Erm. Hello. Bit late, this, isn't? Well. Yes. Anyway.
This is one of the many ways I was thinking Baz might come back, and I finagled it so it could be canon. Please enjoy.
Simon was lying on his back, alone in their empty tower room, practically delirious with exhaustion. And yet he could not sleep.
Please, please just come back, Baz, he thought. You're driving me mental, here.
Nothing happened. The strange, vacant room seemed to mock him. It was too big with only one person living there.
"Git," he said aloud, flinging the word onto Baz's empty bed.
"Bastard."
"Twat."
Maybe Baz really was here, invisible and laughing at him.
"Plonker."
He wondered if Baz was ever really living.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
"Vampire."
When even that didn't provoke a response from the invisible Baz, Simon groaned, rubbing his itchy eyes furiously. He really was going mental.
"Prick."
Outside a falling star streaked across the night sky. Simon tried one last thing.
"Wish upon a star. Come home, Baz. Please."
.
.
.
"This is his plan," Simon said mournfully. He was lying pathetically across his desk, his head down and his face smushed against the polished wood. Penny sat next to him in Ms. Possibelf's class, and she was trying to take notes while simultaneously ignoring his desperate stare.
"It is, isn't it?" Simon was undeterred. "He's not coming back. He knows as long as he doesn't show up, I'll kill myself trying to figure out where he is. I'm waiting for him to jump out of the shadows, while he's off having tea with Satan or something. He doesn't need to plot anything – he just needs to sit back and watch me drive myself mad."
"If that is his plan, it's clearly working," Penny hissed out of the corner of her mouth. "Just don't think about him. Beat him at his own game."
But asking Simon not think about Baz was like asking a fish to fly to the moon, and now he had roped her into a conversation. She cursed herself for enabling him, even as he raised his head to look at her with pleading eyes.
"But it doesn't make sense, Penny. He cares too much about school to skip out just because of me. He can find other ways to torment me while still going to class. What if he's spelling himself invisible or something, and all the teachers are in on it, and he's actually here and just laughing at me? Plus getting good grades!"
Penny thought if Baz really had done that, they would have heard him laughing by now.
.
.
Penelope didn't know where Baz was – she didn't think any of Simon's paranoid theories were anywhere near accurate – but then, she didn't really care. Her world did not revolve around Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch. She did not devote hours of thought, multiple conversations, and almost all of her energy towards her roommate. Then again, her roommate wasn't her arch-nemesis, even if she was as annoying to share living quarters with as twelve Basils.
She sometimes wondered, in moments of dark humor, if the reason the Humdrum kept targeting Simon was because it was jealous of all the attention he gave Baz. Maybe it got lonely while Simon was obsessing over Basil's vampirism, or his superb footwork, or his looming and plotting and widows peak, or his brilliant schoolwork, or his deliberate troublemaking, or his talent with the violin, or his general evilness.
And now this: The Case of the Absent Enemy.
.
.
Penelope followed Simon up to his room after classes. Simon was still saying stuff like, "This is what he's wanted all along," or "You know he's doing this on purpose, just to mess with me." Or "Crowley, I wish he was here so I could just – Baz? Holy shit, Baz!"
Penny froze and then immediately started sneaking back down the stairs. She didn't know when Baz had come back, but he wouldn't blink before turning her in; in fact maybe he'd save himself the trouble and light her on fire instead.
"Penny," Simon said, and she stopped, because she didn't think she'd ever heard Simon sound so . . . sound like that before. "Penny, get in here."
Simon was kneeling beside Baz, looking as white as Penny had ever seen him. Baz was sprawled facedown on his bed, and he wasn't moving.
Penny hovered over Simon's shoulder as he gently rolled Baz onto his back and brushed his dark hair away from his face. Baz's face wasn't white – it was grey. He looked even worse than Simon. Even worse than Simon had looked at the beginning of the year. He looked dead. Really dead, not just vampire dead.
"Baz," Simon called, as if he was trying to wake Baz up from a nap. He didn't move.
Simon's face was slack, but his voice was pinched and strained tight. He had forgotten to move his hands, and one was gripping Baz's arm while the other was still pressed against the top of Baz's head, his thumb touching his forehead.
"Baz . . ."
Penny thought she saw Baz's chest move just barely up and down. She reached over and felt for his wrist. She thought she caught the faintest pulse. Did vampires breathe? Did they have pulses?
She raised her ring hand.
"Get well soon! Early to bed, early to rise! I hope you feel better! Looking a bit peaky! Wrap thee in cotton, bind thee with love. Protection from pain, surrounds like a glove. May the brightest of blessings, surround thee this night. For thou art cared for, healing thoughts sent in flight."
