TW: Mention of blood, no images. Mentions of underage drinking. Also, pre/slash ish but gets a lil bit slashy.
Disclaimer: I don't own this. All I gots is a great cosplay fake metal arm, a cup o' tea, and some marbles. Wait, scratch that. No marbles. Lost 'em.
Also, Simon makes a reference to Capri Sun, a juice beverage commonly found in plastic pouches. I played football/soccer as a youth, and we'd slurp them vivaciously post-game. "Opening up a boy with the cold ones" is a vampire joke, if you're curious just search it on Tumblr. As well, they're both a bit OOC in here, just FYI. Happy reading, hope you enjoy!
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Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch was many things when sober-an intellectual, MVP of Watford's football team, an unfairly gorgeous roommate, and most of all, a pretentious prick.
He was also, Simon reflected bemusedly, watching him nuzzle fiercely into a boy's neck as said boy moaned unabashedly, very likely attracted to men.
And he must be a frat boy, Simon's brain contributed, noting the ring of sleek, pale people surrounding him, chanting something unintelligible- though with their manic eyes and looming shadows, they looked more like a cult plucked from London's elite. A soror cult guzzling something disturbingly red from Solo cups.
He'd been wandering the Catacombs, looking for something to displace the ache of losing a future with Agatha-losing her didn't hurt as much in itself- when he'd heard the throb of the music. Turning the corner, he'd blinked. The room before him was bathed in a feverish violet light that smoothed its inhabitants edges and gave them an otherworldly glow.
Now, as he moved close enough to see Baz's eyes gleam fervishly (and Simon's cheeks flushed for reasons he didn't care to explore), the sounds of chanting crystallized. It was like he'd been hearing it underwater and had just now come up for air.
"Chug, chug, chug, chug!" the tipsy students yelled, drunk on cheap liquor and peer pressure. Simon's bemusement increased tenfold- until Baz pulled away from the boy's neck and exhaled.
His cheekbones were slick and shimmery, his hair mussed and threaded with beads of sweat. He shone wonderfully in the dusty violet atmosphere, and would've looked more human than Simon had ever seen him but for the wicked fangs that glinted in the strobe lights.
He realized his feet had shuffled him through the undulating mob, towards the boy with long dark locks and wicked fangs.
"What are you doing, Baz?"
The tone was sharp and accusatory, and Baz stiffened predictably.
"Why, Snow, I'm just opening up a boy with the cold ones," he said, enjoying the squabble. He stank of iron and fancy cologne muddled with sweat.
"You-what? No? I-you-you're all vampires??!? I thought the Mage had most of your lot killed off!"
Baz's lips curled into a sneer and his voice rang out over the thudding bass of the music.
"The better question is, what in Merlin's name is the Chosen One doing at a vampire frat party that he was most definitely not invited to? Wandering in like a tipsy bull that's bound to break every saucer in the china shop?
His posh Hampshire accent was wavy and slurred, and it made Simon want to pull it's edges straight again. And break it.
"So now you'll admit you're a bloodsucking monster?"
His fingers drummed at his hipbone, and he held the incantation for the Mage's Sword in his next breath.
Just in case things went awry. They always did.
Baz groaned dramatically and it made his hair stood on end. "Circe, I wasn't supposed to admit we were vampires, was I? Drinking Jonathan and a martini must've made me more tipsy than I thought."
Jonathan, who was being tended to by a kid that Simon recognized from his Elocution lectures, leered from under his baseball cap that said, "Drink me", complete with a cartoon of Alice holding up a bottle in the Looking Glass.
He sighed, recognizing that his archnemesis and his supernatural compatriots-and their consorts- were completely inebriated and going nowhere.
"You're drunk, then."
Baz giggled and Simon felt the glitter-encrusted floor beneath his feet swerve a few centimeters.
"I thought you were too snobbish for the party culture?"
Thought he was too much of a snob for any sort of fun, really. Always had his nose in the air. Simon hated it.
He felt hot breath on his neck and flinched. Baz had slithered into Simon's personal space like a viper looking to strike his prey- and with the fangs to match.
"I am the party culture," whispered he, and Simon felt ebony strands of hair brush against his collarbone.
