since I spelled myself. A week of avoiding our room and of spending as much time as possible in public with Baz.

The Great Lawn is technically public, right? Even when it’s deserted.

Baz is on his way to the Wood. I won’t follow him in—he’d never let me watch him hunt, and anyway the dryads wouldn’t care about a little wayward spunk. Their pollen’s everywhere.

But until he slips into the trees—well. You can’t be too careful.

Baz must agree, because he suddenly drags me to the yew tree, pinning my shoulders.

My fingers are just starting to tingle. There’s maybe T minus eight seconds until we come, and Baz is saying something about minding my own business.

No one can hear us, but I yes, and anyway.

I grab his lapels. “I’ve got my eye on you, Baz.”

“Really, Snow. I’m—”

And we’re already coming, caught by surprise. Which is probably why Baz stumbles forward. I feel him hard through his trousers, pressed against me.

I don’t think. I just press back.

And something snaps in Baz.

He moans and drops his face to my shoulder, thrashing his hips. He's hard, so hard against my stomach. I’ve pulled him in by the waist without realizing it and I’m grinding against him, my cock’s in his thigh. It’s work keeping my mouth off him.

Baz whimpers, I groan, and it’s all over too soon.

He pushes away from the tree. His eyes are wide and his cheeks look too full.

We stare at each other for a long moment

I just—he actually—we—

“Baz—”

He turns and runs into the forest.

 

BAZ

I think I just lost my virginity to Simon Snow. In public. Fully dressed.

I don’t know whether to celebrate or cry, so I split the difference and drain a badger.

It doesn’t matter. It’s not as if Snow wanted me anywhere near him while he climaxed, not really. I was just a warm body to rut against. (A body, anyway.) And, fuck, I started it.

I drop the badger and start on a hare—it’s been literal murder, keeping up with the fluid loss. The more I drink the steadier I feel.

It’s fine. It’s nothing. No need for dramatics over accidental, magic-addled sex.

… No. I cannot file that away as sex. I refuse for my first time to be hate-fucking, even if it only lasted the blink of an eye. I’ve never even been hate-kissed.

Snow and I did not have sex. Sex had us.

And it will not happen again.

 

SIMON

I’m knelt at the flowerbed outside the Cloisters, picking Baz a bouquet.

After he ran into the woods my brain sort of blanked out and my feet took me here on their own. I collect a dozen blue irises before I stop to question why.

This is what you do after having sex with someone, right? Bring them flowers?

But maybe that’s not how Baz sees it. Maybe he didn’t mean for it to be sex at all. Maybe he just tripped.

I didn’t think at all. When I felt Baz’s cock against me, it was like living all the fantasies I’ve been having for the past two weeks. (Maybe longer than that, now I think of it.)

It felt like a dream—my body moving on its own, like I couldn’t not grind back. I had to pull him close.

But that’s horseshit, right? That’s how people defend date rape. It was my body, it wasn’t me. Sucks that you didn’t consent.

I don’t know whether Baz wanted it or not. And that’s something you should never not know.

I mean, even if he consented in the moment, I’m obviously not Baz’s first choice of humping post. (That would be some Old Family girl with shiny teeth and a posh accent and, like, gold-studded terriers.) Even if I didn’t assault him, he definitely regrets it.

I start jogging back to the Wood. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get there, but I’m starting to smoke and I have to move.

Baz emerges from the trees just as I arrive, looking as fresh as if he’d just stepped out of the ensuite.

“Snow,” he says.

“Baz, I—”

“I owe you an apology.”

You don’t. Not for that.

I keep my voice steady. “S’alright.”

“I wasn’t thinking, earlier.” Definitely thinking about terrier girl.

“Me neither.” The bouquet’s limp in my hand.

“All right.”

And that’s it. Baz walks briskly toward campus like he has an appointment with the Queen.

I can’t walk with him, and I can’t follow ten steps behind like an idiot, so I toss the flowers under a bush and stay outside until the dryad tells me off.

 

* * *

 

There’s no difference, now, between private Baz and public Baz. Wherever we are when we come, he just covers for himself and leaves me to my own devices.

We were in a corridor the first time we came after the yew tree. I charged Baz from behind, expecting him to turn and catch me. To murmur some nonsense while we leant against the wall.

Baz sidestepped me without a glance. I hit the wall full-speed as I came.

I didn’t try again after that.

We’re in the dining hall now, and I can feel an orgasm on its way.

Look at me, I think at Baz’s back. Attack. Play the game.

But Baz doesn’t budge. Just listens while Dev tells some story.

A dozen times now he’s kept to himself. Which means whatever was happening between us is over.

“Simon,” Penny starts.

I’m glad Penny knows, even though I’m embarrassed. If she were pretending not to see me now too, the loneliness might kill me.

I hide my face as I come.

 

BAZ

“So the point of Plato’s Symposium is. Um.”

Snow’s presentation is worse than I could have imagined. It’s like he ate his textbook and is vomiting it up in chunks.

The class is largely ignoring him. He’s not even using any Greek, just the English translation, but the Minotaur is patient. Docile. Probably chewing his cud.

“The point is, we had these other halves, yeah? But we got cut from them and—”

A twinge. Oh no.

That brave bastard keeps going.

“And—and if you don’t find them, then—”

He shuts his eyes and mauls his hair.

“—then you’re a complete wanker—”

His magic’s gushing out. Everyone’s watching now.

“Pitch black,” I mouth, the tip of my wand just in my palm. Pandemonium breaks out as the classroom plunges into darkness.

No one can see Snow bite the meat of his hand. No one can hear him moan over the din. They’d have to have vampire senses.

If they did, they could never stay away from him.

 

SIMON

Dining hall. Tingle. Dread.

No, no. Not a-fucking-gain.

My eyes find Baz just to torture me.

For once, for finally, he’s looking back. He raises an eyebrow.

“Please,” I mouth. 

And then we’re moving.

I don’t know how I get through the crowd without knocking anyone over. Maybe my magic clears a path. Baz vaults over a bench and then he’s on me.

We crash to the floor, rolling half under a table. Baz snarls something about flaying me alive, then whispers: “All—ah—all right, Snow?”

I nod so hard the floor scrapes my cheek. I can’t speak, but I squeeze the back of his neck. He’s so close I can feel his hair on my face.

Our hips form a cage around empty space. If we touch there again, we’ll crush whatever it is we’re holding between us.

 

* * *

 

Baz showed me the log of cursed orgasms he started keeping when I first spelled him. I’m reading it in our room now while he “gets some air.”

We both know the air comes with a side of rat, but I didn’t say anything, just kept reading his fancy leather notebook. (He uses burgundy ink. Does he know he’s a vampire joke?) (His handwriting’s really pretty.)

Baz logs the date and time and the intensity on a scale of 1 to 5. (I feel weirdly proud of the 5s.) Just a string of numbers—you’d never know they’re orgasm box scores. They could be a trainspotter’s diary.

I’m looking for a pattern, but it’s pointless. Baz said the distribution is completely random—he actually cast That’s so random to check.

I pointed out some clusters, but he said that’s normal. If you toss a coin thousands of times, it’s weird if you don’t get heads twelve times in a row. That’s part of how they know when research is fake.

So I don’t think it means anything for the spell when, sitting on my bed with the diary, I come ten times in five minutes.

 

BAZ

I can’t move.

I was already cold and tired when I came to feed. I’d just opened my first rat when an orgasm hit. I spelled away the come and spilled blood and tried again.

After four more rounds of rattus interruptus, my body and magic were completely spent, and the orgasms kept coming. (Ha.) (Kill me.)

That was half an hour ago. Now I’m curled on my side, just down the hall from my mother’s tomb. I’m freezing and soaked and too miserable to move. It’s been years since I slept down here—my emergency sleeping bag’s probably rotted away somewhere.

At least Simon wasn’t around to hear me. I was sobbing his name by orgasm six. At least—

“Baz?” Simon’s voice echoes up the corridor.

“Here,” I croak. I don’t sit up, but I do wipe my mouth on my sleeve.

He rounds the corner in a pool of flickering firelight. “There you are.”

He sets his torch in the wall and sits down, dropping his rucksack between us.

“Snow?” I ask in a snail’s voice.

“Here.” He pulls out a thermos and pours something into its lid-cup. “Sit up and drink.”

“Why?” When in doubt, be difficult.

Snow rolls his eyes and hoists me under the armpits until I’m leant against the wall. He tips the cup against my lips until I take and drink. Hot tea, with milk and so much sugar that it’s practically syrup. Just the way I like it.

Snow refills the cup again and again. We don’t speak. When I’ve drunk it all I’m still chilled, but not shaking.

Snow unpacks the rest of the rucksack. He’s brought a roast beef sandwich, dry clothes, a stack of flannels, and a flask of warm, soapy water.

I’m too grateful to berate him for touching my clothes. (My pants.) (I’ll drain that image dry later.) So I grab the sandwich.