That last one took quite a bit of magic. It was a common Wicca healing spell, but she wasn't a practicing Wiccan. She added a couple spells in Hindi that her mother often used, and then she and Simon waited, tense and staring, to see if they had any effect.
"Maybe if we get him some blood," she suggested tentatively, when nothing happened, although she had no idea how to go about getting blood for sick vampires. They didn't even know for sure if Baz was a vampire. They didn't know for sure he was alive.
Simon made to reach for his hip, like he was about to summon the Sword of Mages and slice his own skin open, but then –
"No blood," said a weak voice. "And no more healing spells. Crowley, I am so sick of healing spells . . ."
Simon's face went slack with relief and his hand moved back to where it had been before. "Baz."
"'Lo, Snow," Baz mumbled. "Fancy seeing you here."
.
.
.
Baz was a terror when he was ill.
"What is she doing here?" he asked peevishly.
Penny was examining him for injuries. It was mark of how sick he really was that Baz did not push her away.
"Healing your sorry arse," she snapped. "Where's your wand?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Basilton . . ."
Baz grumbled and tugged his wand out of his jeans. He was wearing jeans, and Simon couldn't stop staring at them. At him. He looked terrible. Really terrible. Grey and hazy. Tired. Wrung out. Thin. Ashen. Pallid. His hair needed a wash. Simon could feel the oil on his fingers from where he'd touched his head.
"Where have you been, Baz?" he asked, and his voice sounded strange. Hollow. He was sitting cross legged on his own bed, staring at Baz like an idiot, but he couldn't make himself stop. Baz glanced over at him, and Simon couldn't read his expression. He never could.
"Ran away," said Baz, averting his eyes and glaring at a spot on the wall over Penny's head. "Parents didn't want me to come back. Like hell I was missing our last year."
"How'd you get in?"
"Floated in through the window. You always leave it open, even in the blasted freezing rain-"
"Why didn't your parents want you to come back?" asked Simon.
"I was ill, Snow. What do you want from me?"
"You were ill enough that your parents kept you at home, so you decided to run away?"
"Actually, I hotwired the car, and then stole a bus when it ran out of gas-"
"You're still sick! We thought you were dead and Penny had to do all these spells-"
"Simon," Penny broke in. "You're smoking."
Simon was breathing heavily, shimmering as if in the middle of a heat wave. Smoke was rolling off his shoulders. Penny backed away, but Baz seemed unconcerned.
"Cool it, Snow. From the smell of it you already went off in here once. Unless, of course, you've just been sleeping in my bed, in which case we need to have a serious talk about personal boundaries-"
Baz broke off and raised his head, glaring down at his pillow. Both Penny and Simon watched, frozen in dismay, as he leaned forward and tentatively sniffed the cover. Then he looked up with the promise of death in his eyes and an ugly grimace on his face.
"Brownies?"
He took one look at their guilty faces and knew.
"Aleister almighty, Snow, did you and Bunce shag in my bloody bed!?"
Baz leapt up much faster than someone who claimed to be ill should have been able to and raced into the bathroom, screeching bloody murder about how they were disgusting animals and he was going to throw them to the merwolves.
"Baz!" Simon staggered off his bed and tried to turn the bathroom knob, but Baz had locked it. He pounded on the door instead. "Baz, dammit, open up! We didn't shag on your bed-"
"I'm going to have to burn my sheets, and my pillow, and you, Snow-"
"Jesus Christ, you are such a drama queen! Penny and I aren't even like that, why does everyone-"
"I'm going to vomit, you wanker, you bloody pillock! There isn't enough soap and hot water in the world-"
"I – am – not – shagging – anyone – you – complete – arse!"
"I am not stepping foot outside this bathroom until the entire room as been bleached – oh Hemmingway, you didn't do it in the shower, did you? Gah! I am going to kill you-"
"Baz!"
"Great to have you two back," Penny sighed, as the shouting and banging escalated. She turned to the door and left them to it.
.
.
.
Later, before Simon had fully convinced Baz that no shagging of any kind, anywhere had taken place – especially in their room – and after Baz had legitimately burned his sheets and pillows and thrown them out the window to the merwolves, both boys were lying on their own beds, with the moon's silvery light illuminating the other's glare. Baz had gotten new sheets out of the store cupboard, but he still lay stiffly on top of them and he kept sniffing the mattress suspiciously.
"Baz," Simon groaned, after the fifth time he did this. "I swear, I didn't shag anyone, and if I had I wouldn't have done it in our room. I almost went off earlier and Penny just came up a few times and fell asleep because she didn't want to go back to her crazy, cavorting, pixie roommate."
"Ooh, cavorting, big word," Baz grumbled. "How can Bunce even get past the wards? I doubt she's hiding a prick under that skirt."
