Baz

Snow comes home to Hampshire with me until he and Penny can move into their new flat. The hole over Hampshire was the first to retract, and my family was able to move back in June. The prevailing theory is that it's because it formed just before Simon filled the hole that was the Humdrum. I think it's because of the way Snow fills me.

Simon says my father still terrifies him (it's even more fun to watch Snow fluster about at dinner, now that I am fairly sure he's not leaving). But Daphne has practically adopted him. I hear her whispering to Father that nothing matters except my happiness (they know I'm a vampire but they forget that means I can hear everything they say from 3 floors away if I put my mind to it) and I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing that I've become so easy to read.

My sisters adore him, but for the stupidest of reasons: magic tricks. Growing up Normal, Snow at some point learned how to do these moronic tricks with cards and hats with hidden compartments and boxes with mirrors, and my sisters love it. They love him, full stop.

He juggles too. You might've thought seven years would have taught me every annoying thing there was to know about his insufferable goodness, but you'd be wrong. I sigh and accept it because I agree with Daphne. All that matters is my happiness. And his. I've become a bit insufferable myself.

Simon

I will never get used to the gargoyles. I imagine Baz at 5, motherless and half dead (that's the ratio he cites now, though I think he's way off. A tenth, max.), climbing into this monstrous bed (actually monstrous. It's carved all 'round with ghouls and claws and evil eyes) and trying to sleep. No wonder he's had nightmares for as long as I've known him. We both have.

Now we sleep wrapped in one another and take turns waking up with a strangled scream dying on our tongues until we see the other one there and we can close our eyes again. Tonight we wake at the same time. Baz runs a hand down my shaking arm, and I lay my face on his shuddering chest, and then the shaking and shuddering turn to smoothing and holding and my heat flows over his cold and his cold tempers my heat until we are both at equilibrium and fall back asleep at last.

Baz

Simon falls back asleep, but I don't. I stretch out next to him and watch his eyes move under his eyelids. I look around my room, my bed. Simon can't understand why I don't mind the gargoyles and wraiths and overall hauntedness of my house.

He asked me about it earlier today. I was about to say that home is still home even if it's haunted, but I caught myself in time. In the end, I didn't say anything at all. I don't know how to bridge this chasm of homelessness, now that I've become cognizant of it.

I think of the time I asked Snow who named him. He never answered, and I never asked again, because the look on his face as he turned away broke something in me that I hadn't known was there to break. He doesn't know his exact birthday, or even his birth year. He's never had a single birthday party.

As I'm thinking about this he leans over and whispers "Don't" in my ear. I hadn't heard him wake up. I startle, and then glare at him to hide my thoughts. "You really don't need to whisper in my ear. I could hear you just fine if you were down the road, you know."

"Stop thinking whatever you're thinking," he says again sleepily, and pulls me closer. He's worried about me. He thinks I'm thinking about myself. Can't blame him, I suppose. I certainly spent enough of our lives doing that. I can't tell him that I'm thinking about him, either. So I do what we always do when there's nothing we can say, and hold him. So far it's worked out ok.

I must fall back asleep too, because when I open my eyes again the room is lighter. Simon is pretending not to watch me sleep. I poke him with my elbow. "The truce doesn't include spying on me in my sleep." He snorts. "You've been watching me sleep since fifth year. I'm just trying to catch up."

It's true, so I just smile at him. It still amazes me that I'm allowed to wake up like this, next to Simon, watching or not watching him as much as I want. And right now I want to watch him. And apparently, he wants to indulge me. His hand rests on my shoulder and his warmth feels so good as his hand starts to move down my body that my eyes close of their own accord and I reach for him. I'm still not above swooning.

In my father's house, new fears bolster my resolve not to lose control. Fears that I love him because I'm weak. Fears that my love marks me as a disappointment.

His hands are on my body and my breath comes quickly. I'm still not ready to cross every line, but I realize it's ok. I don't need to. I still have this. The rightness of his touch sweeps my fears away, leaving nothing but love.

Simon

Afterwards we're sitting in a happy kind of quiet, eating some croissants that Daphne left for us by the door. (Baz still doesn't like eating in front of people. Except me. I'm not people anymore, apparently.) It's weird how normal I feel in the House of Pitch. Not Normal, though, thankfully. I still can't cast spells (Penny says I can but don't want to) but I can feel the magic inside me and around me.

