Chapter Text
BAZ
Agatha has started walking into my house as if she lives here. I almost throw my bow at the door when it opens. My fangs drop, and I’m glad for my violin somewhat shielding them. Of course, she knows, but it’s always better to not threaten my friends when I don’t intend to. She collapses into the chaise lounge against the wall, followed by the almost billowing fabric of her dress. It’s white, and lightweight, and matches her perfectly.
I stretch out a few more notes, then resign to put my violin away.
“Oh, Basil. Don’t stop– that was lovely,” she slides her sunglasses down her nose and sighs. Perhaps she is honestly asking me to keep playing. From the way she draped herself across the chaise – very Daisy Buchanan – I doubt she is here to listen to me play.
“Is the help too much again?” I ask, knowing the last time she dramatically slumped across my furniture was because of the new groundskeeper her parents hired.
Agatha sighs again. She’s very good at that: sighing. Her shoulders lift up and down, her eyebrows furrow. It's a performance, like so much of her is. “I can’t stand her, Baz. She is everywhere. I can’t even walk around my own garden without finding her knelt in a flowerbed, or doing something to the pond. I was going to muck out Felicity's stable and she was there, already doing it.”
I stare at her. “What did you say she looks like again?” I ask. Truly, it is the only thing I can think of which might convince her that her infatuation with the groundskeeper – Agatha won't even say her name – is not just hatred. If I told her outright she would be much less inclined to listen than she will be if I let her figure it out by herself.
All she does is drop her head back against the chaise and exhale loudly through her nose. The next time she calls me melodramatic I am going to remind her of this. And the last five times she’s done the same thing. I gave her a key for emergencies; with my family away in Oxford for the foreseeable future, I felt like I at least needed someone nearby who had a way in.
“So, are you hiding out here?” I ask, giving up on my violin and placing it back in its case.
“Yes. And not just from– her.” I bite my tongue. She hates when I meddle.
I push her feet, freeing the end of the chaise so I can sit. She pulls her legs up beside her, taking her sunglasses off and folding them. “What?”
“This morning I went down to the kitchen to eat breakfast. And there are my parents at the table. Sitting with my ex-boyfriend.”
I blink.
Agatha kicks me.
“Ex-boyfriend,” I say flatly. Agatha hasn’t dated a boy since we were teenagers– not unless being pursued at university by men she’d said two words to counts.
“Yes.”
“Simon Snow,” I state, not thinking too hard about him. Instead, I put effort into not thinking about Agatha’s ex-boyfriend, who I was obsessed with for most of my teenage years. “The prodigal son returns.”
Agatha grimaces. “He’s moving in with us until he can find somewhere to rent.”
Manchester must’ve disagreed with him– that, or he is just following Bunce home. I ran into her in the supermarket a few weeks back and have since started driving an extra ten minutes each way to a different one. They’ve practically lived in each other's pockets since we were eleven and I imagine they must think the world will end if they spend more than a single night apart. I can’t think of a reason why Bunce and Snow wouldn’t live together, allow their codependency to thrive.
I don't know what to say. I’m not sure I can live in a place where I’m at risk of falling upon Simon Snow around every corner, even now. Not after eighth year.
“He applied for a teaching job at the primary school and didn’t actually consider that he might get the job, so he starts work in September and can’t find anywhere he would want to live, or can afford to,” Agatha tells me, without having to ask her. I appreciate this. The inner turmoil I am going to suffer will remain just that– in. Back then, I should've told her what happened with Snow. Or at least admitted how I felt, but we were just becoming friends, and their relationship was barely over and – well – it wasn’t just mine to tell.
I couldn’t imagine Snow ever being comfortable with me telling Agatha that I almost killed myself in front of him, only stopped by him kissing me there amongst the flames I’d created to destroy myself.
I am nothing if not delicate.
Now, five years have passed and Snow is living in my best friend's house and would be a teacher of three of my siblings if my parents hadn’t grown bored of hampshire. Circe. I find myself somewhat reticent that they’re gone– it will be much harder to orchestrate ‘accidental’ meetings than it would be if they were still here. I can’t suddenly spend half my time at Agatha’s, at the very least she would suspect–
No. I won’t do this.