"I don't know," Simon sighed. "You aren't going to turn her in, are you?"
"I have better things to do than make a fuss over every questionable move made by Penelope Bunce."
Simon sighed in relief. "Good."
There were a few moments of silence, and then Baz asked, in as irritable a voice as ever, "Why in the name of Edgar Allen Poe were you about to go off in the room? Everything still smells like smoke."
"The Mage wanted me to leave," said Simon, rubbing a hand across his face. "He wanted me to go into hiding, because we still have no idea where the Humdrum is or why it's targeting me, or how I'm supposed to destroy it."
"And he wanted you to run away with your tail between your legs?" Baz snorted. "Not too knowledgeable about the hero business, your Mage, is he oh Chosen One?"
"Sod off," said Simon amicably. "He said I needed to leave Watford and I said I didn't and when he tried to order me to I panicked and almost went off."
"Of course you'd manage to rein it in for him and not for anything else," said Baz disdainfully. "So Bunce is waltzing around with the blokes and then you go off at your bloody precious Mage? What the hell happened while I was away?"
So Simon told him. He told him about the classes he had missed, and about the Humdrum's attacks. He told him about fighting a goblin before he even set foot in school, and about overdoing spells. He told him about his theories about where he had been for the last few months.
"Invisible, Snow," Baz snickered. "Really."
"You would do it," Simon said. "If you could get away with it."
"Of course I would. But only someone as useless at magic as you would think it was possible."
For some reason the insult didn't hit as hard as it usually would. Simon had no idea why he was telling Baz all this, except that they had spent five months without being in killing distance from each other, and they were two months overdue for a fight. But this wasn't fighting.
"Agatha broke up with me," he said, and then immediately wanted to throw himself out the window. That was not what he had meant to say.
Baz was quiet. Like he didn't know how to reply to that. Or maybe like he had too many replies and he couldn't decide which one would be best. Or maybe like he didn't even care.
"She was waiting for you on the wall. She had your handkerchief."
Simon really couldn't stop himself.
This time Baz reacted.
"Your girlfriend had one of my handkerchiefs?" Simon could hear the disgust in his voice, and even though he couldn't see Baz's face through the darkness he could easily imagine the faint curl to his thin lips that would perfectly display the exact levels of revulsion and boredom that he was aiming for. "That's fairly creepy . . . what, is she stalking me too, now?"
Simon decided not to mention that he'd patrolled the grounds, including the catacombs and the fucking Wavering Woods, just about every night Baz wasn't there. Maybe he'd be able to get a decent night's sleep now that he was back.
"It's not . . . okay, it is a little creepy. I don't know. You didn't give her the handkerchief?"
"Obviously," said Baz, even though it wasn't obvious at all.
They didn't talk anymore about Agatha. Simon really didn't want to know what Baz thought about them breaking up, or what he was going to do now. He didn't think he'd like the answer. He didn't want to see the satisfaction on his enemy's face, like he'd somehow won, or worse, like the girl he was in love with was suddenly single. He'd end up thumping him, and then Baz would thump him back, and . . . well a solid fight sounded good right about now, but not over Agatha.
Baz didn't elaborate either, and Simon couldn't think why.
"Baz? Where were you really?" Simon asked after a moment. He peered through the gloom, towards where he knew Baz's bed was.
"I told you, I was ill."
"That's bullshit. You would come to school if you were bleeding out of your ears."
"Well it's none of your business, is it?"
"It's always my business when you're plotting something," Simon said firmly. "Even if you were sick and plotting."
"If you must know, my parents went to extreme lengths to keep me in bed, and I had to drag myself across all of England with only my wand and my car and a fever to get here."
"I don't believe you," Simon said at once, although he had no reason not to. Actually, Baz's story was perfectly plausible. It made Simon even more suspicious.
"Believe what you like, Snow" Baz yawned. "Anything else on your mind, or can I zonk out?"
"I practiced my sword fighting on your side of the room," Simon said sleepily. It was really quite late.
"What?!"
Simon laughed quietly to himself at Baz's indignation.
"Did you just sit around thinking of all the ways you could annoy me while I was away?"
"Pretty much," Simon mumbled. "Didn't you?"
"Obviously. But of the two of us, I'm the only one with a mind for plotting."
"I make lists."
"I have whiteboards and blackboards and markers and multicolored chalk."
"Labels? Flow charts? Sticky notes?"
"Of course."
Simon laughed again. It hurt a little, like his body had forgotten how.
They were quiet for a while, and Simon was almost asleep when he remembered.
"Baz? When you were gone, I wished on a star. I wished for you to come home."
"I know," Baz murmured. "I heard you."
Next thing I'll be posting will either be the first of the mini fics or else a Harry Potter thing. My Merlin stuff will be coming once I've finished it.