Chapter Text
Present
SIMON
When the doors of the hall fly open, it’s almost like I’m making it happen.
As if I hadn’t tried just that. Over and over and over. (What use is all this fucking magick if I can’t—if it couldn’t—)
Penny grips me as the cold gusts into the room. I’m only sure it’s her because her ring is digging into the bone of my wrist. My eyes haven't left the figure standing there, haloed by the sudden wash of sunlight at his back. I know him, the shape of him, even before my eyes adjust.
My chair scrapes the wood floor as I jerk to my feet, Penny’s hand tightening and tugging.
“Simon, don’t.”
She thinks I’m volatile. Maybe I am. My magick’s already expanding, straining against my ribcage.
There’s a swell of shifting in the room around us, the silence that punctuated the opening doors bleeding into murmurs, into nervous chatter.
Baz doesn’t even look at me. Not as he strides forward—no. He ambles, like he can’t quite keep his balance, can’t anticipate the weight of his own legs. His uniform is usually perfectly fitted, but it’s hanging limp and too large over his thin shoulders. He’s drawn and pale.
“Penny, let me go,” I say, trying to shake her off.
“No. No way. You need to calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“Snakes, you are not.”
I take half a step against the pull of her arm and watch his eyes shift around the room. They settle on Agatha, but she isn’t even looking at him. She’s looking at me. Her round, brown eyes are wide with a mix of concern and fear, mouth pinched shut like she’s holding herself back from telling me off.
Sit down, Simon. Don't make a scene, Simon.
His gaze follows hers until he’s looking straight at me, too. Finally. His soft mouth twists downwards, his eyebrows low. If I were closer, I’d know what it meant—that shadowed look in his eyes.
And then it’s over.
He turns away, toward Dev and Niall, and then Penny gives me one last jerk that lands me back on my arse in my seat. She grabs my shoulders and makes me face her.
“Simon, focus on me. You need to breathe.”
“I—” I hadn’t been. I didn’t—I try. It’s more like a suck. “The Mage said—”
“I know,” Penny says, her voice tight. “I know what he said, but maybe things changed. Maybe this is a part of it. Maybe Baz was just sick. He looks sick. But you can’t do this here, not right now. You need to let it go.”
I'm shaking my head. Too fast. “He doesn’t get sick.”
“You can’t know that for certain.”
“I can.”
“Fine, then,” she says. Her eyes are huge under her glasses. “It still doesn’t matter.”
“I—I need to talk to him,” I growl. “I need to know where he was.”
“Nicks and Slick, Simon, you don’t. He wouldn’t tell you anyway. Since when have you two ever talked?”
I swallow, my chest aching.
“There is no way this ends well, and you know it,” she says.
I fist a hand in my curls, trying that whole breathing thing again. How do I manage to take in air all the time without thinking about it? How could I do it at all these past six weeks? Hell, the past three months. And he just walks in here like it's nothing.
‘Breathe. Imagine filling your chest with it.’
After a few shuddering, failed attempts I finally manage it. One unsteady inhale. Then one more.
My vision is clearing. I didn’t realise how much it’d narrowed until my peripherals came back.
Over Penny’s shoulder, I spot Rhys listing in his chair, glancing drowsily at me. A lot of people are eyeing me. Murmuring. A hazy film over their eyes, an odd tilt to their heads. Merlin, that’s my magick. It managed to seep out of me, between the bones trying to trap it back. Ribs and teeth. It feels like bile still burning my throat.
They’re drunk with it, at least the people closest to us. Penny’s only managing because she’s used to it, but even her eyelids are starting to droop.
Suddenly, there’s another hand on me, between my shoulder blades, and I crane my neck back to see Agatha. She looks peeved, but calm. Her thumb is rubbing circles like someone trying to soothe a wild dog. I stare into her eyes for a long moment before turning back to Penny.
“I have to get out of here,” I say.
All she does is nod, pulling me to my feet by my wrist and leading me away from Agatha and out of the hall.
I steal one last look at Baz as I go, and he’s turned just a bit toward me, his black hair loose and framing his face. His mouth’s a thin line, and it twitches when he glances at me.
I expect his eyes to be narrow, for him to glower and sneer. I brace myself for it. But all they are is wide and bruised.
He breaks the moment first, his shoulders curling forward as he reaches for his tea, knuckles white with the strength of his grip. I watch the back of his head as Penny leads us outside, my skin prickling with the sensation of brisk autumn air, far from the stifling, choking heat inside.
I take a full breath, the clamouring of the hall dimming as the doors shut behind us.