It has been half a decade, I will not immediately fall back into my habit of manufacturing scenarios with Snow just because I could – in theory – see him. He always thought I was trying to hurt him, maybe get him alone so I could turn him – never had the thought crossed my mind, not seriously – but really I was just… infatuated. He knew that of course, though he suspected Agatha was the object of it. Until that night maybe. I have no idea what that made him think.
I blink at her again, not entirely sure if my silence is suspicious. I often let her talk at me and offer insight at the end, but she may already be finished and I haven't commented. “Does he know you’re here?”
Agatha snorts, “Christ, are we still teenagers, Baz? I ate and left, I don't owe him anything.” Agatha has been cursing like a Normal since her first year of university. Fiona does that too, but she slips out of it if she doesn’t think about it. Agatha lived six weeks around Normals and found herself at home.
I raise an eyebrow. “He always got so jealous.”
“Of our passionate heterosexual love,” Agatha croons, reaching out and taking my hand. “God, I should’ve told him we were married.”
I squeeze her fingers and snort. “He’d think it was part of an evil plot.”
Agatha hums. “I might be being unfair. Penny told me he’s grown up a lot and feels awful about intruding.”
“He couldn’t live with her?” I ask, letting go of Agatha's hand and rising to my feet. All I know of talking about Snow is teasing– there was never anyone I could tell the real things to. Dev and Niall had no idea until we were finished with Watford. If we’re moving to kinder conversation I need to ground myself. I retrieve my violin and pluck an idle tune, leaving the bow in the case.
“She and her fiance are still settling in,” Agatha explains, as if I should've been well aware that Penelope Bunce is engaged. The sudden silence of my instrument clues Agatha in. “Honestly, Baz, you’re such a shut-in– everyone knows.”
“I’m not a shut in–”
“You spend more time talking to the people working in Costa than anyone else. Other than me.”
“Oh, fuck off–” I half snarl at her, frustrated. I enjoy being on my own. University used up my social battery for the next decade at least. Moving back in with my family didn’t help. Anyway– I visit Dev and Niall in London once or twice a month, and they badger me in the intervening weeks.
I glare at Agatha. She’s frowning.
“I’m working things out,” I tell her. She doesn’t call out that I have been working things out since I finished uni, after spending three years studying economics without a clue what to do with the degree afterwards. Agatha has a veterinary degree. She’s going to be starting work at the slightly magickal practice beside her fathers. I am going to be spending more time alone in this empty house when she has a job which could call her around the clock. Agatha may as well have told Snow we’re married, I feel like a housewife.
“Yes, I know. Still, you need to get out more. You’ve barely been on a date since you finished uni.”
I don’t correct her. One night stands hardly count as dates, and the few guys – and one short lived boyfriend – I was with in my three years at LSE were hardly anything to rave about. It’s hardly any fun dating Normal’s, and dating Mages is no good either. Wherever I look, there are people who don’t know I’m a vampire and wouldn’t believe me or would inform the Coven of a wild animal in their midst.
Agatha is around until lunch and vaguely saunters out when she seems to notice my restlessness. She knows I’m a vampire – she started bringing me pigs blood from the butchers a few years ago – and at this point recognises when I need a drink, so she leaves well enough alone. She doesn’t know that at school I was constantly shaking Snow off so I could feed, she only knows about the time he saw me.
It is quiet on my own, here. The house is big – even with three children, the nanny, my parents, and, on occasion, Fiona it was cavernous – but the quiet makes me two feet tall. Still, most of my time is spent in my bedroom. I have the run of the house – my father even emptied his office and told me it was mine to use, most probably to try and influence some productivity, but I haven't opened the door since he left. The only thing that can be said is that I have now played violin in every single room. It seems to be all I do now.
