Hello Snowbaz fandom! This first chapter is just a more detailed version of the end of the book after the Mage died, but the rest will be new material. I am trying out this new formatting with the dots for all my Snowbaz stuff, I hope you like :) I have a ton of stuff written and that I still have to write for this fandom, so I expect you'll hear more from me soon.
After they ate all the Hobnobs, Penelope fell asleep on Baz's bed. He frowned at her, and tried to go over to his bed at the same time Simon instinctively moved towards his own, almost separating them. They stopped and looked at each other. Simon immediately stepped closer, tightening his hold on Baz's arm and pushing his face into his shoulder.
Baz raised his wand. "Two peas in a pod."
Their beds, Baz's still with a slumbering Penelope on top of the sheets, slid silently from their places until they settled next to each other. All three of them were covered with blood, but they were so tired. Simon collapsed on his stomach next to Penelope, his wings dragging awkwardly to the side. Baz slid in next to him on his back, until they were tangled together with hands clutching shirts, Simon's tail wrapped unconsciously around Baz's leg, and Baz's nose and bloody mouth pressed against Simon's curls. The whole room smelled like smoke until the scent got blown out the open window, and they slept.
.
When Penny woke up, she was confused as to how she, Simon and Baz had ended up in the boys' beds pushed together in their room, and then as to Simon's wings flopping around and hitting her in the face, and the blood covering both boys, and why they were curled up closer than sworn enemies had any right to be.
Penny didn't suddenly remember what had happened - she just felt all the feelings and knowing welling up inside her like so much magic. She was a little torn between the parts of her that wanted to take action and fix everything, make sure her three people were okay and then hide them away from humdrums and vampires and anything else that might hurt them, going back to sleep, and the surprisingly big part of her that wanted very much to throw a pillow at the boys.
Then Penelope spotted her mother slumped in Simon's desk chair, and promptly burst into tears.
.
When Baz woke up he looked like he wanted take a protective stance over the sound asleep Simon and hiss at the Bunces to get the fuck out of their room before he lit them on fire.
Instead he sneered at their incredulous expressions and took a shower. When he got out the blood was off his face, his hair was slicked back like a gangster's and the room smelled like cedar and bergamot.
Mitali had left, and Penny was crouched over Simon, wondering if she should try a spell or something. For what, she wasn't sure.
Baz promptly shoved her out of the way and reclaimed his place by Simon's side, slinging an arm around his shoulders and leaning against the headboard. He took out his phone and called his parents. They sounded upset. Well, his aunt sounded upset.
.
When Simon woke up he didn't say anything; just sat up so he was shoulder to shoulder with Baz and clung tightly to his arm. He drank all the tea Penny put in front of him and took a shower only after she reminded him and only after a silent conversation with Baz.
Penny bored her eyes into Baz's forehead as the sound of running water started up in the bathroom. He ignored her for several minutes and only seemed to notice her staring when he looked up from his phone and accidently caught her eye. He raised an eyebrow at her and stuck his out his tongue.
When Simon got back out, he stole back Baz's arm, drank more tea and still didn't say anything.
Baz summoned all the mint flavored Aero Bars in the room and the three of them finished them off in no time flat.
.
.
The days before and during the trial passed in a daze. The winter break was extended so most of it could be properly sorted out before students returned to the school.
No one mentioned Nicodemus. Baz kind of wanted to admit he had helped and also kind of didn't. But the trouble everyone would be in for consorting with a banished vampire wasn't worth the small acknowledgement, and it would bring up all sorts of questions he didn't want to answer.
He had been the one to tell Nicodemus Ebb was dead, the day after it happened. He found him at his and Ebb's mum's house with the rest of his family, all of whom had broken the rules and let him in while they waiting for news about their aunty. He didn't even step inside, just told the lady at the door who looked like a younger, cleaner version of Ebb to tell Nicodemus that by the time they got there she was already dead.
He left before she could start crying. He had to get back to Simon.
.
Simon was staying with the Bunce's. For a few days Baz stayed with him, much to the Mrs. Professor Bunce's chagrin. She didn't like him very much. She knew he was a vampire. Penny and Simon had tried to tell her years ago, but like Penny she hadn't really believed it until she saw proof with her own eyes. She wasn't stupid, she saw the blood and the birds and his fangs and while she could prove very little without a confession or proof he drank blood, it was proof enough for her. Penny talked to her mum, and her dad put in his opinion, and they still found Mitali glaring down Basilton like he was the enemy.
Baz glared at her stonily from where he was lounging on Penny's bed with his head in Simon's lap. Before he could insult, threaten, or possibly offer Mitali a large sum of money to keep quiet, someone else spoke up.
"Please don't," Simon said, and it was the first thing he had said since waking up in the tower room. His voice was cracked and pitchy and hoarse, but he clutched Baz's hand tightly. "Please don't tell. They'll take him away. They'll kill him."
Mitali crumbled.
.
The three of them slept in Penny's room and hardly spoke to each other, although Simon didn't let go of Baz's hand, and Baz made no move to remove it himself. Penny kept staring at them, at their hands, at Simon's head on Baz's shoulder and Baz's arm around him, until she got bored and started reading something. They all slept and ate a lot.
.
They realized Simon's magic was gone and that his wings and tail were there to stay.
.
And then Baz had to go home.
Of course he did, his family had been the latest victims of the Humdrum and they were calling for someone's head. The Families were on the brink of starting a war, although they did not yet know there was no one left to war against.
