Never Tear Us Apart

This story takes place in the same universe as my other Simon and Baz fics. Post-canon. Written for the Carry On Big Bang 2018/2019. With thanks to basicbatsheba, vkelleyart and jeska for looking over the writing!


Chapter One: I Got You, That's All I Want


Baz

I rush out of my flat, hurtling down the stairs. I narrowly miss bumping into a passerby as I hurry out the building entrance. It's not my usual decorous pace.

Slow down, I tell myself, maneuvering along the busy intersections that separate my flat from Simon's. But I don't want to slow down. I don't want to sedately stroll to his place.

Every year end I would leave Watford for Hampshire and Simon would leave for an unknown care home. Not that I knew that. Not until eighth year.

Last summer, I split my time between my family's lodge and the Bunces' home. I moved into Fiona's flat before uni started.

But this year Simon and I are both in London.

Today is the first day of our summer holidays.

The first summer holidays I will spend entirely with Simon. The first summer holidays I'm not leaving him behind.

That thought makes me walk even faster and soon I'm racing up the steps to his flat.

I've got my key in the door but I can already hear their voices. There's a Bunce lecture going on, that's for certain.

She's not left yet then. Bunce is heading to America to spend a month with her boyfriend. She's bringing him back with her for the end of summer.

It will be a glorious month where I'll have Simon all to myself. It's no wonder I'm rushing.

I made myself scarce last night, to let them have their last evening together. More from a sense of self-preservation than selflessness.

Bunce is a menace when she's on a mission. (Packing for America qualifies.) I'd have been happy to cheer up a moping Simon but when Bunce is on edge it's catching. Best to steer clear.

They don't hear the door open so I catch the tail end of Bunce's diatribe.

"So help me, Simon, I don't want to find a bloody mess when I get back. You have to clean and sweep and try not to eat on the sofa."

"I'll make sure to keep the place clean as a whistle," Simon says. I know that tone. He's teasing her. He knows how she feels about the overall unsanitary state of whistles.

Predictably Bunce snorts. "Whistles aren't clean, Simon. We've been over this. Full of saliva and bacteria, they are."

"Yeah, Penny, I know. I know how to keep up the flat. I've managed all year. And it's not like we didn't clean after ourselves at Watford."

"That was all Baz. You certainly never kept your side of the room tidy."

"I'll make sure it's hygienic, Bunce, never you mind," I say, as I walk into the kitchen.

I had intended to lean against the doorway and fix Bunce with a stern look, but I'm weak. I'm across the room kissing Simon on the temple instead. "Good morning, love."

Bunce makes retching noises as Simon slides his arm around me and drops his head to rest on my shoulder. Right where he belongs.

"Well, I suppose it's a good thing you've arrived, Baz, so I can tell you both. No snogging in here while I'm gone. It's a kitchen, not a spare bedroom, so keep your hands to yourselves." She glares directly at me as she says this.

I raise an eyebrow and pull Simon a little closer to me. "Noted, Bunce. There are perfectly acceptable alternative locations for that."

She narrows her eyes. "And keep the shagging to the bedroom," she adds.

"Penny!" Simon's cheeks flush and he gives her an outraged look. As well he should. Bunce is exaggerating as usual.

We don't shag. Not yet.

It's a long story.

Bunce snorts again. "Save me the innocent look, Simon. I live here. I've seen how you two are around each other. And the walls are thin." She glares at him. "Mind you don't burn the kitchen down when you're cooking. Baz is a terrible distraction."

"I most certainly am not," I say, drawing myself up to my full height so I can sneer down at her. "I've averted disaster more than once in here and you know it."

She shakes her head. "You don't get accolades for averting disasters you caused in the first place, Baz. No snogging in the kitchen." Her eyes glitter triumphantly behind her glasses. "I'll know. Trust me."

I am tired of this haranguing. "Don't you have a plane to catch?"

Her eyes dart to her watch then widen in alarm. "Blast it. Premal should be downstairs waiting."

She rushes over to Simon and envelops him in a tight embrace, her words tumbling out in a breathless rush. "Be good, be safe, don't burn the flat down, remember Baz is flammable, I'll call you when I get to Micah's."

Simon's hugging her just as tightly. For all my supposed nonchalance, I'm deeply grateful to Bunce. She's kept Simon in one piece for years now, and she's kept him going this past year. He's lucky to have her.