It’s bizarre to see my family’s home full of furniture, a few pictures and paintings and ornaments, but essentially all personal belongings gone. I helped pack them up into boxes and onto a van, and now it is just me. I fill each and every corner of the house, but really I’m just in my bedroom unless it's an hour when Agatha may show up unannounced, in which case I do my best to not seem depressed and lonely.
She still sees it.
Honestly, Fiona’s room is the only one that hasn’t changed. She drifts in and out, staying for a few days – a week at most – every few months as she’s done forever. Since my mother was alive, as far as I can tell. My mother’s belongings are where they have always been: a spare room on the top floor. I haven't been inside. Her life got packed away in the weeks following her death, and none of it has been touched since. I can feel spells preserving the boxes from damage the neglect may cause from outside of the door.
Eventually, after wandering, playing maudlin notes absently on my violin as I went, I settle into my room, comfortable in trusting Agatha locked the front door when she left.
~~~
Stupid. Stupid idiot man that I am. I’m wearing a floral suit. I’ve done that before. I have even done that before at Lady Salisbury’s house. I did not consider that circumstances have shifted significantly since I accepted this invitation a month ago. Most importantly – as I discovered from Agatha a few weeks ago and somehow immediately forgot – Simon Snow has one more name after those first two.
Of course he would be at this… it isn’t really a dinner party. Lady Salisbury is nearing seventy and wishes younger generations to still enjoy her hosting parties. Truthfully, I have spent the last several at least somewhat occupied by subtly glancing at Jamie Salisbury. I’m retroactively distressed about this – especially given the comments I made to Agatha and Niall on the occasions I’ve used them as my plus one – because Jamie and Snow are carrying a reserved yet jovial conversation and side by side they bare an uncanny resemblance.
Not once have I seen Snow so out of place whilst standing somewhere he so obviously belongs.
I tear my eyes away from them, and try to remember the spell I read about once in my teenage years which causes the floor to swallow you up. I’d been apprehensive about trying it at the time as the details were hazy on where exactly you went once the floor opened up, and no reversal was supplied. Right now, a concrete purgatory seems pretty welcoming.
I wish Agatha was here. She started work on Monday and earlier this evening I got a text saying that there was a border collie in labour who needed her assistance more than I needed a buffer. She has a dress which matches this suit, the same shade of pink as the flowers. Of course my family couldn’t leave Oxford when the school term is about to start, Fiona is off slaughtering my brethren, and Dev and Niall are too busy shagging to accept my last minute plea that one of them rescue me.
The booze table is across the hall, and once I've been seen to have had a glass of wine – or two – I am pouring myself a very generous vodka tonic. That will, at the very least, dull my heightened senses. As well as the music, not too loud for most but already pounding on my skull. I can already smell Snow’s magic. He’s already under my skin. That, or seven years as roommates means I’m more apt to notice the sickly green scent even through all the other mages in the room.
Lady Salisbury has good taste in red– I’ll complement her when I get a chance. Now, I take a sip and chance a glance back to Jamie, now talking to one of his mother’s friends. Simon Snow Salisbury has vanished.
One perk of vampirism is it is very difficult for someone to approach me without my noticing. Apparently, time has not damaged Snow’s ability to bypass this.
I cut his soft, “Hi, Baz,” in half with my elbow in his sternum. It’s as though I’ve just been dunked into ice cold water as I register it’s Snow’s voice – deeper than it once was, more mature – right at my shoulder. I turn to him in time to see him wheeze, leaning slightly forwards. He’s not quite doubled over but he’s making a good go of it.
A winded, “fucking hell,” comes from him and I think hard. Surely that spell is in the back of my mind somewhere. Nothing comes.
My wand slips from my sleeve without the thought ever crossing my mind and Snow is immediately upright again, staring at me warily. He grabs his own wand from within his blazer, but his other hand rests firmly on his chest where I just tried to crack it open. As is his fashion, Snow is as indiscrete as it is possible to be, and he’s raising his wand like it’s a sword.