“Why, Snow?” I ask with my hand over my mouth.

He grins. “Figured you’d magic yourself out. Wouldn’t have the sense to cut your losses and come home.”

“Whereas you chose strategic filth.” I sneer behind my hand, but the effect is probably ruined by sandwich-filled chipmunk cheeks.

He shrugs. “The shower was right there.”

I make Snow leave when I finish the sandwich; I do not require supervision to scrape clotted jism from my bollocks. And I still need to hunt.

 

When I emerge into the White Chapel I’m full, steady, and wearing Snow’s joggers. And he’s waiting there to walk me back.

 

SIMON

Baz showers when we get back, even though he already used the flannels—he burned them when he was still underground. (He looked somehow regal when he crawled out of the catacombs, even though my trousers don’t reach his ankles.)

I guess it makes sense, the showering. It was a lot of come.

Like, a lot. Soaked through the ticking into the goose feathers.

I’m propped up on the dry half of my bed. Maybe there’s an extra mattress in basement storage and I can throw this one in the moat.

(I would say “hope the merwolves like spunk,” but I know they do. Unless Gareth was lying about his fourth-year experiments out the window.)

It’s too late to do anything about that tonight, though. I just shower after Baz, hoping that when I come out my bed will somehow be less of a swamp.

It isn’t. And I can’t just pile my towel on the wet side because it’s wet from my shower. Fuck.

I think about asking Baz to spell it clean, which is ridiculous. I haven’t asked Baz for help since first year, when he trained me not to.

Plus he's tired. He’s already in bed, reading.

Fuck it. I grab my wand out of my desk drawer and point it at my bed.

Baz looks up from his paperback. “Snow, let me—”

“Out, out, damned spot!”

My entire bed vanishes.

I groan and toss my wand into a pile of laundry, then pull it back out and start spreading the clothes out on the floor.

“What are you doing, Snow?” asks Baz. I expected him to cackle when I fucked up the spell, but he was quiet.

I throw down more clothes from my wardrobe. “Nesting.”

“Snow, don’t be so tragic.” Baz scoots to the far edge of his bed and rolls with his back to me. “Get in.”

Excited panic twists through me. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Baz, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m under this spell that makes me—”

“Get in, you idiot.” He’s still facing away, but he’s laughing.

I climb in. The bed’s too small for our backs not to touch.

“If you steal the blanket I’m kicking you out,” Baz warns unnecessarily. The blanket’s already halfway off me but I don’t care, I’m always too hot, especially since I closed the window before going looking for Baz.

“Baz.”

“Snow.”

“What if—” My cheeks burn with what ifs. What if I lose my head and kiss you? What if I wake up to you coming on me, quick and hot? “The spell—”

“Surely we’re tapped out for the night. Magic wouldn’t be so cruel.”

 

BAZ

Snow fell immediately into the sleep of the just. Leaving me to stew in my own decisions.

This isn’t his fault. For once his elocution was flawless. I’ll wager his mattress was one big spot after generations of Watford boy-seepage. Under a blacklight the duvet would probably have burst into flames.

I could have left him to his nest. I could’ve spelled him a cot. Instead I invited him into my bed so I can pass a restful night feeling him up with my vertebrae.

I’m never going to get to sleep.

 

* * *

 

I wake up in the dark and Snow is draped across my chest, a leg slung over mine. My arms are around him and I decide I’m still dreaming.

 

* * *

 

I’m not asleep anymore.

Simon Snow is wrapped around me. We’re slotted together, his chest at my back and his knees tucked into mine.

His cock’s pressed against my arse through thin layers. (That’s normal, it’s morning. I’m hard too.)

Simon’s hand is slid under my pyjama shirt, below my navel. If I moved just a little, he’d touch the head of my cock.

I’m debating doing exactly that—pro: Snow touching my dick, con: immediate self-immolation—when Snow starts to stir.

He’s still asleep. His breathing hasn’t changed and his heart’s steady, slow.

But his hips are just barely pressing forward in time with his hand kneading my skin. It’s making me insane.

I lightly grip his thigh. To push him away. And I will.

In a second.

Simon sighs in his sleep, a purr that reverberates through my back, and I can’t help arching like a cat.

I feel the moment Simon wakes up. His heart kicks up and he freezes.

But he doesn’t pull away.

“Baz?” Simon hisses, like he’s trying not to wake me if I’m still asleep.

I could pretend to be asleep. To be awake would mean I’ve allowed this to happen. It would mean…

“Simon,” I whisper back, and then we’re coming.

Simon thrusts between my legs, scrabbles at my belly, I’m coming, I reach back, claw his thighs closer, we’re coming, he’s leaking through our clothes onto me, he’s defiling me I’m debased I don’t care we’re coming, if I could do this again again again I would. I’d soak forever in the smear of him.

If this weren’t a farce.

If it were something real.

 

SIMON

We’ve stopped thrashing together, but Baz is still shaking.

I hold him tighter and try to press all I feel through my cheek, into the back of his neck. For a second he lets me.

But then he’s on his feet.

“Baz—”

He doesn’t say anything, just slams the ensuite door.

Notes:

Content warning: At one point Baz and Simon accidentally-on-purpose hump each other during a magickal orgasm. They're both into it, but Simon worries that Baz did not consent, and compares his own actions to date rape.

---

Update: thanks to Julia, this chapter now has art! Enjoy.

Chapter 3: Much Ado About Nutting

BAZ

I filibuster in the bath. Exfoliate. Moisturize. Floss. A sheet mask with supposed calming properties. (I should wrap one around my dick.)

Press my uniform. Shine my shoes. Anything to keep my mind off the fact I just came in Simon Snow’s arms while he rutted into me, and it meant nothing to him.

When I can’t delay any longer, I emerge to a room that should be empty, but isn’t. Snow has dressed and made my bed, but he isn’t sitting on it.

“Why are you still here?” I snarl, going to my desk.

“Baz.” He crosses the room to me.

I ignore him, thumbing my planner and shoving books in my bag.

“Baz, listen.” He grabs my shoulder and tries to pull me round to him.

“No, you listen to me, Snow.” I grab his lapels and push-pull him to arm’s length. His warm hands wrap my wrists.

I freeze. So does Simon. And I realize we’re both waiting for a magickal orgasm that doesn’t arrive.

He drops his hands.

“Baz, please. I’m sorry, okay?”

“You’re sorry,” I sneer, returning to my bag. Of course he’s sorry he thigh-fucked a boy. Not just a boy. Me.

“I am. I know you didn’t choose this—”

“Too fucking right.” I slip my favourite fountain pen, the temperamental one, into my bag.

“—and I’ll get a new bed if you want—”

“Do that.” I open the door to the stairs.

“—just please Baz, don’t—don’t—”

Three things happen at once.

Snow leans forward to grab my shoulder. I whirl on him for asking—for asking whatever fuck he’s asking. And he trips over a stack of books someone’s left at the top of the stairs.

For a long second Simon hangs in the air, and then he’s falling.

 

SIMON

What a stupid way to die, I think, clawing empty space.

Until my hands catch Baz’s shoulders. He’s braced me against the stone wall with one hand under my arm, the other at my hip. I’ve stopped moving, but my stomach’s still swooping. Baz must be faster than gravity.

His grey eyes are huge as he searches my face. You’d think I’d be used to looking into his eyes after this week but we can never both keep them open when we’re coming. The times I manage to sneak a peek, his are squeezed shut.

I look back now. “Please, Baz.”

“Please what?” His voice is low. He’s still supporting me, though I’ve found my footing.

Please forgive me, I want to say. For spelling you and accusing you and breaking your nose. For crossing your boundaries without knowing what they are. But what comes out is: “Please don’t be a dick.”

Baz starts to shove away from me. “I’m not—”

I grab his hand, the one that had just been holding my hip, and he shuts up. “What I mean is I’m sorry. And I need you.”

He narrows his eyes. “To what?”

“Huh?”

“You need me to what?”

That’s not what I meant. “Just—just don’t shut me out again, okay?” I shake his hand a little back and forth and he looks down at it. “Truce.”

“Fine,” he sighs.

“Yeah?”

Baz’s mouth turns up at one corner. “Yeah.”

“Good,” I say. “Because—”

I bite off the word as an orgasm hits. Baz hisses and his hands tighten. His head falls onto my shoulder. I know not to press against him again, but I let myself turn my face just a little. I’m breathing Baz in when a door creaks open at the bottom of the stairs.

“All right, lads?” calls Rhys.

I wave with the hand not holding Baz, but don’t open my eyes.

 

BAZ

I spell us clean and we collect the books Snow kicked down the stairs. Snow finds a note tucked into one of them.

“Penny left them last night,” he says, looking at it.

“The Chosen One’s sidekick, breaking the wards just to assassinate him.” I tsk, picking up another book. “That’s loyalty for you.”

Snow ignores this, still reading. “It’s a list of possible spells. For breaking the curse.”

