I have no excuse except that I suck. For some reason I couldn't wrap my head around the editing on this chapter, and I'm still not satisfied with it, but I don't know what else to do, and you've waited long enough.

Also, this has mostly been about Simon's crazy, and it's only fair to let our favorite mad pyromaniac villain have center stage for a bit.


"Don't even think about it, Snow."

Simon's finger froze inches from Baz's face. Baz opened one eye halfway and glared until he retracted his hand. Simon adjusted his camera bag and sat down next to where Baz was lying sprawled on their landing, with his head hanging upside down over the top step. His violin lay half on his stomach, and he was holding the bow loosely in his hand.

"Were you waiting for me?" Simon asked curiously.

"Well I can't go in without an invitation, can I, Snow?" said Baz, with maddening superiority.

Simon's brow furrowed. "You're always welcome here, Baz. And you've snuck in loads of times before."

"Yes, well, it appears Bunce has upped your security after the last time I came in through your window. As if I'm not the only vampire in the world who would bother breaking into a flat whose occupants' most prized possessions are books." Baz sneered at thin air, twirling his bow idly. Simon followed the movement with his eyes.

"Were you playing?"

"Mm. It gets somewhat boring out here. And your neighbors got mad when I set the smoke alarm off. I don't think they like me very much."

"I can't imagine why."

"It is quite the mystery. No doubt they are jealous that they don't have tall, dark, handsome strangers waiting for them."

"That must be it." Simon stood up and held out a hand. Baz took it, not quite meeting his eyes. Simon hauled him up and unlocked the door. "I'll talk to Penny about finding some way to let you in without anyone else sneaking past."

"That would be appreciated, Snow," Baz drawled, sweeping past him into the flat and depositing his bags onto the sofa. "Lest someone get it into their head to take out their jealousies on my poor, innocent, unsuspecting self."

"I think you could take them," Simon said, kicking off his shoes and padding into the kitchen.

"So do I, but it would be a dreadful mess."

"You could do it without the mess," Simon called. His voice was muffled, and Baz suspected he had his head stuck in the fridge.

"Where's the fun in that?" Baz dropped onto the sofa and ran his bow lazily over the strings of his violin. They made a harsh trilling noise. He grimaced, his lip curling derisively. Simon wandered back in with a ham and cheese sandwich half in his hand and half in his mouth.

"Aww 'oo mhay?"

"Don't talk with your mouth full."

Simon rolled his eyes and swallowed. "I asked if you were okay."

"Of course," Baz drawled, but there was something off about his voice. Simon thought if Baz had a tail it would be lashing about restlessly. "Why would you even ask?"

"Dunno," Simon said, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "You just seem . . . I don't know."

"Well when you figure it out, you will let me know, won't you?" Baz said carelessly. He plucked a few more discordant notes.

Simon rolled his eyes and went into his room. He heard Baz start playing something that he recognized as Poor Unfortunate Souls. Baz had a bad habit of playing Disney villain songs when he was in a mood. Simon shook his head and started to put away his photography stuff. The bag with his tripod could just stand in the corner, but his camera had its own shelf. The film was almost all used up; he would need to replace it soon. He chucked a few extra rolls into his bag and threw away a used canister.

.

Simon thought he smelled smoke. He sniffed a few times, and tried to ignore the prickly feeling running down his neck. He wasn't going off. He couldn't go off anymore.

.

The camera had seemed a bit blurry that day; there were probably fingerprints on the lens. He would need to polish it-

"Well when you figure it out, you will let me know, won't you?"

Simon dropped his camera. Baz's voice had sounded just like it always had before . . . when he was trying to make Simon hate him. When he was pretending to be okay. When he was being the villain.

.

Simon definitely smelled smoke.

.

(God. Baz.)

.

The kitchen was on fire, and Baz was in the middle of it. Simon didn't think before grabbing his arms and hauling him the hell out of there. Baz didn't fight him. He let Simon drag him away, to the other end of the reception room, and push him up against the wall next to the window.

"Put it out," Simon said.

Baz was looking down his nose at him, with an odd, quiet expression that Simon couldn't quite place. It looked like it could easily turn into either affection or sneering, although the two were not mutually exclusive with Baz.

