Disclaimer: Taylor Swift. Rainbow Rowell. The end.
A/N: Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it!
BAZ
I grow up with the knowledge that I'm both dead and immortal. For all that it's normal for me, I'm pretty sure it's bizarre. At least, I think so. I don't exactly have firsthand experience not growing up like that, at least not since I was five, but I can guess. At the very least, my condition makes expressions like "I'm dying to find out" into inside jokes with people who know, or inside jokes with myself when I'm around people who don't know. Fiona and I love to misuse the word "die" around each other, though sometimes I see sadness rather than mirth behind her eyes.
Almost as soon as I meet Snow, I know we'll be the death of each other. He hates me from the first, I think because I come from money and he clearly doesn't have any. And I hate him, for being special and loved without doing anything to deserve it. I should stay out of his way, for my own sake, but I'm a moth to his flame. Always stepping too close. Waiting to get burned to a crisp.
I'm dying to know how things will end between us. And I do mean literally dying. I risk my life on a regular basis to endanger him—the incident with the chimera comes instantly to mind—and I don't know how many more times I can do that before I get burned. And if I get burned I'll go up like grease paper. It's my job to kill him, of course—to rid the world of that infuriating face and that voice that works its way under my skin and into my heart and altogether the disaster that is Simon Snow—but I might just be the one who winds up dead.
I stay up at night thinking about how to kill him. I think about it as I roam the catacombs or the Wavering Wood. Hell, I even think about it in lessons and at football practice. I go over the spells I could use—Dead in the air, Dead as a doornail, Six feet under—and try to find the conviction I would need to make them work. That's the hard part, wanting it. At least, it is with Snow. Because I'm in love with him.
Which is why my thoughts and fantasies sometimes tend in a different direction. I picture myself trying to kill him only to wind up kissing him at the last moment. I picture him kissing me, Merlin knows why. I picture love confessions and not-so-accidental brushes of hands and everything in between. Could it end that way? Could we become boyfriends instead of enemies? I don't know. But I'm dying to find out. And I do mean literally dying.