I'm lucky to have her, I tell myself, and then I am swept into Bunce's arms. "Take care of yourself, Baz," she orders, giving me a shake. "Make sure you eat properly and don't let Simon do anything stupid."

Simon's protests are shut down with a scowl from Bunce. She pulls back to fix her eyes on me, shakes me one last time and then runs out of the kitchen shouting "Don't snog on the countertops!"

I hear the rattle of her suitcase wheels and then the thud of the slamming door.

I pull Simon to me, slide my hands up into his bronze curls and tip my head down to meet his lips. Now our summer has officially started.

"Baz," Simon whispers my name against my lips and then his hands are at my waist, pulling me closer.

I'm taller than he is. He used to hate it but I don't think he minds as much anymore. But I know he likes it when he can be above me, when I have to reach up for him.

Bunce isn't here. I get a good grip on him and lift him onto the countertop. His face is higher than mine now and I revel in his grin as he looks down at me. His legs wrap around my waist to pull me closer and I extend my neck up to reach his lips.

"Knock it off!" Bunce's voice booms out, echoing around us. We both startle, pulling away from each other, and Simon bounds off the counter, landing off balance and clutching my arm to steady himself.

"What the bloody hell?" he says, looking around the kitchen wildly. "Did she come back?"

I shake my head. She's bloody spelled the kitchen, that's what she's done.

Simon is rubbing his backside. "It's like the counter kicked me off," he complains, his tail lashing about furiously.

His mobile starts ringing and I can see it's Bunce when he pulls it out of his pocket. He looks to me.

"You better answer it. She'll not let it rest."

His shoulders sag as he pushes the green "answer" button to accept the call.

"You bloody barbarians!" I can hear Bunce's shriek through the speaker. "You couldn't even wait for me to get to the airport before you started defiling the kitchen!"

"How could you even know?" Simon asks, wrecking any possibility of denial on our part.

"She spelled it, Simon." I run my fingertips along the countertop, searching for magickal residue. Bunce is brilliant when she puts her mind to something. I would never have sensed this spell if I wasn't looking for it specifically. I hadn't detected it at all.

Bunce is devious. It pays to stay on her good side.

She's still shouting at Simon. "I bloody well told you, Simon. I told you I'd know. Remember that. And wipe the counter down, you heathens. The antibacterial wipes are under the sink." Bunce's voice softens. "Love you both, you ridiculous saps. Try to remember the kitchen is for eating."

I arch an eyebrow at Simon. "No worries, Bunce. We're quite good at heating things up and swallowing."

Simon jams his finger on the red "end call" button just as Bunce's screeching resumes.

"Baz." He swats me with his mobile. "You can't just say things like that. You know that'll drive her right batty."

"Hmm." I lace my fingers with his and pull him to me. "What if I don't just say them?" I slide my lips along his jawline to that sensitive spot just below his ear.

Simon's fingers clench mine. "Then you'll drive me mad," he whispers.

"That's the whole point now, isn't it?" I drag him out of the magicked kitchen until we tumble onto the sofa.

Dating Simon Snow has not been the erotic gropefest I had fantasized about fifth year. It is infinitely better, although far different from what I had allowed myself to imagine.

I had imagined a brief, grand passion with the intensity and tragedy of a moth incinerated by the flame that so mesmerized it.

Not to say Simon doesn't mesmerize me. He does. Every moment I am with him. But what we have is something slow that keeps building. Something to savor. Something incandescent but neither of us gets burned.

It's not the cataclysmic inferno I feared. And I am so very grateful for that.

Slow suits me. Simon is my first everything. My sexual awakening at 15. First crush, first kiss...I'll just leave it at that.

We both have some intimacy issues. I know I do.

Attachment, abandonment, vulnerability, trust—the whole spectrum, between the two of us.

One new development this year is that I'm seeing his therapist now too. If you call monthly Skype sessions "seeing", that is. But she knows Simon. It helps that I can talk things through with someone who knows him, knows what happened to him. To us. Knows what's going on in his head. She's very proper and private about it all. She's also very direct. "Talk to Simon about that, Baz, will you?"

Talking things through with her gives me the courage to talk to Simon. And sometimes. . . sometimes it's good to talk to someone about non-Simon things too. How I don't want to go into the family business. How much I hate LSE. The idea that's been growing in my mind of what I actually want to do with my life.