If my arms weren’t full of books, I’d shove him down the stairs again.

“You told Bunce?”

“No!”

“Snow, you promised—”

“I didn’t tell her, I swear! She just figured it out.”

“Figured it out.”

“Yeah.” Snow holds the door for me. I dump the books on my desk. “She’s my best friend, okay? And she’s the smartest person I know, besides you.”

She’s the smartest person I know, too, but it might not take a genius to figure out what’s happening. If word got back to my family that I’m having weird public pseudosex with the Mage’s Heir, I’d—I’d—

It doesn’t matter what I’d do. My father would light me up himself.

“Lunchtime,” I announce.

“Huh?”

“We meet here at lunchtime and start going down the list. We’re breaking this fucking curse.”

Snow looks sad, as if this weren’t exactly what he just asked for. I need you. He needs me to break his stupid spell. And in the meantime he needs camouflage because he’s far too obvious. All gasps and fists and ruddy cheeks.

“We’ll bring food, Snow. You won’t starve.”

He brightens less than I’d expected. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Lunchtime.”

 

SIMON

Five sandwiches and three spells later, we’re no closer to solving this.

It’s slow going. Baz insists on doing all the casting. (I don’t blame him.) I just look up the spells in Penny’s index and then wait while he reads, muttering to himself, trying out different inflections. So far they’ve all fizzled.

I pick another lemon bar from the plate on Baz’s desk—he brought us extra dessert but isn’t eating any—and return to mine to watch him read.

“Ready, Snow?” Baz has been doing that all day—asking before casting on me. I like that he asks.

No, I think. I’m not ready for this to be over. Having a truce with Baz, touching him, getting to see a secret part of him.

I shove the last of the bar in my mouth. “Ready.”

Baz flourishes his wand at both of us in one smooth gesture.

“Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.”

We both hear the magic catch.

“That might actually have worked.” Baz looks more thoughtful than triumphant, tapping the spellbook. “It says here we—”

An orgasm tears through us. I bite my fist and squeeze my eyes shut, but can’t help hearing Baz’s muffled whimper. He feels miles away.

We should work in the library next time, I think.

When I open my eyes Baz is perfectly composed and making a note in the spellbook. For … posterity?

At least Penny found us a good cleaning spell. This one takes less magic than most because it removes only spunk. Baz points his wand at my crotch, waits for my nod, and casts.

“You are … not the father!”

We go to class.

 

*      *      *

 

Baz slams another book shut. “Your mentor has ruined this school. These books are useless.”

We’re in the library, sat side-by-side so we can both read at once. Baz agreed with me that it’s better to work here, even though we brought the books ourselves from our room. It’s just a more studious atmosphere.

“Not totally useless. Now we know how to fix a leaky pipe.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose, the crook I gave him. “What I wouldn’t give for my family’s collections.”

“You can search it over the summer, yeah?” He stares at me. “I mean, if we’re not cured by then.”

Baz scowls. “I’m not going home if we’re still cursed, Snow.”

“Why?”

“I have siblings, Snow. Young children.” He looks down at his hands. “I can’t—I won’t be around them if I’m still spelled.”

Oh god. I hadn’t thought of that.

People at Watford mostly ignore Baz and me when we “fight.” Not mostly—completely. We’re the oldest news. It’s why we’ve gotten away with this so long.

But little kids notice everything. Of course Baz can’t—he wouldn’t—not right in front of them.

“Where will you go?”

“London. My aunt’s.”

I just stop myself from grimacing. “That … doesn’t sound so bad.”

Baz looks down, fiddling with his fountain pen. (It’s been dribbling ink on his fingers all afternoon. I don’t know what he sees in it.)

He shakes his head. “My stepmother is having a baby soon,” he says quietly. “I wanted to meet him.”

I nudge his knee with mine. “You’ll meet him.”

Baz looks down at our legs. He doesn’t nudge me back, but he doesn’t move either.

“Pity you’ll be with all those missing books, without Bunce or me to comb them.”

“Huh?”

“Surely the Mage will let you read the books he’s embezzled. You might find something useful.”

I un-cuddle my knee and shove his leg with my foot instead. “Don’t spend summers with the Mage.”

Baz’s face sours. “Of course. Wellbelove.”

“Don’t go to Agatha’s.”

“No? Your child bride?”

“Shut up, Baz.”

“It’s practically her job to brave the splash zone.”

I kick him for real now.

“Snow!”

“I’m serious, Baz. Stop.” I turn in my chair to face him fully. “We broke up, okay? And I never went with her in summer anyway.”

God. I haven’t really thought about Agatha in weeks. She doesn’t eat with Penny and me anymore. For the best, considering.

Baz is frowning. “Where, then?”

“Where what?” God, Agatha. She’d hate me like this. Falling apart ten times a day. The one time we—she didn’t—and when I did …  I could barely look at her.

“Where do you go in summers?” Baz persists.

“Oh.” I’m still miles away. I shrug. “Care homes, usually. Some fosters, when I was younger.”

But, fuck. I can’t go into care under this curse. All those kids. I’ll be in jail within a week.

Baz turns toward me in his seat.

“The Mage just sticks you back in care?”

“Yeah, in summers. Some holidays.” I shrug. “S’fine.”

Baz’s face darkens. “How is it fine that you—”

But then I feel it in the base of my spine.

 

BAZ

During the few seconds’ warning, Snow scrambles onto the table in front of me, plants his feet on the arms of my chair and tugs me up by my tie. He doesn’t have to tug hard. (Truce.)

I’m stood between Snow’s legs, hips polite, angled weirdly forward. I have to lean on his legs to keep from pitching onto him. I suppose we could be arguing in this position.

“Come to Chelsea,” I gasp as it hits.

Snow moans and my fingers curl into his thighs. This fucking spell.

“Wha—aah—what’s in Chelsea?” he gasps into the side of my neck.

“Mmm—mmm—my aunt’s flat.”

“Hates me,” he mumbles into my shoulder.

The pleasure keeps coming in waves. Simon tugs the hair at the base of my skull, like he did once in a fight third year. (I blacked his eye.)

“Yes,” I pant now.

“Yeah,” he breathes.

What are we even talking about?

Simon’s knees squeeze my hips and I marvel that I haven’t tipped him onto the table. Sunk into the cushion of him.

“Yes,” my words return as we come down, “Fiona hates you.” I straighten up. “But she’s in Budapest all summer.”

“Oh,” Snow says, opening his eyes. He smooths my tie and hair before climbing off the table. “I can really stay with you?”

“You may.” I spell us both clean. “If we’re still cursed.”

 

* * *

 

“You are not bringing that monstrosity into our room.”

We’re in Mummers’ basement storage. I told Snow I’d come along to stop him bringing home bedbugs. But I really just want to spend time with him. (Pathetic.)

In the hallway this afternoon we came between classes. When Simon pushed me up against the lockers he cushioned the back of my head with his hand. He mumbled something about not turning his back on me. All I could say was Snow. (I said it threateningly.)

Now we’re here, I realize Snow really does need supervision. Half the items have water damage—the moat must seep in during spring rains. My eyes started burning as soon as I came into this room. There’s no rhyme or reason to the storage, just heaps of wrecked furniture, tossed in here and forgotten.

I climb over some desks with missing drawers to sort through a stack of disassembled bed frames. Half the parts broken. (Why did they store this rubbish? Why not burn it?)

“Hey Baz, look.” Snow’s holding up a lamp. “You could use this to study at night. Instead of the overhead.”

“Hmm,” I say because it’s better than pointing out that vampires can read in the dark. Or confessing I’d treasure anything he trash-shopped for me.

“This one looks all right.” Now Snow’s bouncing experimentally on a mattress covered in rust-colored blotches.

“Those are water stains, Snow. It’ll have mildew.”

“Could be worse.” He points at a mess of goosefeathers and shredded ticking in which generations of something have clearly lived, burrowed, bred, and died.

“The world is not divided into things that fit for sleeping in, and rat middens.”

He shrugs. “It’s not that bad.”

 

SIMON

I don’t want to talk about the foster who made me sleep in the basement as soon as he found out I didn’t like basements. It was the worst summer of my life, except the one after first year, when I convinced myself I’d made Watford up.

“It’s just whiffy,” I shrug. “I’ll live.”

“Perhaps.” Baz still looks skeptical. “Stand up, though.” I do.

“Laid bare,” he casts, and a lament rises from the mattress.

“I knew it.” Baz tucks his wand away. “A Bed of Affliction. Causes nightmares.”

I shudder, wondering if I’ve slept in one before. “How’d you know?”

“We have one in Hampshire.” If the Mage knew—but I won’t tell.

I lift a duvet from a stack on the floor and the fabric tears away in my hand. “Why?”

“One of my ancestors took revenge on the King for overstaying his welcome.” Baz says over his shoulder, pushing deeper into the room. There’s all sorts of stuff down here.