He swallowed as long fingers tinted purple tapped against the mole on the side of his Adam's apple as though they were playing violin.
It was a movement Simon had memorized from watching Baz practice the shifts over and over until they were like molasses, cloying and legato enough to transfix Simon, his homework left untouched on his desk.
"Are you-are you playing that Kishi Bashi song on my neck?"
Baz raised one brow in an aristocratic motion Simon had committed to memory.
"For Merlin's sake, Snow, why would I ever do that?", he drawled.
The fingers continued to dance, shifting back and forth, over and over.
They hit another mole-what Simon was almost sure was a high C- with a deftly elegant vibrato.
He gasped as Baz's pulse thrummed through his fingers, reaching the vein on Simon's neck, the same place where he'd drank Jonathan's blood like a child drinks Capri Sun after their football game.
"What are you doing?"
His vision was going fuzzy around the edges and he could hear the music as clearly as though Baz had been playing it in his ear.
Grey eyes had morphed into a shade of lavender that Simon couldn't help but think looked prettier on this smokey-eyed snob than when Agatha wore it.
Carefully lined eyes stared at him, beckoning.
"Dance with me?"
Not knowing what had possessed him- perhaps it was the mood lighting and secondhand smoke intoxicating him- he held out a freckled hand and swallowed hard. Baz reached back, and for a moment Simon was propelled into a vision of them swirling across the dance floor, laughing at the DJ's terrible music taste.
The next, he was held almost tenderly at the neck and Baz had sunk his fangs in.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "It'll only hurt for a moment."
The worst part was that Baz was right- he felt a puncture like a needle-and then his veins erupted into pure bliss. He tried to summon anger, his most reliable weapon, and found that the ticking time bomb of his magic seemed to be sleeping. He reached into his core and pulled out nothing but a floaty lightness. It carried his feet in a two-step, and Baz spun him around until his head buzzed.
He pulled him close, and though Simon had two left feet, Baz was always sure in his movement, balancing them out. Graceful prick.
He laughed as though there was no weight on his shoulders, as though pleasure could hold the burdens for him until the ground caught up to his feet again.
Baz grinned for a moment, and the flash of sharp canines in the strobe lights kicked Simon in the back of his knees and plonked him down on the floor.
The twinkling in his lavender-tinted eyes faded, and he regarded Simon with a mixture of concern, bemusement, and perhaps less loathing than he had before.
"You need to go."
Simon's curls brushed up against what was either a rat skull or a shot glass-both equally likely possibilities in the tomb-turned-rave.
Jonathan loomed over him, and it seemed as though Simon was just barely underwater, trying to reach through the wave of dizziness that swept over him. It was then that the anger broke like a dam and he registered that his roommate, whom nobody but him believed was a vampire, had tried to drain him.
"Didn't know he was anemic," said a vampire with a choker, platform boots, and hair- all as spiky as a porcupine.
"I didn't either," Baz said almost mournfully.
Then Simon did black out, and the last sepia image before it all faded was of a wry smile and combed-back raven hair.
He woke up in their room to a softly gleaming sunrise, an off-putting contrast to the dim, pulsating euphoria of the catacombs.
He glanced over at Baz, who was snoring, his arms slumped over his pillow. His cheeks looked flush with blood and morning light, smudged with yesterday's eyeliner.
He'd padded halfway across the room when the sheets rustled and Baz's calf, toned from endless football practices, emerged.
Then the rest of him. Lanky, aristocratic, and with sharp edges rumpled by a hangover and morning light.
"Snow."
"Yes?"
"If you ever tell anyone so much as a snippet of last night's...debauchery, I will drain you dry and burn your corpse until it's so disfigured that I can throw to the merwolves without the Mage throwing a fit".
"If I remember right, you were the one who was eager to lean right in and suck my blood, Baz. If anything, I should be the one holding it over you."
He'd never met anyone else who threw knife-sharp statements like they were snowballs.
Still, it made it all the more fun to poke at him, because if Baz was a sleeping dragon, then Simon was the brash knight with no sense of self-preservation-in other words, himself.
He smirked and held out a hand-not in hope, he convinced himself. After all, the lad had tried to drain him dry last night. He just wanted to piss Baz off, and he knew just the thing.
"Dance with me?"