Other than be with Simon, that is. That's a given.

I don't talk to her about the subject that troubles me most.

My intimacy issues stem from an assortment of reasons but my greatest concern is centered around my condition. The unalterable fact that I am a vampire.

I trust Simon more than I trust anyone.

I don't have that same faith in myself.

I can't predict what might happen in the unbridled throes of passion. I truly don't know what to expect. I know that side of me becomes more evident when I am emotionally challenged or in a heightened emotional state.

My fangs tend to pop at the most inopportune times.

I've never let myself completely lose control with Simon. Not fully. Not in the way you might expect after dating this long.

I'm afraid to. Some part of me always holds back, stays alert.

I'm petrified of what I might do, without meaning to.

I've pulled us back from the brink more than once. Simon's understanding. He's tolerant of my hesitation even though he thinks my concerns are rubbish.

"I can understand if you're cautious because this is new and different, Baz, or because you're just not ready. I can respect that," he had said, just a few weeks ago. "But I trust you. I'd never hurt you and I know you'd never hurt me. You've had ample opportunity and it's never happened. Not even when the Humdrum was trying to control you, when you were drained of magic and desperate. I don't see how this could be any worse." He'd grinned then, the muppet. "I'm thinking it's got to be a hell of a lot better."

He doesn't push the issue though and I know that's because he's not been ready either. He's trying to get me comfortable but I know he's hesitant as well. I believe he trusts me, but trust is a sensitive subject for us both.

We've spent so many years only a shade away from outright violence that the tenderness is still new and cherished.

There's no need to rush. What we have is more than I ever expected and I'm thankful.

Not to say that what we have isn't erotic. His tumbled curls—they're longer and more often in disarray now due to my wandering hands. The sensuousness of Simon's bare torso—the constellations of freckles and moles that I trace with my fingertips, my mouth. The way his muscles ripple under the softness of that tawny skin. How his answering touch makes me quiver with anticipation. That sleepy half-lidded gaze he gives me as he's waking up. Crowley. Simon's positively pornographic in the mornings and I can barely keep my hands off him.

There's been groping—not quite as fumbling and awkward as it was at first.

It has led to some embarrassing moments, I won't argue that. Not what I've fantasized exactly, but the reality is still far better than what my mind imagined.

Not that the bar is very high when my own previous experience is basically limited to desperate, sad wanking. But it's been surprisingly new territory for Simon too.

It seems Agatha was on too much of a pedestal for him to even indulge in more than an occasional guilt-inducing wank.

But I don't think it was all just Agatha either. Simon's magic troubled him like my condition troubles me. The control of it. Or rather the lack, I should say. His magic would seep out of him so easily when he was upset or emotional. The unintended effects of Simon's magic were either fantastic or catastrophic. Rarely in between. You never knew which you would get. He never trusted himself to let go. Didn't want to bring Mummer's crashing down around us just for the sake of a brief wank.

His magic's not here anymore though. Now I'm the one holding back.

I'm not on a pedestal. I'm right here with him, by his side, every step of the way. Wherever this road leads us, it's with us together, hand in hand.

We touch constantly, a reassurance more than anything that we're both here, that this is real. Even a year later it still seems unbelievable sometimes. We're close but not cloyingly so.

Bunce would likely beg to differ but it's not like either of us especially feel the need to restrain ourselves after over eight years of unresolved tension and three years of oblivious, and in my case despairing, mutual pining.

I don't intend to inhibit my access to Simon even for Bunce's delicate sensitivities. I've held back from tenderness to him for so long. I won't let myself hold back anymore.

It's not like she doesn't snog her American boyfriend when he's here.

It's been two delectable days of sleeping late, casual breakfasts, soft moments and endless snogging on the sofa. As well as some skilled groping that is nothing short of erotic. This is the best start to summer that I've ever had.

Time stops when I kiss Simon. The moments linger and all I can think about is the softness of his lips, the drag of his fingers in my hair, the warmth of his skin. The feeling that I never want to let him go. I never want the moment to end. It's bruised lips and wandering hands and whispered words. And the softness of his gaze.

Monday comes with a barrage of increasingly indignant texts from Mordelia and a phone call from Daphne.

My step-mother is a kind woman. She is unfailingly considerate and, if I am going to be honest, a godsend to my father and to me in the years after Mother's loss.

