Simon hunted for little eeks and squeaks in the hallways of Watford. Agatha was still locked in the Headmaster's room, still unconcsious by the sound of it. Every inch that Simon covered got him a little closer and closer to Baz. He already had an arrow loasded and many extra in case he missed. He wasn't as skilled with a bow as he'd liked. All of his training with the Mage had finally offered some use. But still, Simon didn't trust his aim one-hundred percent of the time. His greater fear was that the Feeling would take him down again. That heart-stopping feeling when the love potion turned into a heart attack and stopped Simon in his tracks.
He could subdue it for the time being. If he remembered the life that he and Baz were to live. The happiness that they would experience together. He imagined them on a beach together- no Baz would take issue with the sun. A cabin then in the mountains, where they would spend the rest of their lives together without being bothered. Young and in-love.
But if he thought too much about the pain, it would stop him in his tracks. The Feeling. He could not worry about whether Baz had already started running from Simon, hiding from him, he could only think of the future of them, together. He could not think what it would feel like if Baz didn't want to be with Simon under the spell. Simon would have to shoot Baz against his will.
But then, then Baz would be happy and in love forever because they had all the time and the love that life could after. Hell, they could live as vampires together. Immortal lovers, the thought bloomed in Simon's mind and warmed him so fast that he had to stop and blush and smile.
Well, they would need to have a healthy dose of human blood in order to live forever - Simon had been doing some research - well, they could figure out the logistics later.
On Baz's mind, Simon was the least of his prioriteis. Agatha had finally stopped crying and instead the two just sat on the floor of the girls' bathroom as Agatha cried on Baz's shoulder. Sure, Baz hated the feeling of another person soaking his tailored suit with tears, but there was a connection, a protectiveness that reminded him of his sisters. He was used to caring for people. But those people were not Bunce. Being there for her made him feel vulnerable in a way that was strangely romantic.
Not romantic the way that he shared with Simon. It was not amourous. But it was quiet and sensitive. For the first time, he felt that he could be open with another person. That they shared pains and secrets. Neither had to carry burdens alone, that was what it felt like for Bunce to cry on his shoulder.
"I just-I feel loveless."
"I know how you feel."
"Of course you do. You probably know how I feel better than anyone else could."
Baz dropped his head on the tile wall as Penelope sat upright. "How long have you waited for Simon?"
"I was never really waiting. I never thought I could have him. I'm a vampire. Everyday is a curse and a blessing. I know I'm not entitled to anything, much less Simon, without hurting someone else in the process."
"You never felt entitled to him. Meanwhile I felt so entitled to Micah. I thought that we'd be togehter forever, expected it. I didn't realize that I was hurting him by believing that, that he felt-maybe-trapped? Used? Forgotten?"
"Penelope, you are many things, but you are not selfish. The only reason that Simon hasn't died some tragic death yet is because you were selfless enough to try and save him everytime. Selflessness is your nature.
"Everyone has their faults. Including you and I. You are a good person not because you don't make mistakes, but because when you can finally realize that there is a problem, you are willing to grow from them.
"Sure, I think sometimes you can get blindsighted, but I mean-while your boyfriend-who was also pretty silent throughout your relationship and didn't tell you that he was struggling-was feeling ignored about you, you were awake at two in the morning trying to find cures for your bestfriend and cursing yourself for falling asleep over textbooks."
They turned to face each other, tears in their eyes, smiling. "Thanks Baz, and for the record, I really do consider you a friend."
They hugged. For a second, becuase neither was so much a fan of physical touch and the action felt all too unnatural.
"Okay," Baz said. "I think we need to save Simon now."
"Yeah," Penelope said. "This is the part where we need to save Simon.
It was like a horror game. Inside the ballroom, the love potion was already taking obviouis effects on the students and a few of the staff were only just starting to come to conclusions about the love potion, inspecting the banquet table for enchantments and potions.
The students themselves were hugging and crying and whispering and kissing and hands-hands were being held all over with white knuckles, as if letting go would rip them apart forever. Dev and Niall for instance wer holding each others' hands and making pacts, hugging and calling each other brother. Even Phoebe was hunting the dance floor furiously for Agatha. In a room full of happy lovers, she stood out.
Baz and Penelope snuck around the corridors, dodging teachers that would just shove them out of the hall or into the dance room to round up all of the other students. The footsteps were always loud and obvious. They always carried the weight of a worried adult. But when Baz and Penelope turned around a corner, they saw Simon staring off into space, smiling to himself. To Baz, he glowed with some radioactive beauty that made him hard not to watch with deadly amazement. To Penelope, she could see the devious plotting behavior between those glazed over eyes.
She tugged Baz around the corner quietly and found the Mage's office door, locked. Perfect. Simon would not be able to open a locked door with a key and even if he could, he would not think that Penelope or Baz broke into the Mage's office and would expect it to be closed.
