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I'm not proud of bringing him back to school. In fact, I wasn't even going to touch Paddington. Just knowing that he was there in my trunk beneath my bed, waiting should I ever need him—which I wouldn't—" a comfort in itself.
Except now I was starting to think maybe I didn't deserve Paddington at all.
I could feel the change coming. My head and jaw hurt constantly; my body temperature dropped; and everything smelled like something I could eat, like cinnamon and sour cherry and all manner of shamefully tempting things. I'd never known hunger before, I don't think. Not like this.
I suspected it would happen fully right during the summer when I went home. Or maybe next Christmas, if I was lucky enough. Wouldn't that be a cosmic joke?
Either way, it was getting worse. Simon was gone on a mission and my head was swimming, making the furnace sound like something monstrous that was coming for me, the warped footsteps of one of the Mage's Men who knew what I was becoming. If Simon had noticed my new pallor, the way I shook away from everyone's touch because I couldn't stand the closeness, because I knew I'd have to separate myself from them before things got worse… who else had? Snow was about as observant as a sleeping duckling.
(And about as sweet as one. I wanted to wrap him up and kiss every mole on his face, just to see if it would make those little lines in his forehead disappear. If it would make him smile. If it would keep him safe.)
(It wouldn't.)
The other thing about Paddington… he sometimes felt like the last thing I had of my mother. She hadn't even given him to me but he was the first gift I'd gotten after she died, when I was still young enough to think ghosts could take different forms and watch over me.
Now I couldn't shake the thought that she wouldn't want me to have him. Me, the thing that'd killed her.
I caved eventually because of how dark the room was, and from the way i could see my breath even though it was near summertime, and how my heart seized with slowing beats and fear for Simon in equal measure. Fourteen was too old for stuffed bears; certainly it wasn't beseeming for a Pitch, no matter what age. Still, it seemed my disappointment to my family would come in threes.
My sexuality, my vampirism, and… oh, that's right, the fact that I was currently crying into Paddington's chest.
He was even softer than I remembered. He smiled up at me as I pulled him beneath the covers, keeping the cold air away—though I noticed that my body heat wasn't enough to warm him anymore.
I didn't mind. He was in my arms, and he smelled only of stuffing and old comforters and clean laundry, and he didn't shy away like other animals were starting to.
I couldn't hurt Paddington. He wouldn't mind if I squeezed him too tight or sang softly into his ear or imagined that he could hug me back.
I fell asleep before I remembered that Snow would be back sooner or later, smelling of blood and dirt and fear, and he would see me all curled up, Paddington's head peeking from the covers with my arms around his neck, his soft eyes keeping watch over us both.
…
He came back from the summer worse for wear than usual. We both did, in a way.
I watched him hug a plate of scones to his chest and devour them with a desperate kind of loss, the kind of wanting you couldn't understand until you felt it clawing up your throat, making you believe you'd never be free.
I watched him hug Agatha and wipe misty eyes on his sleeve. Watched him dance up the spiral staircase and bury his face in his pillow.
I watched him and thought… I thought that I'd do anything to keep him from having to leave again.
Not that I would. We sneered at each other like usual—him with his whole face scrunched up like he was trying to lift a car. Really, Snow, it's just a scowl. Shouldn't be so hard.
It was for him. Probably because he smiled so much.
He had this look, like someone had sucked all the life out of him. It gave me the peculiar though not unexpected urge to beat the Mage to a pulp.
He was crying again. I heard him in the middle of the night; it woke me up. Paddington was still resting on my bed from last year, and my arms had unconsciously wrapped around him when the smell of Snow's blood got too strong, when the ache of longing grew too deep.
He had spelled the light on, though he could never do things in half-measures, so now it swelled through the room and lit everything up like the noonday. I shouted at him and took refuge beneath the covers.
Not my proudest moment.
"Sorry, so—" He managed to extinguish the chandelier he'd somehow created, though not without quite a lot of smoke. His magic made me feel distant and safe. It felt like home.
"Baz…" His voice was heavy with tears.
It shocked me how much that sound hurt. I'd heard it before, but now it felt like someone was carving my heart apart.
"Baz—" he gasped out again, "please. I need him."
This startled me from my blanket-fortress. I'm sure my hair was a mess from the static.
We met eyes across the gulf that was the thin stretch of carpet between us. Blue and gray. Blue… blue eyes spilling over with sadness and hope and desperation.
He was staring at Paddington with childlike awe. His hand reached out between us.
"I've never…" he whispered. "I promise I'll give him back. But he just—he looks so soft."
He was.
I stared at my blankets, fighting an incredulous laugh, a harsh insult, the urge to call him darling. They all fought like gladiators, because I could never be in accordance about Simon, but I ignored that for now.
I didn't think, for once.
I doubt he's ever had something like this before.
"En suite," I mumbled, then cleared my throat, appalled by how tongue-tied he left me. "My hair reeks of smoke because of you."
I tumbled from the bed, knocking Paddington down with my leg. He landed with an unceremonious flump, turned to face Simon.
I pretended not to notice, grabbed my scarf, and slammed the bathroom door.
Snow was going to kill me. He really was.
Turning on the shower for effect, I rested my head against the cool tiles and breathed out. I stayed in that bathroom for fifteen whole minutes, wasting who knows how many gallons of water, just so that Simon could perform his stupid stealth routine and snatch Paddington from the floor, and I wasn't even angry.
What was happening to me?
I escaped in a cloud of steam, expecting Snow to be crab-crawling over the floor with Paddington smuggled beneath his arm. Instead, he was sleeping in his bed.
Oh, Crowley. Did he have to be so precious?
He was turned on his side, face buried in Paddington's fur. He had positioned them so that Paddington's arms were around him, the blankets tucked neatly under the bear's chin. He looked more content than I'd seen him in years, making soft little sounds in his sleep with his curls like a halo around his face.
I sat and watching them for longer than was maybe necessary, just checking that what I was seeing could be real. That Paddington had comforted us both, that he'd rested in the crooks of our necks and been tucked beneath the blankets and that he'd been there for Simon when I couldn't be…
I turned away. I was worried I might do something undignified like cry.
The next morning, I watched Simon wake up, pull Paddington close for one last squeeze, and kiss the top of his head. He sighed and wiped his eyes and whispered, "thank you."
Then, after a not-nearly-thorough-enough glance at me to check whether I was sleeping, he sank to the floor and rested Paddington in the same place he'd been.
It was actually quite clever of him. Might've worked if I hadn't been staying up to make sure he actually got the gift I'd been to scared to give him.
But Paddington could love me as I didn't yet know how to, and he could give to Simon what I never would.
So maybe it was all right if the both of us weren't ready for anything else. If we didn't have the capacity for it.
My heart ached as I waited for Simon to go to breakfast before retrieving my bear. He didn't look right on the floor.
He smelled like cinnamon and brown butter. I should've been upset, but all I could do was tuck him beneath the blankets and rest my head on his shoulder and breathe.