There were times I felt as if I had lost both my parents in the immediate aftermath of the vampire attack at Watford; my mother to the flames and my father to his abject despair at her loss. Fiona kept both of us going as well as she could, in her roughshod, brusque and boisterous way.

Daphne has a gentler touch, with Father and with me. She has never, in any way, attempted to take Mother's place. She has never shied away from mentions of Mother, never attempted to diminish or erase her presence in our lives or at Pitch Manor. I am eternally grateful and humbled at her sensitivity. She treats me as her biological son, from the early days of her courtship with Father; she has always comforted me, hugged me, watched out for me in her subtle and compassionate way.

She has never shown any reluctance to be near me nor any attitude other than solicitude for my condition. I was concerned, when the children started arriving, that her manner would change. That she would grow increasingly protective of my younger siblings, distance herself, isolate me.

That never happened.

If anything, Daphne went out of her way to include me more—sharing ultrasound images of each of them, starting with Mordelia, even mailing copies to me at Watford in later years as the family grew. She involved me in preparations for each successive addition to the family, from taking my input on possible names to including me at the baby showers held in their honor.

She took to Simon right away, her inborn mothering instinct—so strong and comforting to me as a child—immediately asserting itself when she realized Simon was so alone in the world and such an integral part of my life. Truly, even before then. Daphne connected with Simon from that first Christmas.

She calls on this Monday morning to invite us to spend the weekend with the family at the lodge. The children miss me, she says, and they miss Simon too.

My siblings adore Simon. I think they love him more than they love me. Even Mordelia, the traitor. He's a natural with children. Magnus trails after him, the twins continually pester him with their awful puns and terrible jokes, and he enjoys it all, the muppet. Mordelia maintains her sarcastic attitude with Simon but it's softer than it is with me.

Even my father has warmed to Simon. (Warmed may actually be too mild a term.) He has not told Simon in so many words, but Father was horrified to hear the details of the way the Mage treated him. Treated him not as a child or a student but as the Mage's personal weapon, to be honed, utilized, and ultimately sacrificed at his sole discretion. It always turned my stomach and it utterly disgusted Father when he became aware of the details.

Outsiders may have thought my father treated me in the same fashion, that the Old Families thought of me simply as a weapon against the Chosen One. Their best weapon, seeing as I was in such proximity to him.

But it was never truly that way. I was initially simply a conduit of information, on the Mage and Simon's doings. I was necessarily in the line of fire, should the Mage and Simon choose to strike at the Old Families directly, due to my being at Watford and being a Pitch.

I was also the one who had the best chance at taking down the Mage's Heir and by default the Mage himself if they came at me, by virtue of that same proximity.

But it was my choice to put myself forward in this cause. It was my idea to persuade Father to let me bear the responsibility of being the Old Families' agent at Watford, not only their eyes and ears, even though he argued against it initially.

It was my unspoken decision to sacrifice myself in that ultimate, inescapable showdown with Simon that I knew lurked on the horizon. It was all there in the prophecy.

It was my choice because I loved Simon and it was the only way I could find that would give him a chance of surviving, and simultaneously keep the Old Families believing that I was dedicated to the cause.

It had never been Father's goal to endanger me just to get back at the Mage. If anything, I pressured him into it, against his better judgement. To have knowingly and resolutely forced me into that role, against my will, would have gone against his nature.

Father didn't want me to go back eighth year. Not after the numpty incident.

I think it was hearing about Simon being sent to the care homes in the summers that tipped the scales for my father. No matter his disdain for the Mage and for what Simon signified as the Mage's Heir, Father was rightly horrified that the Mage basically discarded Simon and let him moulder and languish in those awful homes every year.

"Basilton, I would have offered to take him in, here, had I known." Father had been sitting behind his desk, his fingers steepled in front of him, after one of the particularly grueling Coven inquiry sessions into the Mage's death. Simon had headed home with the Bunces and Father had brought me to the lodge for the weekend. "No matter who he was, Chosen One or not, no child deserved that kind of treatment. Once David Llewellyn had made Simon his presumptive heir, he should have been bound to provide a home for that child. Year round. Not just during the school term. It was unspeakably cruel to do that to the boy, year after year."

My father puts on a forbidding front, but those who know him well are aware of his core of consideration; the Mage's treatment of Simon was an affront not only to Father's innate sense of decency but to his genuine feelings as a parent as well.