"Put it out!"

Simon gripped Baz's shoulders and shook him roughly. He wanted to thump the sense back into him.

"Baz. Put it out."

Baz's eyes slid to the fire slowly eating away at the curtains, towels and tabletop. Simon could see the flames reflected in his grey eyes, dark with hunger. He didn't let go of Baz's shoulders. Baz's eyes slid back to his. Simon held his gaze, and growled low and scraping in his throat. Pushed his jaw out. Stood his ground.

"Make a wish!" Baz said, almost lazily, and flicked his wand in the direction of the kitchen.

The flames died with a wheezy cough of smoke. Simon thought his ears were ringing, until he realized it was the smoke alarm going off. Baz pointed his wand at that too.

"Shut up!" he said blandly.

The alarm stopped mid-wail.

Simon took a deep, smoky breath. And coughed. And shoved Baz against the wall.

"What the hell were you trying to do, you arsehole!"

Baz pouted. "I was trying to use the oven. I think it's broken; it wasn't responding to my magic at all."

"Did you try turning it on?"

"I just said it wasn't responding."

Simon shoved him again. Hard. Baz's head banged against the wall, and he didn't flinch.

"You arsehole. You didn't need to use the oven - you needed to set something on fire. Fucking pyro."

Baz leaned back against the wall, his whole countenance drooping tiredly.

"What do you want from me, Snow?"

Simon kissed him. He kissed him until Baz melted and leaned into him. Simon trailed one hand down his shoulder, grazing his arm, and gently undid his fingers from around his wand. He slipped it into his own pocket.

"Fucking pyro," he said again, biting Baz's lip harshly. Baz groaned, looping his arms around Simon's neck and leaning closer.

"Baz," Simon muttered in between kisses. "Baz. Baz. Baz." Because he had spent eight years avoiding saying that name and now he felt the need to say it again and again. And again. (And again.)

"You saved me," Baz murmured, turning his face to rest on Simon's shoulder.

"Baz. Of course I did." Simon gripped him tightly.

"My hero." Sarcastic as his words were, Baz's voice sounded like he was laughing. Or crying. "Snow. Simon. You'll still kill me, right?" He rubbed his nose into the crook of Simon's neck, kissing the mole there and clutching the back of his shirt. "Promise you'll kill me."

(I don't want to live forever.)

Simon kissed him clumsily on the ear. "'Course. But only when we're a hundred and twenty years old and senile as the old codger downstairs. We can have our final battle then, and go out with a fiery bang in our dressing gowns and slippers."

Baz wasn't satisfied. He shook his head, and then shook all over. Simon gripped him tighter, pressing Baz between his own body and the wall, holding him there with his weight, as if he could physically keep him from falling apart.

It was a terrifying thought, in the cold light of reality. One of them being alive without the other. What that would mean. How they would have to live.

It made Simon sick and panicky to think about it, so he just didn't. But maybe it wasn't that easy for Baz. They still didn't know how immortal was immortal. Whether Baz would keep aging like a human, or whether he would die naturally. Nicodemus never even hinted at answers, to the point where Penny was convinced he didn't actually know himself.

But even if that was the case, immortality didn't mean completely immortal. There were still options.

Simon ran a hand through Baz's hair and gripped the back of his neck firmly. "I thought you were going to turn me into a vampire and make me stay with you forever."

Baz was still shaking. "If that doesn't happen, if you die first, if you just die, I . . ."

(I always thought I'd die first. And hoped you would be the one to kill me.)

"But that's easy," Simon said, pulling back just enough to push his face against Baz's, too hard to be called a nuzzle. There were unshed tears glinting defiantly in Baz's grey eyes, gone black and blue with pain. "Viking funeral, remember?"

Baz looked at him blankly. Simon smiled and knocked their foreheads together. "You know what that is, Baz? It's a flaming pyre set adrift on the sea."

"And what, I should just throw myself into the blaze and go out that way? I thought you wanted to keep me from killing myself."

"I thought you didn't have death wish," Simon countered. "And I'm not okay with you dying. Or killing yourself. But I'd hardly be able to stop you, would I? And the afterlife would be incredibly boring without you."