Baz's house has its own weird energy that I've gotten used to (though I wouldn't say I like it). I've even made my peace with the wraiths, though we haven't told anyone about that because it's a convenient excuse for why I'm sleeping in Baz's room. I'm fairly sure his parents know that we're together, but if maintaining a lie makes Baz's life easier, I'm willing to go along with it. For now at least.

I think he's wrong about how they'll react, though. His dad still scares the crap out of me, but I'm pretty fond of his sisters and I think his step-mum would love anyone who loves her babies. (I never knew babies smelled like that. Like powder and happiness.)

Thinking about Daphne with the kids makes my heart twist in an all too familiar way. Baz didn't get to have that for very long with his own mum. The Mage murdered his mum, turned him into a vampire, took away his childhood and his life. Baz has been right all along about the Mage. The Mage had him kidnapped and trapped in that fucking coffin for months.

And all the time, I was supporting the Mage. For years I was angry with Baz. For years I defended the Mage against what turned out be understatements. I was still doing it here, in his house, while I thought I was helping him find his mother's killer. I remember the look on his face in the library, calling me the Mage's heir. How can he stand to be around me?

Baz

Snow goes from happy to suicidal faster than most people blink. Having been there myself, I recognize the look on his face. Mostly I feel sorry for him, but I also feel a little impatient. When is he going to stop blaming himself? He blames himself for killing the Mage and he blames himself for the people the Mage killed. He's weaving a labyrinth around himself that no one could escape.

When he gets like this I want to reason with him, but I know how little your brain cares about facts and reality when it's bent on hating itself. Usually I just stay quiet. I guess I don't really want to have this conversation. But I'm sick of feeling ashamed of myself for not having the bollocks to save him from himself the way he saved me. Maybe I should lure him into a forest and set it on fire. That might help. Short of that, we can at least take a walk.

Simon

I hear Baz take a breath and I brace myself for whatever he's going to say. I'm equally certain that he's going to throw me out of the house and that he's going to take me in his arms and tell me not to fret. I want him to do both. I don't want him to do either.

But all he says is "Oi, Snow. Let's walk." I wonder if he needs to hunt. We've developed a pretty efficient system. I hold his hand and he uses my magic to summon a deer. He's the only one this works with. One day I'll have the energy to think about why.

Unless he's come to his senses and killed me by then. Which he should do. Summoning the deer doesn't fill me with a sense of power anymore. I do it because it feels like the least of the things I owe him.

But we don't head towards the woods. We head in the other direction, up a craggy little cliff. He knows I like it there. It's cooler than the rest of the grounds, and there's an outcropping that's shielded from view and overlooks an inordinately loud waterfall. (Baz says it's haunted too, and that the noise is thousands of voices screaming underwater. I choose not to believe this.)

When we reach the spot, Baz turns me towards him and puts one hand on my waist and holds the other hand up like he's about to dance with me. Which, it turns out, is exactly what he plans to do. I shake my head at him like he's lost his mind, which is not beyond possibility. He glares at me until I obediently put my hand on his shoulder, and suddenly there's music playing. I'm impressed despite myself and he suppresses a smile. "Sounds of silence," he says. "I've been studying American spells. I've got the accent down now."

"Baz," I say. "Hmm?" he responds, all innocence. "Why are we dancing?" He looks down for a second, then back up into my eyes. "Because we've only ever managed to have this conversation one time before, and we were dancing that time, and I don't know how to start this conversation so I thought I'd try this."

I stop dancing and step back. The music stutters to a halt. "What conversation?" I whisper, remembering the ball, remembering talking about how he can change his mind about me any time. How I am less than him. He's brought me here to tell me. Tell me he's done. Just as I thought he would, just as I know he should.

My stomach plummets and my legs can't hold me. I sink down onto a rock and stare out over the waterfall, imagining adding my voice to the rest. Baz frowns and kneels next to me, shaking the hair out of his face. He puts his hand on my shoulder and I freeze as he speaks.

"Fuck. I don't know what just happened in your head, but it's definitely not what I was going for. Simon. Look. Look at me." I feel like I'm facing my executioner (which I very well might be) but I have no right to deny him anything so I look.

I don't expect what I see. His eyes are filled with pain. I'm suddenly terrified. "What? What's wrong? Did something hurt you? Did I hurt you? Am I the Humdrum again? Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Tears start to fall out of his eyes at the same time as his mouth twists into something that might be a distant cousin of a smile. His eyes remind me of that time in the forest, in the fire. Then, all I had to do was kiss him. Now, I'm the monster. "You're not a monster," he says. (That settles it. Vampires can read minds.)