~~~
Penny doesn’t let me wait outside the dining hall for Baz. I don’t even really try to fight it. Pretty sure it wouldn’t do me much good if I did. She stays close as we cross the courtyard toward our lessons, and keeps reminding me that it’s not my business.
(Like hell it’s not my business.)
She also keeps looking at me like I’m a bomb about to go off. Agatha, too, but from a fair distance. Probably so if I do damage, she’s conveniently out of range. That’s her priority these days. Staying out of it. It’s not like I can blame her—or, it’s not worth it to.
Once we’re settled in Greek, I start to calm down. Penny chats my ear off about her Astrology project, the effect of celestial bodies on spellcasting. It’s all fine until Baz comes in. I nearly shoot to my feet again, but Penny stops me. She’s glaring, her fingers digging into my thigh.
He’s even closer now than he was in the dining hall, just a row ahead, one seat to the left. His hair is longer than last year. Black wavy locks brush his cheeks, obscuring his face like he’s done it on purpose.
I’ve no idea why he’s hiding. I’ve no idea how I’m meant to focus on anything else.
I’m grinding my lower lip between my teeth. The taste is copper. I know I’m leaking magick again but not as much as earlier. I’m still breathing. (Mostly.) The Minotaur is giving me this stern, pitying look, though. The rest of the class looks drowsy. Baz keeps turning further away.
“I’m coming with you to Elocution,” Penny says later, keeping me just inside the Greek classroom as everyone else piles out into the corridor.
“No, Penny. Madam Bellamy won’t even let you in.”
“Sure she will.”
I lower my voice. “You can’t just follow me around all day.”
“Sure I can.”
“You can’t follow me to my room.”
“Yes I—”
“Penny.”
“Simon,” she mimics. Like that’s argument enough.
Madam Bellamy does not let her in. Penny frowns at me from the corridor as the door shuts between us.
I take a breath, sliding into a seat as near the front as I can—Baz always sits up front, the swot—and I glare at anyone who tries to take the seat next to me. Soon enough, most of the room is full up. Baz is the last to enter, all straight-backed and proud, despite how obviously tired he is and how he can’t quite put weight on his left leg.
I didn’t think anything could hurt him. Not permanently. Just a few months ago I’d have staked my life on it.
He glances around the room, letting out a tiny huff before trying to head toward the back, the only place there’s a seat left except the one beside me. I catch his too-thin wrist, my hand buzzing at the contact of his cool skin against mine, and he immediately flinches. I didn’t want—I let my firm grip go soft. My heart’s hammering, and I know the fucker can probably hear it. I can’t hide shit from him even without the magick leaking between my teeth.
Baz’s hand is a tight fist, but for some reason he doesn’t pull away. He keeps his face forward, though, even as he glares out the corner of his eye at me. Usually, his eyes are the colour of deep water. Flecks of blue and green. Today they’re the flat grey of an overcast sky.
“Let me go, Snow,” he snarls, and even that’s flat. I barely hear him over the noise of the other students.
“There’s a seat here,” I say, tipping my head.
“I see that. Seems you’ll have to suffer this class in abject loneliness. It’s hardly my problem.”
“Baz—”
“Let. Me. Go.”
I let him go. He doesn’t wait a beat before he stalks away.
The rest of the class is spent trying to keep my magick down. Shaking my leg under the table and running my hand through my hair until I know it’s all a shambles. I manage to not crane my head around to look at him every five minutes, but it’s a near thing.
Once Madam Bellamy lets us go, I’m the first out the door. There’s an alcove nearby with a bunch of portraits—mad old toffs with madder hats—and I tuck myself against the wall and wait. It’s not long before Baz passes by, nearly swept up in the sea of students, but I wrap a hand around his elbow and tug him into the alcove with me. Across from me. I let him go as soon as his back’s against the wall, but the narrow space forces us to stay close.
His chest rises and falls. His glare is sharp with fury.
“Hell, Snow. Hell and—”
“Baz, I need to talk to you.”
“Bluster at me, more like,” he says flatly. “I’ve no interest.”
“I don’t care.”
“What are you going to do if I refuse? Go off on me? Tear another hole in the school? That was a pretty bit of damage you did to the gate, by the way. Some of your best.”
Fuck him. Bastard. If he knew—fuck him. I bite down my magick. I bite down the stone in my throat. “Crowley,” I growl. “Will you just be civil for five bloody minutes?”
“Why should I?”
My jaw clenches, and I want to lean further in. Take him by the collar. “I—” I huff, touching the wall next to him instead, fingertips on cool stone. A barrier between him and the rest of the school. (As if I could hide him away.) He glances at it for a moment, and it’s—it’s something.