“The king stayed at your house?”

“Monarchs used to do that all the time. Invite themselves and their retinue for weeks at a time. And it was treason not to put them up in style. It reduced fine families to poverty.”

Not poverty poverty, I bet. “Why keep the bed after torturing the king?” I lift a scratchy woolen blanket and something skitters off into the dark.

“It’s an heirloom.”

I snort, but Baz ignores me.

“It’s not as if we sleep on it. That whole wing is mothballed. I found the bed while playing hide-and-seek with my cousins.”

I hear a metallic creak and glance up. Baz is inspecting an old canopy bed that must’ve once been for faculty. His feet disappear inside the moth-eaten curtains as he crawls across the mattress. I can’t believe he’s getting his clothes all dusty.

“How’d you figure out it was cursed?” I run my hands over some splintery footboards leaning against the wall, not really looking at them.

Baz’s voice sounds muffled. “I fell asleep waiting to be found, and woke up screaming.”

 

BAZ

I don’t know why I crawled into the cave formed by the canopy; this bed’s far too large for our room, and its springs are shot. We’re just getting Snow off the floor and out of my bed, I remind myself. We’re not antiquing.

It’s so much darker in here. Pricks of light form moth-hole constellations on the bed hangings. Before I can shuffle out the mattress dips so low I almost roll into Snow.

“What was your nightmare about?” Snow asks, sitting on the edge of the mattress.

Your table manners. Progressive taxation.

“Vampires,” I say truthfully.

I wait for Snow to say how vain it is to dream of myself, but he just nods and scoots closer to the center, away from the curtains. Maybe thinking of his own terrors.

I have no idea what he witnesses on his “missions.” Or what he endures in the Normal world, stowed away like broken furniture.

Snow has terrible nightmares in our room—thrashing, yelling—but the second he wakes up, he goes silent. No drawn-out sniffling or shuddering, even when we were 11.

I used to wonder how he learned that.

“Come home with me,” I blurt. “This summer.”

Simon looks surprised. “I said would. If we’re still cursed.”

“Even if we break it.” Might as well hang for a sheep… “You shouldn’t have to go back to care. Come to Hampshire.”

Simon’s eyes widen, and he turns fully toward me now. Oh no.

Backpedal, Pitch. Abort, abort.

“Of course Cook will feed you gruel,” I gibber, “and you’ll sleep in the nightmare bed, if not the oubliette, and the hounds—”

I only shut up when he kisses me.

 

SIMON

For a moment I think Baz likes the kiss. He sweeps his thumbs over my hands, then pulls them away from his face.

Fuck. Why did I think that was a good idea? I didn’t think. I just—

He’s going to spell me invisible for the rest of Watford. He’s—

 

BAZ

“You have to cast a spell first,” I say quietly, dropping Snow’s hands.

“What?” From the corner of my eye I see his mouth hanging open.

I can’t look straight at him, even in the dark. “To break a curse with a kiss. You have to cast first, then kiss, and even then—”

“Baz.”

“—it only works if the curse is fable-based—”

“Baz.”

“—which it probably isn’t, and—”

“Baz.”

“—what?”

He shifts closer and takes one of my hands, squeezes. I don’t squeeze back. I just play possum.

“I was just kissing you to kiss you.”

“Kissing me.” I don’t have any words now that I’ve stopped blithering. My brain’s fallen into my stomach.

“To kiss you, yeah. Is that okay?”

I look down at our joined hands.

 

SIMON

Baz’s mouth crashes into mine. Literally. I was just turning toward him in the dark, and I don’t think he meant to come at me so hard.

I let him knock me down. The sagging mattress rolls him half on top of me. I roll him the rest of the way.

Baz is open and eager and I don’t think he’s done this before. He’s all over the place. It’s so good.

“Simon,” I think he rumbles. (It’s a hard word to say with your mouth open.)

“Mmm.” I reach up with my mouth for his neck while Baz keeps peppering me with kisses. I wish he’d say my name again. I slide my hand into his hair, and he gasps instead.

I know that gasp. I know it from a week’s worth of sweaty moments pretending not to care when he was coming inches away from me. It was good then.

It’s better now. Because now, it’s for me.

I want more. Baz is still too far above me, on all fours. (He’s amazingly steady, though, on this creaking, bouncing, sagging surface. He’s so strong.)

I pull Baz down by the small of his back. When something jabs me in the hip, I’m caught off guard. I laugh in surprise into Baz’s mouth in the same instant I realize what’s happening.

Baz all but levitates off of me.

Stupid, stupid. What did I expect? I don’t know. It’s just, I’ve never kissed a boy before. You don’t get a cock poking you in the hip when you kiss a girl.

(I guess some girls do have cocks. Not Agatha, though.)

I’ve seen Baz come dozens of times now, and he doesn’t usually seem embarrassed. We don’t really get hard until the instant we come, and even then it’s just the magic. This is different.

Baz is...

I’m…

Baz is squirming away from me into the deeper gloom. I crawl after him, fighting gravity to keep from collapsing into the sag.

“I’m sorry,” he says as I bump into his knees. Don’t be sorry, Baz, please, not for this. He sounds so scared. “It won’t happen—”

“Baz,” I whisper, scooting in next to him. “It’s okay.” I need him to know he isn’t—that I’m—

I fumble in the dark until I find his wrist.

 

BAZ

I let Simon guide my hand down his butter-sweet belly to the front of his trousers. Holy fuck.

This isn’t the spell. This is for me. Simon’s hard for me.

This isn’t how my life works, I don’t get to have this, but fuck my life. What has it done for me lately?

I squeeze him through his clothes, and he falls onto me.

 

SIMON

In the darkness my senses are flooded with Baz. His taste, his sounds. His movement under me. We haven’t stopped kissing since he touched me.

I still haven’t touched his cock. I haven’t touched him under his clothes at all. This is happening so fast. (Though slow by recent standards.)

I don’t know what’s allowed. It’s so good, even over clothes. I can feel Baz’s muscles ripple through his shirt as I palm the small of his back. Our legs have intertwined and we’re using our calves for leverage.

I do my best to ignore the pressure building between my legs. I try to focus on kissing Baz.

I don’t want to come, not yet. This isn’t the fucking curse, we can take our time.

“Baz,” I slur around his earlobe. It’s sloppy—I think some spit drips into his hair—and it’s not the most eloquent dirty talk, but at least it’s a word. Baz just groans.

I want to touch his skin. I want to know if it feels how I’ve always imagined it. But I don’t know if he’d be okay with that, and I don’t want to ask. I don’t want to break whatever spell we’re casting together.

Instead I roll my hips again, shifting the angle a little, and I think Baz likes it from the sound that spills out of him. But then he freezes.

He’s been doing that—these little pauses, holding himself still and pressing away from me—before finding a rhythm again. I thought he was just, I don’t know, pausing to regret all the choices that led him into a rotting basement bed with me.

But then he exhales shakily and I realize—

Baz—

Baz is trying not to come.

And now all I want to do is make him.

That’s fucked up. I’ve done nothing but make Baz come against his will for the last two weeks.

But that was just the curse. I wasn’t telling him anything with those orgasms.

I want to tell him something now, touching him. Something like please stay close and I like you so much.

And also, I can fuck you better than magic.

I slide my hand down to the front of the trousers he’s somehow still wearing.

“Okay?” I whisper, hovering.

Baz doesn’t use his words, but he lifts his hips off the bed to grind into my hand.

“Okay,” I exhale and we both move. He’s thrusting, I’m working him through the fabric. I’m not grinding myself into his leg anymore. I want this to be good for him, I want him to be glad it’s happening. I press my face into his neck, kiss his throat.

Baz’s breath tears into whimpers.

“I’m—love—Simon.”

Baz’s whole body arcs up into me. He scrabbles at my back.

Baz likes to hide his face when he comes, so I cup my free hand around his cheek and he twists into it, muffling his wail. In my other hand he thrashes and shudders and I can’t believe he’s the same boy who can hide a climax in a sneeze.

I want him like this every time. (Will there be more times? Is this—)

“Baz,” I pant. His breath is starting to slow.

It’s hard to get enough air, but I don’t want to uncrush my face from his neck. I want to press into him like clay, I want to hide in his skin. I want to go home with him. I want to stay here in the dark with him.

He cried my name in my arms. He called me love.

I like this so much better than coming.

 

BAZ

It takes a few minutes for my brain to come back online.

I just—he gave me— No amount of snarling magic orgasms could have prepared me for coming apart in Simon’s arms, under his hand.

He’s still pressing soft kisses to my face and hair. I turn and catch his mouth. He was hovering over me, a little, and I pull him down.

I feel him still hard against my thigh. He didn’t …

“Baz,” Simon groans, thrusting a little, then stilling. I’m not sure what he wants.

I’ll give him more, if he’ll let me. I’ll give him everything. Even though nothing I could give would be enough to keep him here.