One quick Open Sesame and Baz and Penelope rushed behind the door, closing it ever so closely behind them and sealing it shut with a Time to Lock Up! And the two of them settled back from the door, as diof they expected Simon's head to pop out from the door while he sung, "It's Simon!" Taking a step back as Penelope sealed and checked the door, Baz realized his foot was about to step on something odd underneath it. He expected it to be a book or something, the Mage did not keep this room in the shape that Baz's mother once did. Instead, he was surprised to find that it was Agatha underneath his toe. He jumped back, careful not to trip on her as he landed.
"Penelope." he hissed. Penelope turned back to find him pointing at one Agatha Wellbelove. What was she doing in the Mage's office?
Agatha respected the sleeping powder, sitting in the eye of a blue powder hurricane as her body slept off the last of it's effects was well enough peaceful. However, she found that it was awfully boring and the powder did not seem to let up at all. In fact, Agatha at some point could not tell how much time had passed while she was still under the effect of the powder. And when she thrashed her arms up in the hurricane, lashed out at it, she'd feel her barely consious arms smacking the Mage's desk's legs.
Then, the clouds cleared, her body melted into a puddle on the floor and she realized that Penelope Bunce and Baz Pitch were looking down on her in the dark of the Mage's room, dressed to the nines in their dance outfits.
Penelope, looking lovely in soft pink, and Baz in dark green with embroidered flowers and feathers. At first, Agatha was only so surprised that two quite lonely people had dressed up for a night of romance alone, but then she remebmered that both of them now had partners who'd come to the dance. It was only Agatha, who'd recently been dumped, who was not in a relationship. How the tables have turned.
Still, in the dark, Agatha could not see Penelope's smeared makeup or Baz's darkbags and red eyes. None of them really realized that they had met the most beautiful paradox in that room. Three people. Alone together.
"Agatha, how did you end up on the floor?" said Penelope. Agatha realized where she was, the peculiarity. In her frustration about the dance, she'd forgotten that Simon was now wreaking havoc all around the school. She just assumed that it wasn't her responsibility. "Simon threw sleeping powder in my face," said Agatha.
"Why?" said Baz.
"He was plotting something. I think he's targetting you Baz."
"Oh, Morgana. As if all this didn't feel like a horror game already. Now my boyfriend is hunting me down with a bow?" Wow. Was Baz even allowed to call Simon his boyfriend anymore? Baz was prepared to give the break the curse right after the dance, barraging Simon with whatever spells would work, but it seemed impossible with Simon stalking the school like Ezra Miller in We Need to Talk About Kevin.
"Why? Simon loves Baz."
"Simon is actually obsesseed with Baz. Not in the lovesick puppy way that it seemed originally."
"We already know that. Where were you when he started signing his name 'Simon Grimm-Pitch' on all of his homework and washing his clothes with my shampoo?"
"What the fuck?"
"I know he's gotten crazier than I think you realize."
"Okay, but he said something about a spell for Baz, I wouldn't be surprised if he was trying to bind you guys together."
Baz and Penelope's eyebrows jumped.
"I mean he just kept on telling me how alone he was and I just-" Agatha took a deep breath and stared at the floor. She took her elbow in her hand. Unlike Baz and Penelope, Agatha never felt that she had the security to tell anyone how she'd felt. Even her own boyfriend was more of a social prop than a person.
Speaking with Simon and reciting his words felt like a confession. "There's just a terrible lonliness to him."
The words were silent and in the dark and yet with them spoken and hanging in the air, each of them were left to ponder this. Truthfully, each of them knew what that felt like and yet Simon, the criminally insane mastermind who was now stalking the castle grounds with a bow, was the only one to admit it.
Plato believes that every person on Earth searches endlessly for their other half. In his words, "'love' is the name for our pursuit of wholeness." Without this each person has just a little something missing, a pain that can never be remedied in loneliness.
Baz had studied some Plato and this idea of brokenness tickled the back of his mind as it grew. The lonliness, the missing parts of him seemed more and more present. This is what life before dating Simon felt like. An acceptance of the missing pieces, a reckoning that Baz would die alone, the brokeness would consume him further and further.
Penelope took off her glasses, and rubbed her eyes. The feeling of lonliness hurt worse, exponentially worse for those who were so recently in relationships.
"He needs to know that we love him," she said. "I love him. I always have, I'm his best friend. I'd go to the end of the world with him if I had to."
"You don't understand Penelope," said Agatha. The words just slipped out of her mouth.
"Agatha." Penelope said. "I love you too."
Agatha looked up. And Penelope's eyes were sincere. Wide and wet and beautiful. Tears pooled in her eyes and Penelope was there to hug her as she cried. They all cried. All this time she had worried and wondered and believed that Penelope was only her friend becuase of Simon. She was left to wonder what Penelope really meant to her, if any of her friends were real friends. But now, there was confusion and sadness and hope. Hope, goddamnit.