“Listen,” I say softer. “I just want—”
“Mister Pitch,” a familiar, deep voice says. Baz’s eyes go three shades colder as he stares over my shoulder. “Finally gracing us with your presence? I hope you’ve not fallen too far behind in your studies. Your mother did so value education.”
“I assure you, sir,” Baz’s voice is carefully measured, “I am more than capable of keeping up.”
“I hope so,” the Mage replies, touching my arm. I drop it from the wall and step back. “Please excuse us. I need to speak with Mister Snow. Alone.”
Baz glances from the Mage back to me. It holds. “Of course. He’s all yours.”
When he turns sharply back into the crowd, all I can do is watch him go.
The Mage is still touching my arm, the pressure growing more insistent. I turn to look at him properly, and his blue eyes are searching, his mouth as thin as his moustache. The question’s out of me before I can stop it.
“Did you know?”
“Of the Pitch boy’s return?” he asks. “No. His family neglected to inform anyone of his impending arrival. Just like them to assume all would be well, that he’d be welcomed back without question.”
“What? Will he not?” My nails dig into my palm.
He sighs, lifting a hand to his brow to rub his temples. “He will. We can’t afford to make a scene. In his mother’s day—well. Nevermind that. I am not a Pitch, and I won’t deny any magick user their education.” His voice is firm and full of conviction. “No matter their politics.”
I let out the breath I was holding, nodding slowly. The Mage is still looking me up and down. There’s a crease between his brows.
“Is everything all right, Simon? I heard there was an incident with your magick in the dining hall this morning.”
Fuck. “I—uh. Y-yeah. A bit.”
He frowns harder, and it twists me up. “I need you to stay in control. We can’t afford mistakes. Not now.”
“I know, but—”
“Just remember what I said, my boy. You can’t go chasing after them.”
“Right,” I breathe. “Of course.”
He sets his broad hand on my shoulder, squeezing in what I’m sure is meant to be a reassuring way before turning to go.
It doesn’t really work. I’m not sure of a thing.
Past
BAZ
It’s a rare sunny afternoon for November, and the weekend, so the vast majority of the students who haven’t left campus gathered on the lawn. A sort of unofficial picnic.
Dev and Niall dragged me out here, despite my protestations. I’ll suffer the sun for football when necessary, but I don’t make a habit of basking in it. I’m not a masochist, despite what my romantic inclinations might suggest. I don’t much care for the sting. Or the way it makes me feel worn through after a while. But I let them have their way. They can’t know how much it bothers me.
I’m bundled up, though. Full jacket, scarf, gloves. I tugged the scarf over my mouth and nose as soon as we sat down, letting my own lukewarm breath do what it could to heat the rest of me. It’s not even that cold, and I don’t even really mind it, but it’s an excuse to show less skin. (Dev and Niall just assume I have an iron deficiency. Whatever they need to tell themselves.)
Snow is sat under one of the Yew trees. Without his better half, no less. Bunce, I mean. Not Wellbelove.
It seems the golden couple has called it quits. I found that out when Wellbelove approached me in the dining hall last week, hinting unsubtly that we should spend more time together. Crowley, I should have known there’d be consequences for my flirting. (If you could call a few lingering glances flirting.) (Simon Snow certainly would.)
I’d had to give up the game right then. Let her down.
No, sorry Agatha, I’m hopelessly homosexual and in love with your ex-boyfriend as it turns out. Shame we couldn’t make it work.
He hasn’t spoken to me since then. Since Wellbelove. I’d expected a fight: shouting, shoving, growling. The whole production. But, instead, he’s drawn in, and there haven’t even been any missions to keep him occupied. I thought about finally paying him back for the polecat incident a month ago, but it seemed in poor taste. Kicking him while he’s down doesn’t interest me these days. It’s all so very fifth year.
I angle myself in the grass so I can watch him picking at his sandwich. (Maybe I am a bit of a masochist.)
Then there’s a dry itch, and a doppler shriek across the sky making my ears ring with its sudden, startling pitch.
“Seven snakes, that figures,” Dev grouses as he pushes up to his feet. “And on the one nice day we’ve had in two bloody weeks. Fuck.”
“Truly your life is a series of tragedies,” I drawl, my eyes locked on Snow as he leaps to action. Then I focus on the blur of orange and red diving at him, smoke trailing behind it like a jet engine.
“I’m getting out of here,” Dev says. “You two as well, that thing could light the whole forest on fire.”
Snow’s sword is out, barely blocking the first attack from the firebird. A burst of sparks flies in his face at the impact, and he stumbles back, holding the defence. It’s clumsy. Slow. He’s never this slow.