“Here.” I pop the button on his trousers and he tenses. “Okay?” I whisper.

(I have no reason to whisper—I shouted when I came—but this feels like something I should ask quietly.)

Simon thinks about his answer a worryingly long time. “Okay,” he finally whispers back. I don’t move.

“Okay, please,” he groans again, and I slide my hand down.

Crowley, he’s so warm here, even over this remaining layer of fabric. I’m still not bold enough to go under his pants, but here I can feel every contour of him.

Simon groans and bucks his hips in earnest. He’s breathless, I am too from the crush of his body against my chest. I can barely move my hand now, there’s so little space between us, but it doesn’t matter. Simon grinding his whole body in mine, mouth to neck, hands to hair.

What would I give to keep this forever? Simon here with me, safe, panting Baz and baby and yes. If having this meant I’d never have another orgasm, would I make that trade?

In a heartbeat, I think, as he comes into my hand.

 

SIMON

We lie in the dark I don’t know how long, me half on top of Baz, not saying anything, until—

“D’you think we broke the spell?” I ask.

Baz had been stroking the back of my head, but now he stiffens.

Fuck my stupid mouth. He thinks…

I climb on top of Baz and cup his face. I can’t see him but I’m sure he’s not looking at me.

“Hey.” I press a kiss to the corner of his mouth and stay there, waiting. Baz doesn’t bring his mouth to mine, but he doesn’t throw me off him either.

I work my way across his cheek. “I,” kiss, “was just,” kiss, “wondering.” There’s a spot behind his jaw that makes him go limp. “It’s,” kiss, “not,” kiss, “important.”

I latch onto the side of his neck, just sort of hanging there with my mouth. I decide to stay there until Baz says something, since I’m just fucking things up by talking.

Baz doesn’t, though. Say anything. Just turns his nose into my scalp and strokes my hair again. Merlin, that feels nice.

I could fall asleep like this. I don’t know what time it is, in this gloomy basement, or what seeps out of the walls at night. I don’t much care, though. What could hurt us now? I can’t even be bothered to do up my trousers. 

My eyes have closed when Baz finally speaks, deep and syrupy.

“We might’ve done.”

“Hmm?”

“Broken the spell.” He’s talking into my curls.

“Fuck the spell.” I drop my head to his chest and burrow in. “Just want to be with you.”

“Seriously, Snow.” He tugs gently on my hair and I prop up to look at him. I can just make out the shine of his eyes in the dark.

“But you said we had to cast something.”

“What the hell do I know. Magic is weird.”

“Yeah?” I tip forward til our foreheads touch. “You really think—”

But then I feel it. The familiar buzzing in my fingertips.

Baz doesn’t hesitate. He yanks up the hem of his shirt and shoves down my pants to free my cock.

His belly feels cool, not cold, and we’re kissing sloppily when I come on his skin.

 

BAZ

“See? It’s perfect.”

The lamp Snow scavenged from the bowels of Mummers House has a frayed cord and a cracked ceramic base. It casts a seizure-inducing flicker across my desk.

“Perfect,” I agree.

Apart from the lamp we came back to the tower empty handed—figuratively, that is. Snow insisted on holding my hand the entire way. I acted like it was a concession to let him. (Because something is going to spoil this, I know, and maybe that will hurt less if I refuse to enjoy it now.) (Because I’m an idiot.)

“I need a shower,” I say, and I do. Although I cast cleaning spells, they didn’t do much for the cobwebs or general basement murk.

But mainly I need some alone time to think.

Simon kissed me. He said he wants to be with me. We had sex. On purpose.

And he’s going to sleep in my bed. Again. I haven’t offered to spell the floor. He hasn’t asked.

Deep breaths. I put away my shoes and collect my pyjamas. I can do this. I can handle having my wildest dreams come true.

Another deep breath, and I’m feeling calmer. Nonchalant, even.

 

SIMON

Baz looks ready to gnaw off his own fist. I don’t know if it’s just nerves or if he regrets what happened, or maybe he just really wants a shower, but I’m a bit worried about him as he heads into the ensuite.

I wouldn’t leave him to shower now, if it were up to me. I’m pretty crusty too, but who cares. Baz kissed me. He held me. What’s a bit more spunk give or take.

I kick my shoes into the corner and flop back onto Baz’s bed, over the covers, and listen to the sound of the water.

I used to do this at the beginning of school years, before Baz turned up. I’d lie on his bed, press my face into his pillow, wonder what he was doing.

God. How long have I wanted him? More than wanted him. … I think I might love him, a little bit.

I’m still just lying in Baz’s bed, thinking about him, when an orgasm hits. It’s pretty underwhelming, after what we just did. I sigh as I feel the familiar trickle. At least I haven’t put on pyjamas yet.

The ensuite door opens a crack. I wait for the smack of a wet flannel, but nothing happens. The water’s still running.

“Baz?” I peek inside. “Are you okay?”

Baz is poking his head out of the shower, not meeting my eye. His hair’s plastered to his face. He’s scrunched the curtain up around his neck like he’s hoarding steam, or maybe modesty, and I think I might love him a lot.

“This curse is disgusting,” Baz says to the tile floor, “and you are the bane of my existence.” He finally looks up at me. “But you can come in, if you want to.”

I do.

Chapter 4: A Sticky End

BAZ

I wake up with a nose full of Simon. My soap on his body, a strange alchemy that smells like neither of us. The salt of his blood. The vinegar tang of sweat.

And—garlic?

Crunch.

I pry open an eye.

Simon’s propped against the headboard beside me. I’ve mashed my face into his hip and am clutching his leg like a teddy bear. He’s fishing around in my nearly empty pickle jar.

“Animal,” I croak.

Simon chews instead of answering. Good. Wouldn’t want the Chosen One choking to death on a pickle within hours of shagging his first boy. What appalling symbolism.

He finally swallows and leans down to kiss the side of my head. I make a disapproving sound and rub my nose into his thigh to drive the point home.

“Morning, Baz.” Crunch.

I roll on my back to look at him but I don’t sit up. I haven’t given up on going back to sleep. “I sealed that jar with magic.”

Crunch. “Reckon I opened it with magic.”

“Glutton.”

“I was hungry.”

“You’re always hungry.”

“Not my fault you slept through breakfast.”

Isn’t it? Last night Simon played me like a harp until we were both exhausted. And then we came twice more in the night. We didn’t fully wake up, just cuddled through it like sleepy babies having a midnight suckle.

“Why didn’t you go eat?”

Simon grins. “Didn’t want to get out of bed. I mean, I did,” he wiggles the jar, “but I came back.” He pets my hair. So far this is the best day of my life.

Simon came back to bed with me.

Crunch. And with fucking pickles.

“And,” he continues with his mouth full, “I knew if I left before you woke up, you’d get all weird and pretend nothing happened.”

I finally sit up and cross my arms, shaking off the hand still stroking my hair. “What exactly happened, then, Snow?”

He sighs and sets the jar on the floor. “Way to prove my point, Baz.”

“I’m not proving—”

I cut off when he slides his hand under my pyjama shirt, circling my navel with his thumb. I can bicycle-kick a football while declining Greek verbs, but apparently I forget my own name when Simon touches my stomach. I hide my face in his neck.

“We kissed and we shagged. And I liked it. A lot.” Simon’s voice is quiet but his tone brooks no bullshit. It gives me goosebumps. “And you did too. That’s what happened.”

My snort comes out as a whimper. It’s a concession. He pulls me into his lap.

“You should eat a real breakfast,” I say to his curls. “Pickles are not a meal.”

“No,” Simon admits, “but they’re really good. Here.” He picks up the jar and wedges it between us. How do we already have a third wheel?

“Too salty for—” I snap my mouth shut as Simon butts a plump kosher dill against my lips.

“Try it,” he grins.

“Mmm-mmm,” I protest.

“Go on. You need the electrolytes.”

I sigh through my nose—he’s probably right—and take a bite. Fuck. It’s delicious.

Simon stares at me, the jar between us forgotten. Is it the juice on my chin? Does that do it for him? Or—

Shit. My fangs have popped.

And the curse has picked this moment to give us an orgasm.

Simon writhes into the back of my legs and hugs me close. I’m distracted by my own climax, which is the only reason he manages to slip his tongue into my sharp, sour mouth. He slides his hand over the small of my back, little finger teasing the cleft of my arse. In his other hand he’s still holding half a pickle.

As we come down Simon kisses my fangs through my cheeks. “It’s all right, Baz,” he says quietly. “I like it.”

I let myself hug him back, burying my nose in curls that smell like sweat and sex and vinegar. I wish he were sitting in my lap right now and not the other way around. I wish he were the one towering over me.

I wish there weren’t a fucking pickle jar smashed between us. Simon lifts a corner of the bedsheet to wipe where we came on it, and ends up sloshing brine on my pillow. Crowley. This used to be the clean bed.

“Fuck,” Simon laughs. “How’d you carry this thing around without a spill?”