“Circe– calm down,” I rush, glancing around and gesturing for him to put his wand down. A few people have glanced in our direction, but they don’t seem too phased. I direct my wand towards him for a second and mutter, “Get well soon.” Snow’s shoulders droop and his jaw looks less tense. I can only stare at him.
He’s in a grey suit which fits gorgeously, unlike any of the clothes I’ve seen him in before. It’s been half a decade since I last set eyes on him and nothing has changed. Crowley– he thought I was going to attack him in a crowded room at his grandmother's house. Surrounded by people. After we spent Christmas snogging in my parents house and caused each other no more bodily harm.
I lift my glass to my lips and drain it.
“I thought you’d gotten over stalking me.”
He baulks, and I watch his cheeks flush. It’s satisfying that I can still get something of a rise out of him. I hate the warmth pooling in my chest at his reaction. “I’m not– I thought you’d,” Snow checks around us and shrugs. “Y’know. Like in twilight. I thought you’d notice me coming over.”
Briefly, I entertain one of my old fantasies about killing Snow and then myself. Instead, I resort to giving him a withering look. The casual mention of my situation makes me anxious, but Snow doesn’t seem threatened by the concept anymore. On the contrary, his face flushes slightly more after he’s said it. I would’ve preferred if he had settled on a more subtle reference.
I have no idea what to say. I look at his suit again – maybe for too long, but my restraint left as soon as he came over – and I want to cry a little bit.
“Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s your thing,” Snow trails off. Possibly realising that I haven’t said anything since accusing him of stalking me. Possibly thinking about my fangs popping as we ate in my bedroom after… after. I attempt to not stare at him, this man who has grown up and looks more devastating than he did when I last saw him. It is an effort.
Agatha might be right. I have completely forgotten how to have a normal conversation.
Or it’s just him, which is infinitely worse.
“Snow,” I say, lifting my glass and furrowing my eyebrows when I find it empty. Snow looks expectantly at me, as though we have ever been the type of people to share idle chit-chat. His face has changed over the years, and he looks… fine. I cannot stand to be around him. (‘Fine’ is a severe understatement.) “You look… you seem well,” I settle on, forcing myself not to cringe as I avoid whatever damning adjective I was going to say.
He bites his lip, looking across the room at Jamie and Lady Salisbury, as if to check they aren’t listening in. Snow takes a step closer and I want to die. He fucking leans in before he speaks. “I’m shitting myself. I haven’t done a family thing like this before, I don't know anyone. Jamie knows everyone.”
I consider him for a second – mere inches from his curls and his face and his everything – when I realise I must be the only person here who he knows. Agatha used to parade him around events, but she admitted to me that they used to beg off after an hour or so to a quiet room. Snow is out of his depth and has latched onto me as if I’m doing more than just barely tread water.
“Jamie has known these people for his entire life,” I tell Snow, coolly. “Give it time, I’m sure you’ll get there.” I need another drink. To hell with another glass of wine.
Simon follows me to the drink table. I don’t snap. Perhaps he expected me to, but the lost puppy thing is making me a little more sympathetic. He coughs as I pour vodka into a new glass, guessing measures and intentionally overshooting by a significant amount.
Simon and I stare at each other as I take a sip. My fangs bulge in my gums. He breaks first.
“Your suit has flowers on it,” he informs me, gesturing vaguely and glancing at my pink shirt too. I’m not wearing a tie – I rarely do: my father is outraged by it – and the top few buttons are undone.
“Indeed,” I reply, as if I am completely indifferent to him commenting on my appearance. I’m not sure if Simon knows I’m gay. It’s vaguely common knowledge – Niall and I got very drunk at a christmas party the year after we finished school and made out in a room full of people, much to Dev’s horror, and ours the next morning – but, still, I don’t know.
He should know, given what we did. But then, I don't know if he’s gay. We didn’t have that talk. Maybe he just thinks we were just being teenagers and that it didn’t mean anything. The chance of that being what he thinks makes me feel ill. I hope he knows, but I can't rely on Simon’s gaydar or word of mouth. Perhaps his pointing out the flowers is some subtle way of him saying he does know. I haven’t met many straight men who wear floral suits.