There’s a tug at my sleeve. “Seriously, Baz, let’s go,” Niall says.
I finally stand. “No. Someone has to keep Snow in check.”
“And that’s you?” Dev asks. “Since when?”
“Those yews are ancient. Deep magick,” I say in explanation, already stalking toward the trees. It’s enough of a truth that Dev can’t argue against it. “Where the fuck is Bunce?”
“Fine!” Dev shouts after me as I break into a run.
The dry air gets more oppressive the closer I get to Snow and the creature. No doubt the Humdrum’s doing. (And here I thought we’d been given a reprieve. How naive of me.) I’m worried it’ll tap my magic—sometimes it does—but I let my wand free from my sleeve nonetheless.
Everyone else has cleared out. Not their circus, not their monkeys. It’s just Snow, barely holding back attack after attack, the bird relentless as it dives in a streak of flame.
The sword might not be enough, even if he did have time to swing. The firebird is hardly solid, mostly flames licking over thin, black bones. I flinch at the sound it makes as it crashes into the metal of the blade again, a sharp, metallic hiss. I can’t get close to the thing, it’s too risky. So I stand a few yards back, focusing on what little magick is left in the air around me, drawing my wand up.
“Come Hell or High Water,” I bellow, voice ripping from my chest with magick and intent.
It’s the best spell for distance, for height. Water rockets forward, but it’s not enough. My aim was off, the bird too agile. It merely steams where scant droplets meet fiery wings and nothing more.
Simon’s head whips around to look at me, his blue eyes wide in shock. “Get back!”
I don’t listen.
The bird cranes its blazing neck to face me, its eyes like coal sliced with veins of fire. Then it plunges.
“No!” Snow shouts, just as I cast, “Test the Waters!”
Then I’m slammed against the ground, the water pouring limp from my wand to the grass below. There’s a weight on my chest. My whole body. Thumping heart, shallow breath.
Snow. Simon.
He’s on top of me, bracketing me with arms and legs, chest heaving against mine. He lets out a sound of pain, hissing through his teeth. His whole body convulses as heat blankets us, but none of the flames reach me. He covers my unshielded face with his own, his forehead knocking mine so hard I see sparks.
Then there’s the smell. Burnt cotton, burnt flesh. Blood.
“Simon,” I gasp. I can hardly breathe under him.
He whimpers, and it’s fucking haunting in its lightness when I can only imagine the damage to his back. The pain he must be in.
He’s rasping into my cheek, his magick welling up. The bonfire scent of him mixes with the acrid stench of his injury. It won't be fast enough. The bird is already shrieking overhead, probably circling, readying for another attack.
Fuck no. Not like this.
I grip my wand in one hand, reaching for the back of his neck with the other. I force Simon’s head down, peering over his shoulder to see the bird, wicked flames billowing behind it as it dives again, straight for us.
My arm is steady. “Make Waves.”
It’s powerful, more than I expected, but the magick comes easily. Like I’m full up of it. A wave crests above our bodies, enveloping the form of the bird. It snuffs out in an instant, in a plume of smoke, its fragile bones thumping to the muddy ground.
The water peaks and crashes over Snow and me, drenching and chilling what little of me it hits. Snow takes the brunt of it, his breath hitching, body trembling violently against mine. His wail of pain shoots through me like knives.
Fuck. Saltwater.
I have to heal him, but my eyelids are heavy, and his magick is still pouring into the air around us. It’s all I can smell, all I can taste, all I can focus on. His magick and his gasping, anxious breaths.
I turn my nose into his wet hair, inhaling. He smells less like the magick here. Like salt and soap. I’m still clutching his head in the crook of my shoulder.
“Snow,” I whisper. “Simon, it’s okay. It’s okay. We’re safe.”
“I can’t,” he sobs.
“You can. Just focus,” I soothe. “I’m right here, listen to my voice. You’re safe. You don’t have to fight. It’s over. It’s over.”
He whimpers and gasps. My hand is still clasped around the back of his neck, I drag my thumb up and down, through his short hair.
“Fuck—fucking prat,” he says through another shudder. “You’re flammable. ”
I think it’s the intoxication of his magick, but I laugh. A little manic. “Everything is flammable.”
“Fuck you.”
His knees are bracketing my hips, his belly expanding against mine with every breath. His arms, which are folded on either side of my head, pull in. Like he’s trying to hold me between them. He hisses at the movement but his breath is coming steadier. The fog of his magick is receding.
“That’s right, Snow.” I squeeze his neck. “Let me have it.”