“I told you. I sealed it with magic.”

“Show me.” He grabs my wand from the nightstand.

It’s an embarrassing spell, but I can’t say no to Simon, holding me, asking for magic. He loves magic.

“Sealed with a kiss.” Nothing happens. It won’t, until—

I give the lid a little peck. The safety-seal button pops down.

Simon beams.

 

*     *     *

 

We’re almost at the dining hall, crossing the deserted Saturday-morning campus, when I drop Simon’s hand.

“You go in first,” I say. “I’ll follow in a few minutes.”

Simon looks like I’ve slapped him.

“What the fuck?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Why—what—Are you ashamed of me?”

And I wish I’d instantly said No but it takes a moment to run through the extensive catalogue of things I am ashamed of.

“Of course not.” As if it’s obvious, as if I haven’t spent the last seven years acting like I’d scraped him off my shoe.

“Then stop—stop fucking clownfishing.”

“What?” I think he’s so hungry his stomach’s digesting his brain.

“You’re like the dad fish in that Disney movie. You poke out of your little habitat”—he wiggles a hand forward—“let me see you for half a second, then scoot back in.” He snatches his hand away. “And if I try to follow you I get zapped by the sea anomaly.”

“Anemone,” I correct because I’m a dick.

“Just—just stop, okay? I like you, Baz.” He swallows. “A lot. But you don’t make it easy.”

I stare at him. “You like me?”

He shakes his head. “I take it back. Penny’s the smartest person I know. You’re a pillock.”

I glance around—there’s still no one here—and take his hand.

“I’m not ashamed of you, Snow.”

“Simon.”

“Simon. I’m not. But if people know we’re together, they’ll figure out about the spell.”

“Oh.” His eyes widen. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Simon exhales. “Until we’re uncursed, no boyfriend stuff in public.”

 

SIMON

Baz stares at me like I’ve just sprouted wings.

“Boyfriend stuff.” He licks his lips.

“Yeah, not in public, okay.” I swing our hands. “Sorry I yelled at you. I get it now.”

Baz watches the arc of our joined hands like a dog watching a tennis ball. “After we’re uncursed, would you—”

“Then it’s not a problem, yeah? I mean, there are other roommate couples.”

“Couples.” When did Baz become so inarticulate? He glances around, then shoots his wand into his hand (hot) and casts Nothing to see here.

“What—”

His kiss cuts me off. He’s holding my face in both hands. Before I can hold him back, Baz lets me go.

“Go on, then.” Baz is smirking. Somehow his cheeks look brighter even though they’re still colorless. “Go stuff your face.”

 

*     *     *

 

“Honestly, Simon, are you two even looking for a counterspell?” Penny pokes her fork in my direction.

“’Course,” I insist around a mouthful of egg and cress sandwich, and it’s almost true. Baz has been looking, I think. I’ve been playing guinea pig and keeping him company.

I’ll try harder now, though. Now that the spell isn’t the only thing that lets me be near Baz. For the first time in weeks I think I’d be happier without the curse than with it.

Penny makes a noise like she doesn’t believe me, and groans when she follows my gaze to Baz sauntering into the dining hall. He doesn’t even glance at me. I guess he has years of practice at pretending I don’t exist.

“I am happy for you, though.”

“Huh?” I snap back from Baz. “What—what do—”

“Oh come on.” Penny rolls her eyes and gestures at her neck. I touch my own and remember where Baz had latched on in the shower last night. Did he give me love bites? I shiver a little, Baz and bite and my neck all swirling together in my brain.

I grin. Penny smiles back.

“You can’t tell anyone, though, Pen.”

“Tell anyone!” she snorts. “Like I need more Baz talk in my life.” She waves a warning dinner roll. “Ten per cent.”

 

BAZ

“And then she said she didn’t date boys, and I said that’s good because I’m all man. And …”

I’m barely listening to Dev telling me about his Friday night. I’m so giddy I might be sick.

On the one hand, I’m apparently dating Simon Snow. What else matters?

On the other hand, I still have so much to hide. Vampirism, at school; queerness, around my father; this fucking curse, everywhere; and now, Simon.

As Dev drones I feel the warning tingle in my digits. What a bore. This curse was a lot more fun when it gave me more access to Simon, not less. Obviously our staged “fights” are over; though we can’t act romantic in public, I won’t pretend to hate him. (New beginnings. Clownfishing. Boyfriend stuff, etc.)

I raise a napkin to fake a sneeze but fuck it. I’ll just cover my whole face. I’ll say I spelled my grilled cheese into ortolan.

I glance at Dev one more time before shrouding my face. He’s grinning.

“What’s so—AAAUGH!”

Simon tackles me off the bench and we’re coming.

“Wha, ah, what the fuck, Snow?”

We’re half under the table. It’s just like before, except now Simon’s grinding into me. He’s nudged my legs apart, giving me the pressure I craved the dozen other times we came here. I swallow a moan.

“You, you—you know what you did, Baz.”

Simon’s fist is in my hair. Dev’s playing on his phone. The rest of the dining hall mills around like normal. It’s amazing how people only see what they expect to see.

I hook my leg around Simon’s and lever into him. He gasps in my ear.

“Describe it to me, Snow.”

 

SIMON

I’m on my way to Astronomy, one of the few classes I don’t share with Baz, when I feel the tingling in my spine.

Fuck. I fist my hands in my trouser pockets, tenting the fabric away from myself, as if that has ever worked for anyone. I’m leaking magic. I’m—

Strong grey hands snatch me from inside a classroom. The door slams shut and Baz presses me up against it, kissing me, rutting into my belly.

“Baz,” I groan. I’m lost to it. If I weren’t already breathless from the magic, I would be from the way he holds me up like I weigh nothing.

Soon this classroom will be full. Baz gently lets me go with a kiss in my curls, spells us clean, and flings open the classroom door.

“You’ll regret that, Snow,” he calls over his shoulder as he joins the shuffling crowd. “Prepare to beg.”

“I’ll show you begging,” I yell after him.

That night, I show him.

 

*    *    *

 

Baz is trying to motorboat me. It’s not working.

I’m on my back on his bed. (Our bed? We’ve christened it enough times, including just now, that I feel possessive.) Baz is pressing my chest muscles together and wagging his face between them.

“That’s not going to work,” I giggle.

“Yes it will,” he meat-muffles. “Give me time.”

“Time to what?”

“To feed you up. This summer I’m going full gingerbread witch.” Baz raises his face from my unfluffy tits and takes my hand, checking my fingers for padding. “Hmm.” He transfers my finger to his lips. He isn’t sucking, just housing me in his mouth. I like it.

“There’s a pub in Chelsea,” he slurs, “that sells pasties the size of your head.”

Chelsea. Summer’s only two weeks away. “D’you think we’ll still be cursed, then?”

Baz pulls off my finger. I’ve spoiled the moment. “I don’t know,” he admits.

After the night in the basement, Baz and I started looking harder for a cure. It helps that I actually want to break the curse now. And that the library’s no longer our prime spot to fool around, magickally or otherwise. But so far nothing has worked.

“What if it lasts all summer?” I ask in a small voice.

Yesterday I accidentally called Baz a monster when I slammed him into a tree outside the White Chapel. I mean, I know he’s a vampire, but that’s not important anymore. (Was it ever?)

Baz didn’t react. I mean, he sneered and shit-talked and committed to the bit, but I didn’t see a flicker of anything from real Baz. Which is how I know he was upset.

Fuck. I know it’s not easy to improvise hateful-not-hurtful dialogue while having an orgasm, but I still feel awful that I said it. And I’ll hurt him again if we keep this up.

But what other options are there? Announce we’re dating and then, like, very intensely thumb wrestle whenever the curse hits?

“I’m not sure what we’ll do if it lasts,” Baz admits. “Stay the course, I guess.”

I don’t want to. I don’t want to keep hurting Baz. I don’t want to pretend I’m not in love with him, now that I’ve figured it out. I haven’t told him yet.

“Right,” I say. “Stay the course.”

Baz nods. “No one suspects.”

 

PENELOPE

“What do you mean, you know?”

Dev leers back at me as a shout goes up from the pitch. He and Niall are the only other people in the bleachers.

I swore two years ago that I was done watching football practice. I suppose this technically isn’t practice, it’s a pickup game Gareth organized.

That’s not unusual; what’s unusual is that Baz is playing. And Agatha, who’s the best player out there after Baz. She’s done a lot more of this sort of thing since breaking up with Simon.

I’m here because the library was deserted and the silence was driving me mad. I brought a stack of books with me, so I can research Simon’s curse while gathering firsthand data about how it operates. Two birds, one stone.

Dev passes his flask back to Niall. “Of course I know. I have lifetime platinum status on PornHub. I know an O-face when I see one.”

I try to unhear O-face and look out at the pitch. The players have split into skins and shirts. (Agatha doesn’t care—she has top-shelf sports bras. Strappy and geometric.) Simon’s glaring at Baz’s hairy chest like it’s just insulted him.