"I hardly think we're going to the same place, Snow. And you wouldn't be able to stop me from setting myself on fire in lots of other creative ways, either. Or setting everyone else on fire and laughing as I watch them burn. Actually, there are quite a lot of things I could do if you weren't there to be the hero . . ."

"That's why I'm hoping you go for the pyre. And what do you mean we aren't going to the same place?"

"I don't think there's a circle in the inferno for moronically oblivious Chosen Ones."

"Sod off. I'll die of boredom before I make it to St. Peter's gates."

"Heaven would be like a kind of eternal ennui, wouldn't it?" Baz mused. He lifted one of his arms draped around Simon's shoulders to tug idly at a golden brown curl. "The monotony would no doubt become exceptionally tedious. No matter, we'll work something out. Negotiate with the devil or something." There was a smile twitching in the corner of his mouth.

Simon cupped his jaw and kissed him.

When they finally broke apart, Baz stretched his arms above his head and wandered back to his violin. Simon recognized the Kishi Bashi song he started playing. It was the song he always played for Simon.

When in doubt you made me stay connected in with the beyond and on, like when the radio plays on and on and on and on and on . . . So the earth will dry of song, if I sang you one, carry on! Carry on, Phenomenon! So you got the best of me, so amazingly, carry on! Carry on, Phenomenon! And on and on and on and on . . .

.

.

Simon didn't let Baz go back to his aunt's that night.

In bed, Simon curled into his sleeping knot around Baz, locking their arms and legs together, winding his tail around Baz's torso and wrapping his wings around them both, enveloping them. Baz fell asleep almost immediately, but Simon lay awake with his forehead pressed against the dip between Baz's shoulders, trying to understand.

It wasn't that Baz wanted to die, it was that he would rather die, and he felt the need to prove that fact. He wasn't depressed, or suicidal, or bipolar, or any kind of mental instability you could label or medicate; he was just plain mad.

Simon wondered if it was the kind of unavoidable madness that came with being rich, brilliant, evil, and high-functioning all at once. The kind of mad that made you manipulate people by flirting, and flirt by sending Chimeras and pushing people down the stairs. That meant you were constantly at war with your own nature, fighting bloodlust.

Baz loved fire. He liked setting things on fire. He liked almost setting himself on fire. He liked reminding himself that he could still die.

It was all right. It happened. Simon would come home to find Baz on a smoking jag, or tossing a fireball between his hands, or twisting it around his fingers like a poisonous snake.

Baz was just so . . . capricious. Simon was a longtime scholar of the mercurial moods of Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, and even having recently learned there were more than pissed off, sadistically amused, plotting, and disgusted, he still could not for the life of him predict what Baz was going to choose to care about day to day.

Simon clutched Baz closer and crushed his nose against the back of his head. Tucking himself into crook of his neck. Lining up their very bones. It felt good. It always felt so good. They wouldn't be able to do this if one of them died. He supposed that was why kissing Baz always worked. It was like the fire, a reminder. Remember what you have to lose. Remember why you don't want to do this.

Maybe they just needed to keep reminding each other.

.

.

.

Things we need to work on:

No. 1 – Baz's madness. (It doesn't come up often, but when it does . . .)

No. 2 – Finding a good fireproofing spell.

No. 3 – Doing things that feel good. (Like flying.)

No. 4 – Not stressing too much about school work. (Or falling so deep into useless academia and obsessing over proving that your professors are idiots that you forget to eat, sleep, and answer your phone – Baz.)

No. 5 – Not distressing the neighbors. (Baz denies ever talking to them, but they look at him like he flashed them his fangs. They don't even bother trying to get a decent greeting out of Penny.)

No. 6 – Talking.

No. 7 – Thinking.

No. 8 – Goals for therapy. (Like getting to a point where I don't need weekly sessions.)

No. 9 – New lists.

No. 10 – Carry on.


That's a wrap! Kinda. I will post the EMDR thing, eventually, but with my track record you never know when that might be. Good news is, I'm almost completely finished with the second part of the series, and it's gonna have Fiona and Nicodemus and fire, so that'll be fun.