He chokes back a laugh. And then he groans. “F-fuck this hurts.”
“I know,” I say more gently. “Hold still. I’ll try to heal you like this.”
He nods against my scarf. I try not to shiver at the sensation of it, the transfer of movement between layers of soft wool.
I touch my wand as delicately as I can to his back. “Get Well Soon.”
His body immediately slumps, more relaxed against mine. More flush. His magick’s dispersed, and the scent of burnt flesh shifts to something less sharp. Less acrid and immediate. I cast it again, and then, “Early to Bed, Early to Rise,” which does less for surface wounds. More like it ups resilience. Restoring energy, urging the body to speed its own healing process.
Honestly, neither of them are great for this, but I’m not about to cast, ‘Kiss It Better,’ on Simon bloody Snow.
I mean. I would. If I had to. If he needed it.
I frown at myself, suddenly hyper aware of the weight of him over me. Like I might suffocate under it. His cross, even between layers of fabric, makes my molars rattle and the centre of my chest twinge.
“Can you move?”
“Oh,” Snow breathes. “Yeah. Think so.”
He does, pushing himself stiffly up and off of me, dropping his arse into the damp earth. He’s soaked. His clothes—school trousers and jumper—cling to his muscles, and it’s obscene. It’s almost worse than his body on top of mine. On the ground. His heart beating against my chest.
Crowley.
There’s a tremble in his hands. From the cold or the pain, I’m not sure.
“We need to get you to the nurse,” I say. I haven’t even checked his back. I’m afraid to look.
“No,” he says, “I don’t need it. My magick will—look. S’fine. I’m fine.”
I sigh sharply, scowling at him. “You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met.”
“That a compliment?”
“Absolutely not. You’re a menace. And a brute. Where the fuck’s your backup?”
Snow shrugs and shakes his head.
“Hell and horrors. Fine.” My back is coated in mud. I try to shake some of it off, but it’s pointless. I lift to my feet and then stare down my nose at him, still sitting stiffly in the grass. “Let’s get you back to Mummers, then. Can’t have the blessed Chosen One freezing to death after all that.”
He glares at me, but then his face shifts, his eyes going wide like a thought just occurred to him. That’s new.
“You saved me.”
“I saved myself,” I snap, gesturing toward the copse of yews. “I saved those trees, which would have ended up torched either by that firebird or your mad power.”
He’s grinning at me. He looks beyond pleased with himself for riddling it out. “You saved me,” he repeats.
“Don’t count on it happening again.”
Present
SIMON
I wait for Baz in our room. Sat at the edge of my bed, feet on the floor, wearing trackies and a t-shirt like I’m actually considering going to sleep. Like I’ll even be able to sleep. Wishful fucking thinking. I’ve hardly slept in weeks. I think it’s my magick keeping me from keeling over, coursing through my blood and muscles like adrenaline.
Baz didn’t come back here after lessons. I waited for him like a bloody idiot until it was beyond mad to pretend he was ever walking through that door. He did show up for dinner, but neither Agatha nor Penny would let me at him. I was deflated, anyway. Tired. Maybe all the magick went with my fucking nerves today.
Merlin, now that I’m just waiting I’m beyond nervous.
I’ve got no idea what to say to him to make him listen. I don’t even know what I’d say if he did listen. Never thought that far. Never had a plan. I never do. That’s my problem, Penny always says so.
Fuck plans. Every time I think, I hesitate.
I lean forward to brace my elbows on my knees, running a hand through my hair. I take a deep breath through my nose, letting it all the way to the bottom of my lungs.
‘Imagine filling your chest with it. Let it expand the way your magick does.’
I do that, in the eerie quiet of the room. I breathe in until I can’t hold any more, and then let it slip slowly through pursed lips. I keep at it until the smallest sound makes me hesitate.
Turning my face toward the door, I watch the latch turn. The moment between that and the door opening is like a pause between notes of a song. Full of anticipation. Always a beat longer than you expect.
Baz is on the other side, soon striding through with his bag and violin case, hardly glancing in my direction before turning to his wardrobe.
“Stop staring, Snow,” he says, his quiet voice still managing to fill the room, echoing against the vaulted ceiling.
I don’t say a word. It really is all drained out of me—the energy, the magick—now that he’s close. Now that he’s here.
I won’t stop staring.
“Thought you’d be done making an arse of yourself today.”
“Where were you?” I ask.
“None of your business,” Baz says flatly.
Christ, I want to shake him. I want—
His violin case thunks the side of the wardrobe as he props it up. His arms—empty now—hang limply at his sides. Then he turns to look at me, the lamplight warming the colour of his skin. He’s still drawn. Wrong. I don’t know how to fix it. Any of it.
