Chapter Text
Now then Mardy bum
I see your frown and it's like looking down the barrel of a gun
And it goes off
- Arctic Monkeys, Mardy Bum
BAZ
Aleister Crowley, I never thought he would actually say it.
“Simon, love,” I say softly, taking a step towards him and gripping his shoulders, hard. His tail is swishing angrily from side to side, his wings are flapping behind him, his face is screwed up in fury. He looks like a little demon. If he still had his magic, I would be ducking for cover. “Come on. You don’t mean that.”
“I do mean it,” he insists. Then he says it again: “I don’t want you anymore.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong?” I press.
I’m trying to understand how we got here. I thought things were going swimmingly. He’d managed to pass all of his exams and graduate with an English degree. (I know. English. The boy who can barely string a sentence together.) He wasn’t sure what he was going to do next, but he had enough of the Mage’s gold left to take the summer off with me before I started my Masters in September. (That’s one benefit of being the heir to a murderous dictator.)
We were going to go travelling. I wanted to go to Egypt, to see where my mother’s family was from. Simon wanted to go to California, to visit Agatha. I didn’t even give him shit about it - I thought we could do both. We’d been so distracted with school over the last few months that I would have let him take me anywhere. We had so much time.
I'm supposed to be graduating tomorrow morning. I'm actually looking forward to it; our robes are black with purple lining, and even I can see how much they make me look like Christopher Lee. When I first tried them on, Simon laughed so hard he almost fell over and then snogged me until I saw stars. I told him he would have to have a bit more decorum on the day itself, especially when my family are around, and he told me he would try his best but it wasn’t his fault that society had conditioned him to find vampires sexy, so then I popped my fangs and...
Anyway. Tonight Penny is visiting her parents, so after celebrating with some classmates, I came over to the flat with takeaway and my best suit for tomorrow. I thought we could share a curry and maybe start looking up Air BnBs for our trip. I thought he’d be happy. I was happy.
Instead, it was like coming home to Simon aged 17. He was prowling the flat, sniping at me, asking where I’d been, narrowing his eyes like he thought I was plotting something. (“All I am plotting,” I told him coolly, “is how to get you to shut up so I can eat. Would you rather I set a chimera on you?”)
I’ve learned to take these moods on the chin. They happen sometimes - he’s always had a temper, especially with me, but it changed after we left Watford. It was less about me setting him off, and more about what was going on in his own head. It’s understandable, after what he went through. That’s what Penny and I were always reminding each other when it first started happening; that the Mage did a number on him, fucked him up and made him feel worthless and then died without saying sorry. That when everyone has always abandoned you, it’s hard to trust that others will stay. Of course Simon feels alone. Of course he lashes out at us. We don’t have to take it personally. He always apologises afterwards, backing down almost as quickly as he flares up.
But knowing this is true and acting like it is true are very different things. After all, fighting Simon Snow is probably my second favourite thing to do in the whole world. It's been a while since I had the chance.
The problem is, Snow reprising the greatest hits of his I-hate-Baz routine made me want to revisit mine. So I put down the takeaway, raised an eyebrow, and let him have it.
“Why do you always have to be such a shit?” he demanded hotly, once we’d both traded the lowest blows we could think of. As if he hadn’t been the one to start it.
“How is bringing you food being shitty, you dunce?”
“Don’t call me that. I’m not stupid!”
“Really?” I folded my arms. “Because I have yet to see any evidence of that tonight.”
“For fuck’s sake. I don’t need this!” He threw his own arms up in the air. “I don’t need you sneering and judging everything I do like a stern headmaster. I got enough of that in school.”
“And I don’t need a child throwing tantrums for attention,” I snarled. (Did he really just compare me to the Mage?) “Tell me. Do all orphans find it so hard to grow up and live like a fucking adult, or is it just the really damaged ones?”
Maybe I crossed a line.
“Fuck you!” he shouted. “Just… fuck off and go if I’m so much trouble!”
“I could,” I snapped. (I couldn’t.) “It would be easy.” (It would kill me.)
“Good!” he insisted, and that’s when his wings and tail burst into view, breaking out of Penny’s hiding spell like they refused to go unseen any longer. “I don’t want you anymore!”
I never thought he would actually say it.
“Tell me what’s really wrong,” I say again now, holding firm onto his shoulders even as he struggles and tries to get away.
“Nothing’s wrong - except I’m sick of looking at your creepy face.”
I smirk. “Impossible.” I’m wearing my hair down the way he likes it and everything.
“This isn’t funny!”
I sigh. I’m tired of fighting now. “I know, love. I’m sorry. You know I didn’t mean any of that. Why don’t you sit down and we can talk?”
“Stop calling me that! I’m not your love!”
“Since when?” I scoff. I lean closer to him. Maybe I should just kiss him. That usually shuts him up.
“Since… since…”
“For Crowley’s sake, Snow, you’re an English graduate now. Use your words.”
“Since I stopped loving you!” he roars, pushing me away, and this time I’m so surprised that it works. I stumble backwards and stare at him. His wings are still flapping. His fists are balled up by his sides. I wait for him to deflate, to apologise and take it back, to take my hands in his. He doesn't.
He couldn't have meant that, could he? Not now. Not after everything. Not after three and a half years of slowly piecing ourselves back together, figuring out how we fit in a world without the Mage and the Humdrum tearing us apart. Not after movie nights with Penny and kisses in the morning and trips to see my family and mindblowing sex and solving my mother’s murder and holidays to Scotland and saving the World of Mages and making plans for the future.
We have plans for the future.
Just last week we were talking about finally moving in together in September. We practically do already, of course - but we were talking about doing it officially. Just the two of us.
How could he go from “let’s get a place” to “I don’t love you” in a few days?
He couldn’t. He’s lashing out. This is what he does. Don’t take it personally.
“You don’t mean that,” I say. “Simon. Come on.”
“I do,” he says. His voice is still sharp. It’s never this sharp. “Don’t tell me what I mean.”
“Simon,” I say again, going softer, repeating his name like a prayer. “Simon. You don’t have to do this. I love you. I chose you.”
That’s when he crosses the line.
“You said I could change my mind, didn’t you? At the Leavers’ Ball? Well, I have.”
I’m not going to cry. I’m not going to cry in front of Simon fucking Snow because he’s dumped me the night before graduation. So I reach somewhere inside myself and dust off the mask that I thought I no longer needed, and I put it on. My brow smooths. My mouth is firm. My eyes go dead. I feel all of the emotion drain from my face as I slowly straighten up, raise an eyebrow at him, then pick up my suit and walk out. I don’t even slam the door behind me. I just go.
As soon as I step outside, I fall apart.
SIMON
Oh shit.
I didn’t mean that.
I never thought he would actually go.