Snow frowns, swigging his beer; other people have pint glasses, his is still in the bottle. “I mean– it looks… nice. You look… nice.”
I stare at him, and wonder if the sickly feeling is actually going to make me vomit. Nice is a very placating adjective, but his hesitation makes me nervous, as did the more than perfunctory way he looked at me. I need to get away from him. I especially need to avoid walking past any staircases or forests with him in case the spirit of my teenage self possesses me. If I just walk away – no response – this could be over. Anyone else would leave well enough alone. Not that Snow has never been any good at that.
The music has switched to something more classical, almost a waltz, and I drink my – mostly vodka – vodka tonic. People have begun dancing and I wonder if there is anyone here I could dance with in place of Wellbelove as a suitable distraction from this conversation. As it is, I look Snow up and down – not slowly, but not quite quickly enough either – and make eye contact with him. “Grey suits you,” I say, attempting to remain as verbally and physically distant as I can. I couldn’t resist.
Snow clears his throat. “Agatha used to tell me that,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Back when… you know.”
“I suppose I do,” I answer. This must be why people smoke, so they can excuse themselves from hell. Fiona always has the perfect reason to leave the second Christmas dinner gets awful. Cigarettes are too much of a risk, but I suppose vaping would be less likely to make me combust.
“Dr Wellbelove said she would be here,” Simon says, to himself, I think, looking around.
I laugh shortly, “she abandoned me.” I chase the sentence with my drink and wish I hadn't said anything. Snow stares at me. His eyes are inscrutable. “We match our outfits to these things, waste of a suit really,” I go on, hoping to elicit some reaction to determine what he’s thinking.
He blinks. “I didn’t know… no one told me about you two.” Snow looks a little sad, and I briefly ponder claiming we’re married, as Agatha had joked the other day. But he looks so put out – almost hurt – that I couldn’t cope with crumpling his expression any further. Ruining his first family function cannot be something on my conscience.
I put him out of his misery, ignoring what he’s just said. “She spends half the time pointing out men she’s heard might not be straight and trying to hand me over to them.” It’s only half a lie. She has done this a few times, but doesn’t try anymore.
“Oh,” he says.
“Oh,” I echo in confirmation of what has just dawned across his face. I wonder if he’s thinking about that christmas, if I’ve just recontextualised it all with a flippant coming out to relieve his sadness over the mere idea of Wellbelove and I.
I’m done with this now. The need to put distance between Snow and I, as much as I've managed to maintain in five years, is seeping back. Still, I look at him a moment longer. His blue eyes, his tawny curls. What I must look like, gawking at him like this.
“Goodbye, Simon.” Before he has a chance to say anything else I’m gone.
I take myself to the drinks table yet again, and eventually a friend of Daphne finds me and leads me onto the dance floor with a smile, saying my mother had asked her to dance with me for her. I smile politely, knowing I will message Daphne something later – when I'm in sound mind – in way of thank you despite the awkwardness.
Snow and I do not talk again, but our eyes keep meeting across the room.
~~~
The strangest thing about Dev and Niall is that they have never explicitly told me that they’re together. They live in a tiny apartment in London with one bedroom and on the few occasions I’ve had them at my parents house in the past few years they have shared a room. Niall came to stay over christmas last year and Daphne set up a room for him.
The next few days were spent with my extended family ignoring that Niall and Dev were sharing a room, and Niall and kept coming downstairs wearing my cousin’s clothes.
I didn’t call them in advance– usually I ask them if they’re free before jumping on the train and arriving outside of their flat. It is a weekend though, and Dev answers the door after a minute, wearing boxers and nothing else. My eyebrows jump up of their own accord, and the door slams in my face with a shout. Dev continues talking loudly into the flat – a much more calm voice responding – until the door opens again, and he is fully clothed, already walking away.
Their flat is open plan: a living room and kitchen separated by a breakfast bar. The bedroom and bathroom are practically cupboards. Sharing this little space with another person all the time would kill me now, though I suspect the close quarters is most of the appeal for them. Niall is in the kitchen reading the news, as he waits for the toaster to pop.