“Baz. Please.”
He walks carefully across the room, depositing his jacket on his bed. And his tie. And his belt.
He tucks his thumbs into the band of his trousers and pushes them down. They thump to the floor.
He stares at me for a beat, something familiar flickering in his eyes.
I hold my breath (the pause between notes) until he’s here, his arm circling my shoulders, knees bracketing my hips. Then it pours out of me in a shudder. My hands find his waist, and it’s too narrow. I grip it anyway. I fit my thumbs into the crease of his hips.
“Are you and Wellbelove back together?”
I shake my head, looking up at him. “No.”
“Do you want me to stop?”
“No.”
He lowers himself onto my lap.
The thin fabric of his pants and my trackies leave little to the imagination. I groan when I feel him, already a little hard for me. If this is what I can have of him … Christ. I nose into his neck, under his hair. He smells the way he should. That’s real. Real. My mouth opens to pant into his skin as he rocks himself forward.
“Fuck,” I gasp, gripping him tighter.
The blood rushes from my head to my cock. I groan into his shoulder as he moves, his hands bunching my shirt in his fists, pulling back just enough to strip it off me and toss it away. I’ve been overheating all day, his cool hands over my back a relief that makes my skin prick up with goosebumps.
I shiver and go straight back to where I was. My mouth. His neck. My hands, trying to slip beneath his shirt. I can feel the knots of his spine.
“Don’t,” he says into my curls, but he doesn’t stop moving. Like his brain and body are on slightly different tracks.
“Don’t what?” Hold you? Kiss you? Need you?
“Touch me there.”
Oh.
My hands drop from beneath his shirt, and I fist the blankets by his knees to keep myself from reaching for him.
His chest rumbles a sigh as I suck in a breath, feeling the shape of his cock alongside mine. The sparse hair on my belly catches between the buttons of his shirt.
“Don’t ask,” he says, his voice throaty as he grinds down against me again. I clutch at the sheets, bunching them between my fingers. “I’m tired. And I’m done. And I just—I need this. Can you understand that, Simon?”
I do. I want this too. I want him. He feels too good. He always has.
But I also don’t. I don’t understand why he was gone. Or why he came back. Why is he hurt and what has he done? It’s killing me not to understand, and I need to make him see that. To keep him close until we can parse through all the shit.
I pull my face back from his neck so I can look up at him, the lamp at his back casting his face in shadow. I still see him. His expression, a complicated mix of anger and exhaustion and desire. His downturned grey eyes, his long, crooked nose. Those soft, pale lips.
I want to kiss him. I don’t think I’m allowed.
“Where can I touch you?” I ask instead, tucking my face under his chin, running my teeth over his Adam’s apple. It bobs as he swallows.
In answer, he leads my hand back around his waist. Above the shirt. I fist the back of it—right between his shoulder blades—and lean back on my other hand. I let his weight onto me. His hand finds the half-numb scar tissue on my back, the other fists in my curls. I can feel every fuck of his hips, every hitch of his breath.
I hold him as tight as he’ll let me. I kiss up and down the column of his throat.
When he pulls away abruptly, I nearly chase him back. But it’s only to lift up on his knees, shimmying his pants down over his arse until they're bunched at his thighs. His cock falls heavy over my lap, half obscured by his white button-down shirt. He looks to mine—my erection straining and dampening my trackies—and then meets my eyes in a question.
I nod. I lift my hips enough that he can tug them down. His mouth is slightly open with breathlessness.
Then it’s murmured spells, a shifting of bodies, and finally he’s sinking onto me. Inch by inch. It’s been so long I might just lose it, I might not last. It’s as overwhelming as it always is. Maybe it's even worse.
My hand twists in his shirt, and I knock my forehead against his jaw. I slide my other hand up the back of his neck and into his hair and wait for him to tell me to stop.
He doesn't. He's gasping, trembling. Even as he’s fully seated.
“All right?” I ask quietly.
He shakes his head once. I rub the pads of my fingers slowly and firmly into his scalp, and whatever else he’s feeling, whatever else is going on, in this moment he’s not pulling away.
When he moves, it’s to set a steady, hard rhythm. He fucks himself onto me, his head curved forward, hair brushing my cheeks. I can feel the wet warmth of his breath on my eye, my temple. He finds the short hair at the back of my head, searching out strands long enough to tug.
I whine. I roll my hips against his.
It’s so good. It's so much. I thought we wouldn't have this. Not again. That I couldn't—that he'd be gone. Too far to pull back.