"That's what you told me, remember?" he continues. "You're just a very bad roommate." I smile weakly, but I still feel made of lead, filled with something dark and grasping.

Baz

This is not going at all like I had imagined. He's more lost than I realized. I hold his hands with mine and hold his eyes with mine and will him to listen to what I'm saying. He's able to just will things to happen, I can give it a try too.

I draw on his magic and put it in my words. It's dangerously close to using his magic against him, which I'd threatened (emptily) to do when I was pissed about him accusing me of luring Bunce to my lair to kill them both. Not the right line of thought. I regroup.

"I love you, Simon." Why have I never told him that before? I stifle a hysterical giggle at the thought of how we must look, like I'm about to whip out a ring in a box and propose marriage. Instead I'm just trying to propose life.

"Simon. Listen to me. You're not the monster." Remembering him saying those same words to me. "You were used by a monster. Two monsters. And you killed them, you killed the monsters, for me. To save me." He opens his mouth but I cut him off. This is like a spell, and I want to have my say uninterrupted.

"I know you think you didn't do it for me, that you just did it for the world at large. But listen. You had already betrayed the Mage for me. You were keeping my secrets from him. You were protecting me from him. You didn't tell him anything about the Visiting, or that we were looking for my mother's killer. And in the chapel..." His face blanches, and I wish I didn't have to bring him back there even in words, but I do. "You attacked him because he attacked me. I remember it all clearly." And I do. I need a minute before I can clear the image from my eyes.

"You can't remember it all, Simon, but I do," I continue. "I had grabbed the Mage but his wand was pointed at my heart and he was thrumming with the power he stole from Ebb and he would have killed me. And you were completely destroyed but you grabbed his wand and pointed it at yourself. You were ready to sacrifice yourself, for me." He's listening, at least, and not staring over the edge of the cliff anymore. (What in Merlin's realm was I thinking, bringing a suicidal boy to the edge of a cliff? Sometimes I'm an idiot).

"He killed Ebb," he whispers so softly that even I can hardly make out the words over the noise of the waterfall. "He would have killed Agatha. He killed your mum. He had you kidnapped and tortured. He turned you into a vampire. And I followed him and followed him and followed him blindly the whole fucking time. I don't think I can live with it."

I take his face in my hands so he can't look away, and I push his magic into my words again. "You aren't the villain, Simon. He was. He used you. You're the hero. You killed the only person who'd ever been anything like a parent to you, a person you loved, to protect me. You never denied what the Mage had done once you knew. You saved me. You saved the world of Mages. You stopped the Humdrum by being willing to give up everything you had."

"And it's not like cleaning up your own vomit," I add, cutting off what he's surely thinking. "It's just not, ok? And you're not him. You're. Not. Him. You're Simon. And you're mine. And I love you. And I promise not to leave that poetically unsaid anymore, ok? I love you. Simon. I love you."

I keep talking, not letting him interrupt. "And we get to be happy, Simon. I get to be happy and you get to be happy. No one's using you anymore, and no one's using me anymore. I'll never have to poison your tea. You'll never have to decapitate me. We get to love each other and we get to be alive and we get to be happy, Simon. You and me. Us. Happy. Love."

I'm finally out of words, and strangely depleted, and more than a little terrified. And I wait. I've never wanted a spell to work this much in my life.

Simon

Somehow I believe him. At least about the part of him loving me, about him not wanting to get rid of me yet. I know he's pulled my magic into his words, that he's trying to cast them as a spell, but that actually makes me believe him more. He knows that's not how spells work but he tried it anyway. He loves me. I'm not a monster, at least not to him.

I'm not the Mage. I killed the Mage. And I followed the Mage. And somehow those cancel out. I still see the agony in Baz's eyes and realize that I'm hurting him. And that's the last thing I want to do. And so I open myself up to him, to believing him, rehearsing his words until the belief settles itself firmly in my heart. I'm not a monster. Baz loves me. We get to be happy.

Baz

I see it in his eyes when he finally decides to believe me, and I nearly collapse with relief. Then he gives me a mischievous smile, a Simon smile, and asks "Do you think they have any sandwiches at this waterfall? I'm ravenous."