He didn't want to leave Simon. Penny left them alone for a little bit, the day before he had to leave, and they spent most of it curled up in her bed, hands tangled together, trading mobile numbers, and Baz promised that no, he wasn't going to be able to pretend this never happened, honestly Simon, I already know you're barmy, there's no need to mess with you and I'll miss you too anyway, idiot.
.
Penny came back, took one look at them, and threw a pillow at their heads.
"What the hell you two!? A lifetime of obsessive hatred and then this? What do you call the last seven and a half years of fighting, stalking, abuse, and attempted murder!?"
Baz shrugged, very Simon-like, and nudged the top of Simon's head with his chin. "Foreplay?"
Simon snorted a laugh into Baz's jumper.
Baz grinned like he lit the stars and hung the moon.
Penelope threw up her hands. "I give up. It's not like I've ever understood your relationship anyways. Move over, Pitch."
She clambered onto the bed and threw her legs over Simon's lap.
"I'm watching you," she said.
"Of course you are," said Baz. "I'm criminally good looking."
"Or possibly just criminal."
Simon laughed again, like he wanted to, but also it like it hurt. Baz squeezed his hand and nosed his hair. His eyes were burning with a mad glint and Simon had that chin-jutted expression that meant he wasn't letting something go, that meant the harder someone pushed him about it the tighter he'd hold on.
.
Penny supposed she could scrape together a few scraps of trust for Tyrannous Basilton Grimm-Pitch. Or maybe trusting Simon was the same as trusting Baz, like the way you couldn't complain about one without the other coming up.
Maybe she didn't have to trust him at all. That could be Simon's job. Baz could be Simon's problem, like he always was.
She had been wrong about so many things.
.
Simon only once thought to ask about Agatha. Penny said she was fine. Baz didn't ask at all.
.
.
Baz went home and got tell his aunt the Mage was dead. He also got tell her Simon was off limits. With her enemy finally slain and her new job, she was content with that. For some reason it was harder to tell his parents the same thing, but for Simon he probably would have disowned himself. Telling them was easier by far.
He got to address the Families.
In years to come, there would be no small number of people who would ask exactly what happened after he went home. What could he have said that stopped a war?
It was hard to convince a society of narrow minded old people to try and work with the changes and take back what they deserved subtly, instead of storming the nonexistent bastille, especially when you have to leave out the part about dating the technical heir to the previous revolution that was now being revolutionized against.
But he managed. It was at a party, after all. He always felt more in control in a suit.
.
"Basilton. Were you the one who killed the Mage?"
It was Lady Ruth Salisbury, an elderly woman who came from a family much like the Petty's - powerful, but not prominent or involved in politics. She had stopped visiting the club after a scandal with her daughter, and her husband had died not long after. She was a wide, sturdy woman, with masses of thinning white and grey hair pinned up under an atrociously feathery hat, and a world's map of wrinkles around her broad smiling mouth and tired blue eyes.
Baz smiled with perfect charm. "I am about to travel to London to attend the trials. I'm sure the Coven will get to the bottom of what happened. Perhaps next year the elections will see your name rejoining the ranks. It goes without saying that your family would be a most welcome help in the magickal government."
"Oh, dear boy," the lady sighed. "Have some cake."
He spent a strangely enjoyable few minutes being stuffed with cake and sandwiches, and being prodded with uncomfortably blunt questions, by a lady who apparently did not believe in being under two hundred pounds, before he could sneak off and call Simon.
.
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The trials themselves did take place in London, with the Coven after the new elections. Simon, Baz and Penelope shared a hotel room during the face trials, waiting for each other to finish.
They had carefully discussed what they would say, and decided on the truth. Or rather, bits of it.
No one mentioned that Baz had wanted to be the one to kill the Mage, although he agreed to tell them about his mother's visiting, and a vague description of their first meeting with Nicodemus, making it seem like he had told them who had sent the vampires to Watford from the start and then they had gone to the Mage to corroborate the story.
No one mentioned Baz and Simon were together, although that was not on purpose. They just didn't point it out and didn't bother to hide that they were holding hands anytime they weren't separated.
(Baz also didn't want to mention he was kidnapped by numpties, until Penny pointed out that it would only get the Mage in more trouble, and anyway the trial records would be sealed so no one would know he had been bushwhacked by a couple of numpties.)
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Simon and Penelope came from each questioning with pale faces and Simon didn't speak for the rest of the day after he had to recount how the Mage died. Baz brought along his violin and played every song he knew, from Hot Cross Buns to Mozart, with Simon holding his feet in his lap.
The Coven was getting quite sick of questioning Baz, so he had lots of free time.
.
Then it was over, but it didn't feel over. Baz was back to school while Simon stayed with Penny. Time slipped and slid and sped along despairing and discordantly, and then they were dancing, and then they were talking more than they had in a while, and then they were moving in.
(Well, Simon was moving in.)
(Because Baz and Penny did not help.)
(At all.)
.
.
Now that he wasn't at Watford, Simon had to make some new lists. Some he actually wrote down on their brand-new whiteboard, or stuck on the fridge so Penny and Baz could see it and add their own.
But some were private. Just for him in his head.
Things to not think about:
No. 1 – The Mage.
No. 2 – Ebb.
No. 3 – His magic. Gone.
No. 4 – The Humdrum.
No. 5 – Watford. (That one wasn't easy.)
No. 6 – Agatha. (That one was surprisingly easy.)
No. 7 – Gay?
No. 8 – His parents. (Not anymore.)
No. 9 – What to wear. (Penny and Baz wanted a shopping intervention. Like hell.)
No. 10 – What the fuck he's going to do now . . .
Sometimes he just wants to scrawl EVERYTHING over this entire list. He's good at not thinking. At least that's something he can do.