I hold what I can of him. The pleasure of this reminds me of the fire. The way it warmed me through, and then peeled me open. The way it left me raw.
And I—
I scrabble at his shirt, at the back of his head. Straining for something to hold onto. For something I can keep.
All I want is more of him. Even now, even inside of him, it’s like I can’t reach far enough. It feels so good. Too good. It’s like digging my finger into a bruise. Tonguing a cut inside my lip. A painful, addictive ache.
“Baz.”
Christ, I want him.
“Baz, please, I—”
I want to come.
“Please—”
I fit my teeth over his throat, I feel every swallow and whimper before the noise makes it past his lips. I tug his hair to get him closer. Closer.
“Snow,” he says. “Simon.”
“Baz.” I suck in a breath, I hold him tighter.
“Simon.”
He’s pushing me back.
Pushing me away.
I don’t want to go. I want him. I want to fuck him; I want to hold him.
“I need—please,” I say, even as I move where he wants me. The smokey cloud of my magick is filling my mouth. Stinging my nostrils. There’s a haze of grey around my vision and my whole body is shaking.
Baz’s hands are on my cheeks. His forehead’s against mine. His grip is firm as his voice cuts through the fog.
“Simon. Can you breathe for me?”
I—I nod my head. I take a breath. Shallow.
“Fill your chest with it.”
I do. The hand I’ve got in his hair goes slack on my exhale.
He lifts up until I’m just barely inside him, and I inhale, letting it out again as he slowly slides back down.
“So good,” he whispers. “Again.”
I breathe again. My exhale is a wounded noise. He’s moving again in earnest, his cock trailing wetly and making divots into the soft yield of my stomach. His thumb presses into my lower lip.
“Again.”
I breathe, he fucks.
“So good,” he repeats, and I clutch at him, pull him close. Just to feel the rise of his chest. To better hear the sound of his ragged voice.
“Fuck,” I say, lifting my hips from the mattress to meet him. “Fuck, I’m close—I’m close.”
“Yes.”
“Baz.”
“Yes, come on. Fuck—Simon—”
My fingers are dug into his back. Not in a bad way. Not anymore.
I gasp, “Fuck, oh fuck, please—please—” against his mouth, his fingers clutching my jaw.
I hold him to me, my heaving chest against his as I shudder and spill inside him. He doesn’t stop. Even as my legs start to shake, and my head drops to his shoulder, breaths coming too sharp and fast into his neck. He keeps fucking me until I can’t take it anymore. Until tears start beading in the corners of my eyes and my hand grips too hard, tugging him down so that he’s sat fully on my lap.
Even now, he’s still moving. I look down to see him fisting his cock between us, mine softening and beyond oversensitive inside him.
A finger in a bruise.
“Do you want—”
“No. No, just …” He shakes his head. His hand is a blur. “I’m—so, so close—fuck, fuck, fuck.”
“I know. S’ok.” He can have whatever he needs.
“Simon …”
He lets me hold his face at least, my thumb at the edge of his mouth, nose rubbing into his pulse point. I know he’s close. I feel the wounded sound he makes into my hair and the way his body tightens around my too-soft cock.
It hurts. It’s good.
I’m yours, I think as he comes. Hot over his fist. Against my stomach.
I'm yours even if you aren't mine.
Past
BAZ
Simon’s back looks terrible even after all my spells. His jumper burned away below the collar, and the bare sight of his back made me so ill that the smell of his blood still smeared on his peeling skin didn’t even make my fangs twitch.
And he’s acting like this is just another day. I hate it.
He’s frustratingly insistent about going back to the room, though, so I resolve to tell the nurse myself if we can’t make better progress by tomorrow.
I don’t know how much magick I have left, I feel burned through, hollowed out. Maybe it’s the suck of the Humdrum. I’ve never tried casting so close to it before.
Once we’re safely back at Mummers, Snow heads to his wardrobe to find clothes. I shed my muddied jacket, gloves and scarf and watch silently from the corner. The stiffness of his movement. The slight noises of struggle. I’ve never been burned. Of course I haven’t—I’d be ash. But I know fire, and I know it’s not gentle. This is not a small pain.
His trackies hang loose in one hand as he heads to the ensuite to change. Maybe shower. Crowley, that might not end well. I keep my distance, though. I’ve shown too much of my hand today, and he—
He can take care of himself. I think.
The door doesn’t shut behind him all the way, and I hear him groaning, and then cursing under his breath.
“All right in there, Snow?” Crowley, I sound affected.
“Uh—” his voice is sharp with discomfort. “No. Don’t think so.”