“And we’d like you to break a tie.”

This is what lured me over to Dev and Niall in the first place. I might not talk to them, but I’ll always opine.

“What tie?”

“I say it’s just a matter of time before Baz chucks Snow,” Dev drawls. “Finds an equal to hump in the town square.”

“Whereas I think they’re going to live happily ever after,” says Niall. “Cream their morning suits in a tasteful ceremony.”

“Does Baz know you know?”

Dev shakes his head. “My cousin thinks he’s slick.”

“But why not tell him?”

That’s what friends do. You tell them what their problems are, then solve them together.

“If these idiots honestly think no one knows they’re nutting all over each other, I won’t burst their bubble.”

I turn in disbelief to Niall, who shrugs.

There's another yell from the pitch and I look up to see Baz knocking Simon prone on the grass. He pins Simon’s wrists above his shoulders and leans down to say something in Simon’s ear—which means pressing his hips into Simon’s arse. Simon’s cheek is mashed into the grass, but I think he’s smiling.

Tolstoy said every happy couple is happy in the same way, but I’m really not sure.

I turn back to the minions. “Does anybody else know?”

 

GARETH

Say what you will about my belt buckle, at least I got through seven years of thrusting-based magic without blowing a load in class.

 

ELSPETH

Morgana, there go Snow and Pitch again, making a scene. They think they invented getting off in class.

Amateurs. If I cross my legs and kegel I can come in eight minutes flat. Four when Minos wears his tweed. I don’t fuck around. People who call in horny don’t win perfect attendance.

 

AGATHA

Fuck off.

 

MISS CHRISTIE

Children their age never ask for help. They think their problems are theirs alone, that it’s a weakness to need healing. Pity.

If only they’d ask, there’s a potion that would put those boys to rights. I’ve kept a supply on hand ever since the Humdrum sent ejackulopes.

 

THE MINOTAUR

I tended Watford’s grounds for four hundred years. Now I drone to spoiled children who could not care less about my beautiful, dead language. I live on the payroll of a demagogue. (From δῆμος, “the people,” and ἀγωγός, “leading.”) Too bad he’s not a better pedagogue. (From—oh, never mind.)

Conjugate. Recite. Discipline the small ones. Year in, year out.

So if these morons want to get off in the middle of my classroom, I’ll not stop them. Even if half my students are repulsed and the rest too aroused to focus.

They can still learn something important even if they’re ignoring my verbs. Lessons like People are strange and Love is love. (I exist because my mother fucked Zeus’s sacred bull. In a box. I don’t judge.)

There’s a moving desperation to these boys. They remind me of sacrificial virgins making the most of their final hours, coupling in the dark, trying to stay quiet.

In the end they were never quiet enough. But I always let them finish.

I’m not a monster.

 

THE LOCKERS

This is the most action I’ve gotten in years.

Sure I get a stolen kiss here, a sneaky cleavage adjustment there. That’s all. No reason to tryst in the hallway at a boarding school. To be honest, I’ve had quite the dry spell ever since Mitali Mistry and Martin Bunce graduated. She’d stuff him inside me and wait in his bed for him to escape. Poor boy was no match for her spellwork. He’d be stuck in me for hours, desperate. Couldn’t even wank for the noise. (I’m a clanger.)

Mit and Martin had nothing on Baz and Simon. Day after day, practically shagging on my face while the student body streams by.

As kids these two would ricochet off me. Like everyone else, I thought they hated each other.

Now I’ve got Baz splayed against me, a bit of his hair snagged in my hinge. I’ll sniff it later. His holy terror of a boyfriend is grinding into him, warm hands planted on me, growling something about teaching him a lesson.

I could come from this.

I don’t care if I rust.

“Don’t, mmm, don’t make me laugh, Snow,” Baz gasps.

Don’t stop, I clang.

 

BARKFIN

Glug. Woof. Gurgle.

On drawbridge: I’ve had enough of you, Pitch!

Simon, wait—

Splash. Plunge.

Is Fangmage!

Fangmage who ate White Gill!

Grrrrrrr.

(Moatpack remembers.)

Other mage too. Flailing. Sinking.

Fangmage swimming.

Grabbing, kicking, rising.

Aaah. Mages mates.

Mages … milting!

Both mages milting!

Milt precious. Milt sustenance.

Milt … an offering.

(Bucklemage knows.)

Fangmage forgiven.

(Moatpack is just.)

 

Splash, slosh.

Fangmage dragging limp mate to land.

Simon, Simon.

Fuck, where’s my wand?

Slapping.

Simon, please say something.

Please breathe.

Crying.

 

I love you.

 

 

 

Choking. Retching.

 

I love you too.

 

 

SIMON

“‘It has been a long trip,’ said Milo, climbing onto the couch where the princesses sat; ‘but we would have been here much sooner if I hadn't made so many mistakes. I'm afraid it's all my fault.’

Baz is the little spoon, holding a book propped on its side, reading to me.

Baz says kids’ books are second only to nursery rhymes for spell fodder. He occasionally writes something down and we try it later.

Mostly, it’s just nice. When Baz found out I’d never been read The Velveteen Rabbit, or a bunch of other children’s classics, he said it was a travesty.

We’ve got three stacks going now: books we’ve read, books to read, and books we’re saving for later. (We started the third stack after the Charlotte’s Web disaster. Both of us were crying and coming right when the spider died.)

Now I feel Baz’s voice rumble against my chest and my hand resting on his belly. I’m not moving. I won’t start teasing him until the chapter’s almost done.

So there’s nothing much for Penny to see when she bursts in.

Baz doesn’t falter. “ ‘You must never feel badly about making mistakes,’ explained Reason quietly—”

“I have news!”

“‘—as long as you take the trouble to learn from them.’” He carefully marks his place and we sit up. “Bunce.”

Baz has stopped saying anything about Penny getting into Mummer’s House. We check in almost every day now, about spell research, and this is the only private place to talk.

Penny’s timing is lucky. She’s accused us before of honeymooning while she does all the work. (“There are no sex spells in Pooh Corner, Basil.”) But The Phantom Tollbooth is practically a grimoire. Penny nods at it approvingly.

“I’ve got it. The counterspell.” She pulls up a chair. “I’m certain this time.”

Penny was “certain” about her last spell, which just gave us stuffy noses, but I don’t say anything. She’s trying so hard to help us.

Penny explains her new spell, the elaborate preparations, the choice of location.

“The containment wards are already up,” Penny says excitedly. “And we triple-checked the power channels.”

Baz stiffens. “We?”

Penny sighs. “I had some help.”

“What kind of help?”

“The focusing spell takes seven mages casting in sync.”

Baz looks murderous.

“Do you mean to tell me—”

“Oh, stuff it, Basil. They already knew.”

Baz sucks in a breath.

“Don’t look so shocked. What do you expect after a fortnight of publicly mounting each other?”

Baz’s soul has left his body, but I’m not that embarrassed. Or maybe I am, but I deal with it better. I’ve had more practice.

“What next, Pen?”

 

BAZ

Simon and I face each other cross-legged in the Mage’s office. When we arrived there was already a complex sigil drawn on the stone floor, surrounded by metre-high candles already burning. Apparently the office’s height, location and layers of wards make this the best place on campus to perform the ritual.

We won’t be interrupted. The Mage sent a bird saying he’d be away the rest of term and directing his heir to some hellhole in Liverpool. (I swallowed my rant when Simon silently crawled into my lap.)

The office looks the same as when my mother was headmistress, but dustier. The Mage hasn’t removed any furniture. He’s only added a depressing putty-colored file cabinet that probably contains his Five-Year Plan.

“Come on, Baz, just do it.” Simon takes my hand and shakes it a little. I’m sitting too.

“But what if—”

“We’ve been over all of it a million times with Penny.”

“Yes, but it’s possible—”

“Baz.” Simon exhales in frustration, but squeezes my hand gently. “Don’t tell Penny I said this, but you’re the best mage I know. Just focus. You won’t screw it up.”

Bunce said the spell is finely attuned to the caster’s intention. That’s not uncommon, but the stakes are horrific..

I have to focus precisely on what I want to eliminate: magickal orgasms. Excess orgasms. If I misthink or misspeak, I could curse us to lifelong anorgasmia. (What would that mean, for me? Ten centuries of blue balls?)

Snow heard the warning too, but doesn’t seem to care that I’m about to hold his sexual health in the palm of my hand. (Better mine than his, I suppose.)

“Simon, it could go wrong. We can’t ignore the risk.”

“I’m not ignoring it,” he says. “I’m accepting it.” He leans forward and presses our foreheads together.

“But you’d never be able to come again.”

“Yeah, but think of what I could do. Kiss you in public. Meet your siblings.”

And then he does kiss me soundly, and for a second I wonder what would happen if we had sex in the middle of the magic circle. Probably summon a swarm of incubi.