“Who the fuck did he think I was if you’re in here?” I ask, sitting on one of their mismatched stools opposite my friend.
Niall peers over his glasses at me. “Our downstairs neighbour keeps showing up every morning and asking if my friend and I won’t join her at church.”
I nod, reading Niall’s paper upside down for a moment to distract myself from the scarring image now burned into my retinas. It half works, however I end up wondering how long I can put off explaining my sudden arrival at their front door rather than reading about the dismal state of UK politics.
Since Lady Salisbury’s birthday – which I was unable to enjoy due to being on my own and distracted – I have run into Simon in the supermarket (Twice), Costa (Also twice), and Agatha’s house (Once). It’s only been a week since our uncomfortable reunion: I needed out.
I want to see him of course, but not without advanced warning. Having him sprung upon me in environments I’m – moderately – comfortable in is not how I would've preferred my meetings with Snow.
Dev comes up behind Niall and taps him on the hip, moving him away from the toaster. “Strangest thing, Sweetheart,” he says, using his wand to transfer the slices of toast onto two plates.
Niall hums in response. Dev butters their toast, and procures jam from – seemingly – nowhere. I can never find a goddamn thing in this place, it’s organised in a way only the two of them can discern.
“Jamie Salisbury shared some photos from his mum’s birthday on facebook. Did I show you them?”
Niall lowers his paper. “No,” he says with the tone of someone who has definitely seen the pictures in question. It’s practically rehearsed.
Dev puts his toast down, now thickly layered with Jam, and pulls his phone out. I grab the toast, taking a bite out of it – my fangs pop for a second, but I control myself. My friends both stare at me expectantly for a second but I am chewing. Therefore, I do not have to exist in this conversation. Niall pushes his own plate out of reach as I finish and start eyeing his breakfast as well.
I sigh. “Snow is everywhere. He followed me around for twenty minutes at his grandmother's house, and then he was on the cheese aisle in Morrisons, and the butcher's counter, and he was sitting at my table in costa– twice. Whilst I was there." I can feel myself frowning and I can't remember if I washed my hair last night. It suddenly feels greasy.
Faintly, Dev touches Niall’s forearm.
Niall shakes his head. “We’re seventeen. Seventeen. We’ve got exams staring us down, you think you’re completely straight, and your cousin is fucking mental.”
I groan and drop my head into my arms on the counter. This is mental– I know this is mental. Every time I've run into Snow since that first one he’s stared at me, the same way he used to. As though I've just pushed him down the stairs, or told Agatha I liked her hair like that just to watch him resist punching me (or to feel him actually punch me). Except, now I haven't even tried to provoke him and he’s reacting to me like we’re teenagers. Like he’s trying to work out what I’m plotting.
(Always: nothing. Not one thing. I went to get my soya lattes with an extra shot in peace, and to not end up reaching for the same block of cheddar like some insane meet-cute)
“He had us convinced he hated him,” Dev mutters. “For years.”
“I do hate him,” I tell them, because it’s at least somewhat true. How can Snow be so fucking compelling that even after five years – some of those including genuine attempts to fall in love with people – I still want him. The memory of him crushing our mouths together has ruined me. It never felt like that with anyone else. It’s bullshit, that's what it is. Or some weird vampy instinct that his blood must taste really good if the rest of him is that intoxicating.
“Of course you do,” Niall says, with mock sympathy. I hear a phone click on. “See? Pure hatred.”
I look up, and there is a photo of me standing a foot away from Simon in Lady Salisbury’s house. I’m drinking him in, and Simon is standing about half a foot away from me. I know exactly what we were talking about but– it looks damning. For me at least; Snow is as clueless as ever. Jamie has written a caption about his family being together on a post with five photos and I groan at the sight of me there alongside Snow in the last one.
Once again, I bury my head into my arms.
“So, it’s safe to assume he’s spending the night,” Dev says to Niall as if I can’t hear him.
Niall snorts. “I think so.”