I take a deep breath and head toward the door, touching my hand just over the latch. “Can I come in?”
“Y-yeah.”
Pushing open the door, I see Snow bracing himself over the sink, his whole body trembling. In the stark light of the room, it looks even worse. His jumper is in tatters, revealing the blisters and tender pink skin across his shoulders. Swollen and weeping. There’s a thin sheen of sweat across the back of his neck.
Magickal healing isn’t cosmetic; he’s going to carry these scars. He got them shielding me.
Simon Snow saved my life.
I almost laugh, even though my throat feels painfully tight.
“I can’t get this damned shirt off,” he says, obviously trying to keep his voice steady.
“Okay. Just relax,” I say in a gentle tone I normally reserve for my siblings. For scraped knees and spilt drinks. “I’m going to try and heal you again. Then we’ll take care of the shirt.”
He nods.
My wand slides into my hand from its holster, and as I touch it again to his skin I’m taken aback by the sudden realisation of how much he must trust me in this moment. To let me point a wand at his back while he’s this vulnerable.
His curls are covering his eyes, so I don’t think he can see me staring at him through the mirror.
I draw forth the reserves of my magick to cast again, and again, and again. I cast until I feel the flame of it wick too low.
My shoulder feels weighted down, but the healing works. It’s better. Still faintly raw and pink, but better. The muscles in his back shift as he stands up straighter. He crosses his arms over his stomach to take the hem of his ruined jumper, but even that small gesture looks stiff.
“Wait,” I demand. “No need to cause yourself further injury. I think you’ve had enough for today.”
He huffs a laugh, dropping his hands. “Didn’t know you cared.”
“I don’t.”
“Mm. Sure.”
I move closer, taking the collar of his ruined shirt in my hands, careful not to touch his skin too much. He still shivers. (So do I.) Then I carefully rip it down the centre to the point where it’s burnt and frayed. It’s a subtle but stupid use of my unnatural strength, but fuck it. I don’t want him calling his bloody sword for this.
Now that it’s hanging limply open, he can easily tug it off from the front. I turn away, giving him privacy. Giving myself a reprieve.
The fabric flumps softly to the counter behind me, and then it’s just his breath and mine. Mine shallow. His ragged and strained. Both are stark in the silence of the room, bouncing off tiled walls.
I exhale. “All right, Snow?”
“Yeah.”
“Good.” My hand is already on the latch, ready to go. To finally shut the door between us.
Simon’s hand closes around my wrist, his skin feverish compared to mine. “Baz, wait.”
“What is it now?” I ask sharply, trying to mask the waver in my voice.
“Just—” he gives me a little tug, and—Merlin and fucking Morgana—I turn to face him. He’s giving me that same look he did when he announced that I’d saved his life. As if it was in any way comparable to what he did for me. What he’d do for anyone. “Thank you.”
“Don’t.”
“I mean it. I was off today.”
“You’re off all the time.”
He tugs me again, and I move another step toward him. Of course, I do. We’re so close now. I have to tip my head down a little to keep eye contact. I can hear his blood pumping through his veins, and see where it thrums in his long neck. It’s fast, too fast. His cheeks are too pink, and Crowley I can’t breathe.
“You were hurt. Because of me,” I whisper. And I hate myself for it, for showing him so much.
He shrugs, and his thumb presses firmly into my pulse. Where my pulse would be if I were alive. Then his hand trails up my forearm, following the curving line of my vein.
His blue eyes don’t waver. That look. Like I’m surprising him. Like he’s unlocked some door.
He pulls, gently, and we’re almost nose to nose.
“You’re reckless,” I say.
“Yeah.” His lips tilt in a smile. I watch them.
He watches mine.
It makes me want—I want ...
I kiss him.
I’m kissing him. And I don’t know what I’m doing, but it’s the most alive I’ve ever felt. The most terrified. I’m lit up, my own heart thumping hard against my ribs. I still can’t take in air. His lips are warm and chapped, and just slightly parted. Parting more. He tastes like smoke. His breath catches as I press in deeper. Tongue and teeth.
I think I must be dying. I think this might be the last jolt of electricity that lights up my brain before it all goes black.
But it doesn’t stop, my lips against his. His against mine.
I—I tear backwards, breathing hard through my mouth, a string of saliva tying my lips to his before it droops and breaks.
I stare at it. His mouth. I don’t know if I can take the look in his eyes, and I’d fucking run if he weren’t holding onto my arm like he’s afraid I’ll do just that.
Then his hand is around the back of my neck, pulling me down and down until we’re inches, millimetres, breaths apart.
He says “Yes,” and “Baz,” right before he devours me.