“Okay,” I whisper, pulling away. Then, more steadily: “Okay.”

I sit up straight and grip my wand. My other hand still holds Simon’s. The flames, sensing magic, double in height.

I focus my intention and flourish my wand over us both.

“Let it ALL out.”

 

SIMON

When I was a kid, before I knew about Watford and magic and the World of Mages, I had a bucket list. Places I wanted to see someday when I somehow broke out of care. (Maybe after David Beckham adopted me.)

Most of the list came from TV and movies the homes would play on too-quiet, too-small screens. The Grand Canyon. Mount Everest. The Plaza Hotel from Home Alone 2.

One time they played a documentary on American national parks. There was a geyser that goes off every hour. Before I knew about magic, it was the most magical thing I’d ever imagined. The pressure, the power—tonnes and tonnes of water shooting 50 metres high. How could it be real?

I’ve taken Old Faithful off my list.

 

BAZ

I clear the worst of it with Bunce’s talk-show spell, then sag to the still-damp ground. I’ll have to burn these clothes.

Simon slumps against me, resting his head on my shoulder.

“Would you be lighter, now? If I lifted you?”

“Probably,” I rasp. We’ve somehow lost more fluid than we had in the first place.

I just want to leave. Let the Mage deal with it when he deigns to visit the school he supposedly governs.

But this was my mother’s office.

Simon finds a case of orange Lucozade the Mage stashed under his bed (freak). We chug it all and set to.

While Simon sweeps cleaning spells over the floor and ceiling, I take care of the furniture and our clothes. We stagger down the spiral staircase, stopping to check the floor below for ceiling damage.

On our way home we raid the kitchen, and Simon waits outside the Catacombs while I feed. I don’t know if the spell worked or if I’ll ever come again. At this point I’m too tired to care.

As I drift off with my head on Simon’s chest, a smile sneaks across my lips. Simon was so busy with his own spells that he didn’t listen closely to mine. Didn’t notice that I was rearranging more than I was vanishing. I imagine the Mage returning and trying to open his ugly file cabinet.

I see your bag of shit, Fiona, and I raise you three hundred litres of semen.

 

SIMON

“Fuck you straight to hell, Snow.”

What started out as an experiment to see if we’d ever orgasm again has turned into my personal quest to make Baz come untouched. I think he can do it. I fingered him for the first time the other day, and he came in my mouth almost instantly.

(Okay, Penny was right. We weren’t doing much spell research.)

Baz is squirming now, pressing himself down against the two fingers I’ve worked inside him.

“If you refuse to touch my cock, at least go deeper.”

“Babe, this is all I got.” I kiss his thigh. “Unless I spell my fingers longer.”

“Maybe not while they’re inside me.” Fair.

It’s weird to even talk about casting that kind of spell. After last night in the Mage’s office my magic has been quieter. Easier to control. I haven’t ever felt like I’d go off if I got upset; I don’t know if I even could go off anymore. I’m not sure how I feel about it yet.

Penny thinks Baz’s focus on excess, magical orgasms might’ve also done something to my excess magic. She came by this morning to debrief with a huge flask of tea and a congratulations hamper from Cook Pritchard.

“Simon, I’m serious, will you—”

I start pumping my fingers.

"Ah!" Baz digs his heels into the mattress and finds a rhythm. I speed up to match him. Some lube oozes into my palm, I used way too much.

His hands twist in the sheet bunched above his head. I circle my free hand over Baz’s belly and he arches into it, then back down onto my fingers. Up, palm, down, fingers. His breath starts to pick up in a way I’ve grown to love, and then, because he’s Baz, he tries to talk.

“Simon—”

Come on, Baz.

“—if I, if I don’t—”

Come on.

“—if we can’t—”

Come for me.

“—I’m, mmm, still glad—”

I curl my fingers in a beckon. C’mere.

Baz shouts. The sheet tears in his hands but I keep curling and curling into Baz’s sweet spot until he clenches around me, whimpers, and comes all over his belly.

I crawl up the mattress. Baz rebounded pretty fast from magickal orgasms, but he’s useless after I make him come the old-fashioned way. I just hold him and kiss his hair and tell him how well he’s done.

“It worked,” he murmurs into my arms. Tears trickle from the corners of his eyes.

“'Course it did.” I nuzzle and nudge, trying to little-spoon Baz into a nap.

“But—”

“Ssh,” I pet his stomach.

“—what about you? What if—”

“S’fine,” I murmur into his hair.

“It’s not fine, it’s—”

“I already came.”

Baz spins in my arms.

“You nightmare,” he hisses. “How’d you hide it?”

“Practice.”

That’s a lie. Baz would’ve known from my face, if he hadn’t been sitting on it.

(I didn’t want to come first. But you try keeping it together with your tongue up a naked, whimpering Baz.) (Try it and I’ll kill you.)

Relief and sex-daze seem to win out over Baz’s annoyance, because he rests his head on my chest. “Look at you with your life skills.”

 

We cast half-assed cleaning spells and doze until it’s time to go to dinner. Together, as a couple. Not as enemies or as human shields or as secret boyfriends. It’s kind of like a first date.

Baz turns at the stairway door when he realizes I’ve hung back. “Ready, Snow?”

“One second, Baz.”

I pull out my wand and try to remember the intonation Penny showed me this morning, while Baz was showering.

“Coming—”

Baz’s eyes widen.

“—up roses.”

Baz hides his face in his flowers, like Ferdinand, and I’m not sure how I’ll make it through a whole meal without jumping on him. He magics a vase for the roses, saving two for our lapels.

At dinner Penny and Baz talk about the theory behind Let it all out, its dangers and its possible uses. I inhale both my dishes of pot pie, plus Baz’s. When Baz brags to Penny about my flower spell I sputter and try to put them off, but Penny is undeterrable.

“Go on, then, Simon. Show me some magic.”

“Er—I should probably save it—”

“Nonsense.” Penny smiles encouragingly.

Baz takes my hand under the table and squeezes it twice. All right? I think he’s asking. (We should probably work out a code.)

All right, I squeeze back. Here goes nothing. 

I point my wand at Penny’s pot pie.

“Four and twenty blackbirds.”

Two dozen starlings erupt out of the dish.

The whole dining hall is staring now. I look helplessly to Penny, who’s stunned, and then to Baz. They’re both sprayed with gravy. (Me too.) I can’t see Penny’s eyes through her glasses.

Baz hands Penny a linen handkerchief without looking away from me.

“Snow,” he says quietly, and this is when he’d normally call me the worst Chosen One ever chosen. Instead Baz rests a hand on my face, thumbing my greasy cheekbone. “That was superb magic.”

“You don’t—”

He cuts me off with a kiss. Somebody squeals, I think it’s Trixie. And I don’t tackle him, or curse him, or hide my feelings in a snarl.

I just kiss him back.

Notes:

This fic was supposed to be a little palate cleanser before posting a long fic I’ve been working on for *checks watch* a year. It somehow grew into by far the longest thing I’ve written, and maybe my favorite thing?

Thank you forever to Christina and nightimedreamer for your wonderful betas; to Marta and Stacy for Greek and football knowledge, respectively; and especially to Wild-Eyed Apricot, for not only betaing but for reading rough half-written chapters and cheering me on during crises of confidence.

Thank you ileadacharmedlife for the title Ready or Not, aralias for Chapter 1's title, and palimpsessed for Chapter 3's title.

And thank you to everyone reading and cheering this fic along. You've been incredibly supportive as I've stepped a bit out of my comfort zone. A writer could not ask for a lovelier audience.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

For general vibes. Not saying this fic is on these works' level, but it's what comes out of my head if you put them all in there and shake them up:

Fuck the Wavering Wood by aralias: so giddily fun.

5 Times They Half-Arsed It by KrisRix
an absurd and hot premise that knocked me over with its depth of feeling and beautiful writing.

Every Little Helps by nightimedreamer: Simon can't stop kissing Baz, but what does it mean?? (If my Ch 3 fade to black gave you shower-scene blue balls, run don’t walk to ELH.)

 

For very specific inspirations:

 

Five Things That Never Happened to Simon Snow by fairy_tale_echo. Baz summons Penny to Pitch Manor on Christmas Eve by texting Come at once if convenient, if inconvenient come all the same. Baz treating Penny as his Watson at that stage of their relationship is the funniest thing ever. This fic also has a sweet, hot twinkle twinkle chapter whose relevance I will not spoil here.

Catch Me If You Can by sorbriquette for Simon using Baz’s tie as a sex leash (which didn’t happen here but which I thought about it a lot while writing the library lap dance).

Everything's Coming Up Roses by annabellelux: fabulous magickal mishap and completely different use of this spell. It also has a superbly performed podfic by RattleandHum.

 

And if you’re all orgasmed out, check out Goodbye Norma Jean by aralias. Baz can't come, but it's the journey not the destination, right? ...Right?