"He didn't even bother to officially make Simon his ward, Father." That disturbing fact had come out at that day's inquiry. The Mage had gone to all the trouble of verbally declaring Simon his Heir to the Families and the Coven, had completed the paperwork for Watford with that implied relationship but had never actually codified it. It was appalling. And cruel. It was a spoken commitment but not a genuine one.

One more reason for me to hate that man.

I tell Daphne that I'll speak to Simon, but that we have no other commitments and will most likely make it down for the weekend. Then I text Mordelia to stop pestering me and that I will see her Friday. Of course, she immediately texts me back to make sure I am bringing Simon with me.

As if I would leave him behind.

Simon grins when I tell him about Daphne's invitation. "I've missed the little 'uns. And I'll never say no to eating at the Club or at your parents."

"You are incorrigible, you barbarian. All it takes to win you over is good food and plenty of it. Is that why you decided to kiss me that night in the forest? So you'd still be welcome for Christmas dinner?"

Simon tackles me before I can continue my teasing. I fall back on the sofa, his strong arms pushing me down, his legs tangled in my own and his face hovering over me. "You know how much I love roast beef, Baz."

"I know how much I love you," I whisper, unable to keep teasing when he's got his arms on me like this, when he's leaning over me this way. I reach up, taking in his grin as I do, and kiss him.

Simon's lips meet mine and his lower body settles down between my legs, his chest resting on mine, fingers tangled in my hair as my arms reach around his waist. His wings flutter widely once and then fold around him, sheltering us both under their canopy. The light is muted in the haven of his embrace, the sunlight filtering through the red of his wings, bathing Simon in a rosy glow. He pulls back and raises an eyebrow.

He's been practicing that, the infuriating git.

"What?"

"You're staring," Simon says. "See something you like?" He smirks down at me, the sunlight highlighting his tawny skin and multitude of moles.

"I'm not staring."

"You were. Usually you close your eyes as soon as I get that close, but not this time."

I was staring. I am staring. I don't think Simon will ever understand just how breath-taking he is. He looks in the mirror and sees an ordinary bloke, as he says, unremarkable in every way except for the wings and tail.

He's so very wrong. I've told him that. I think he's starting to believe me but sometimes I'm not sure he truly does.

I'm so weak for this boy. "I don't want to look away. I want to drink in the sight of you, Simon Snow, to convince myself again that this is real and not some dream I'm having."

"It's not a dream. Might be a nightmare, seeing as I've got creepy dragon wings and a tail." He always tries to laugh off those appendages of his. It's been over a year and even though he's adjusted to the inconvenience of them he still harbors conflicted feelings about their existence. Vestiges of his magic. Relics of a time when he was more than he is now, in his opinion. A sign that he is between worlds, not a Mage in his own estimation but also eternally never a Normal.

It breaks my heart every time.

Simon deserves so much better than this. Deserves to be full of magic still, deserves to be a Mage. To have merited the respect of the Magickal world, to have been able to finish his time at Watford like the rest of us. Not be mistreated and broken by his mentor, drained of his magic by the very entity he gave his lifeblood time and time again to overcome.

Drained by his own sacrifice, at his own volition, to save a world that judged him and belittled him and never adequately respected him.

Myself included. There are times I think back on the things I would say to him, the ways I would use my words to hurt him, to wound him, to make him feel as bleak and empty as I felt, and I shudder at my cruelty.

Simon's voice breaks through my spinning thoughts. "Stop it." He brushes my hair back with a gentle touch. "Stop the thinking, Baz. For such a brilliant bloke you really can be thick as a brick sometimes." His thumb strokes my cheekbone. "In case you didn't notice we're having a moment here. Come back to now, Baz, and forget about whatever dismal time in the past your mind has taken you to. You're bound to be overthinking it anyway, knowing you." The cheeky grin is back, but his eyes are serious. They're deep and blue and I would willingly drown in them. "Keep your eyes open, if you want, but I'm here with you and I'm real and this is us."

He bends down and his lips touch my forehead, trail a line of kisses to my mouth and then further, along my neck, to my collarbone, a gasp leaving me as the heat of his touch sears through me.

I'm here, with Simon. Where I am supposed to be.

The past is behind us. Our future stretches out ahead, bright and clear and free of the weight of what came before.


Chapter Title from the song I Got You by the Split Enz