Chapter Text
✧☾✧
I wake up with the sun.
Always do. Baz gives me a bollocksing for it—especially in the warmer months, like now, when the sun comes up earlier and earlier. "They’re not serving food at five in the morning no matter how much you grovel, you incorrigible mutt," he’ll gripe at me. Or any other thousands of variations of that. He never runs out. (It’d be impressive if he weren’t such an arse.) (Actually, it’s still impressive....)
Baz doesn’t get it. It’s not about the food. I don’t need to rush to get there first—I know that there will always be enough breakfast for me here at Watford. I’ve adapted to that just fine.
I haven’t adapted to the idea of having a lie-in. At the boys’ homes, I wake up with the sun because odds are good someone else is doing the same. I’m uneasy with sleeping around other people, especially people who are awake. My summer nights are a lot of tossing and turning with very little sleeping, no matter how exhausted I am.
Sleeping next to Baz is easier. Which sounds mental—he’s a vampire, and he and his family have tried to kill me multiple times. I know that’s way worse than any of the stuff at the care homes, but I’ve got the Anathema to protect me here. And … Watford is my home.
I still wake up with the sun, though.
I wake up, and I stare at my threatening vampire roommate who isn’t much more than an arms’ reach away. Not so threatening all lit up with the sunrise and drooling on his pillow....
First thing I do every morning is disable the alarm clock. We keep it set to go off for the rare occasions where I accidentally sleep in. When I’m caught in a dream or something, I guess. It’s real disorienting to be shocked awake by the alarm blaring in our ears.
Baz absolutely hates the bloody thing.
Sometimes I consider letting it go off just to startle him. I swear it makes his fangs pop. But I never go through with it. Starting the day with Baz at peak levels of tetchy knobhead is not a good idea.
Instead, I make sure I’m up before the alarm can go off, and then I find other ways to bother him awake. Like letting more light in, or opening the window, or banging around in my wardrobe, or (my favourite) knocking into his bed on my way to the toilet.
Not every day, mind you. I let him sleep in sometimes.
But it’s more fun to torture him a bit.
It’s one of the things I really miss over the summers.
I flop back into the grass. It’s a warm day in May—the sun is bright, and there’s a faint breeze. Beautiful weather. The kind that makes me want to curl up under the yew trees. Should be right relaxing—Merlin knows I don’t get a lot of time to relax—but Penny’s been going non-stop since lunch.
“It’s a big deal,” she insists. “It’s half of your final grade, Simon.”
“Pen,” I say, “needing to come up with a spell next year is the least of my worries right now.”
Penny screws up her nose at me. “All I’m saying is that it’s something you should start considering more seriously.”
“It’s a year away,” I groan. I close my eyes and tilt my face towards the sun, letting it burn spots behind my eyelids. “I’ve still got to make it through exams for this year. And that’s if a goblin or the Humdrum or my roommate don’t get me first.”
Penny nudges me in the side with her knee. “I thought you said you’ve given up on preparing for exams this year?”
“I have,” I admit. “That doesn’t mean I want to start worrying about next year’s instead. Besides, shouldn’t you be more focussed on this year’s exams, also?”
“I’ll be fine.” I can practically hear Penny’s dismissive hand waving. “The Mage hasn’t sent us on many missions this term, so I’ve had plenty of time to study.”
“Maybe you’ll beat Baz for top of the class this year,” I say, cracking open an eye to grin at her.
Penny huffs. It’s a sore spot. “If only Basil actually was plotting half the time you say he is—surely his grades would be lower for it.”
“Ugh, don’t wish that on me!” I push myself up onto my elbows and scowl at her. “Who knows what sort of nefarious business he’s going to get up to all summer!”
“He’ll probably be working on his eighth-year spell,” Penny says, giving me a pointed look. “Just like you should do.”
“How am I going to do that in a care home, Pen?”
“Well ... you can at least start thinking about it....”
I sit up fully. “I bet Baz’s spell will be something so he can bypass the Anathema.”
“That’s not possible, Simon.”
“I hope not. Him finally draining me in my sleep would be a mega anticlimactic way for things to shake out between us.”
Penny shoots me an unamused look. “Please promise me you won’t spend the summer obsessing over what Baz might be doing.”
“I don’t think about Watford over the summer, I’ve told you that.”
“Does that include not thinking about Baz?”
“More or less....” I feel flushed—too much sun. I hop to my feet.
Penny sighs. “Try to channel that focus into your spell work.”
“You sound like the Mage.”
“It’s true, though. If you put some of that energy into your studies—“
“—then maybe I could find a way to discover Baz’s plots once and for all!”
“You wage psychological warfare on yourself so much, Baz doesn’t have to plot anything. You do all the work for him.”
I blink. “That’s not true.”
Penny sighs and rolls her eyes. “If you say so.”
I thrust a hand at her and help her up. “Let’s go to tea.”
“Right, right.”
There are four weeks left until the end of the term, and I do have exams and essays to focus on, but my mind is stuck on what Penny said about psychological warfare.
The point she was trying to make is bollocks. Still ...
Maybe that’s a good tactic. Maybe attacking Baz mentally is my best shot.
He’s the superior mage, that’s obvious. I think I’d have him beat in a fight—especially if I can call my sword—but I’m not certain. He’s a vampire, after all. Who knows what kind of super-strength he has? He hides it so well.
Playing mind games isn’t my forte. (I’ve not got much of a forte—again, other than swords.) Baz is the one always skulking around, taunting me, saying cryptic things, shooting me amused glares across the dining hall like he’s the cat that swallowed the canary. He’s an expert in mind games, just like everything else.
Gotta fight fire with fire, right?
It’s always fire with Baz. And me too, really—I’m all smoke and explosions. Short of going off on him, I’m starting to wonder if my only other option is messing with his head as much as he messes with mine.
Penny thinks I’ve been spending time in the library studying for exams. In truth, I’m researching curses. Stuff that affects the mind, but isn’t permanent. Stuff that isn’t horrible and banned.
Not a lot of options. Every single one of these spells is overkill.
I don’t want to seriously fuck him up. That would be the lowest of the low. (I get nauseous at the thought.)
There are curses where he could hear me whispering in his head, or always see me in his peripheral vision, or catch sight of me in reflective surfaces. Right fucking creepy stuff. Too creepy. (Though I’m curious if Baz hasn’t cast some of these on me before—it’s definitely felt that way.)
All I want is to plague him with thoughts of me, give him a taste of his own medicine.
All I want is to be on his mind so much, he can’t focus. Can’t work on coming up with a spell to end me. Can’t plot a political coup.
All I want is for him to not get any fucking reprieve from me all summer.
Is that too much to ask?
I still haven’t found a spell to curse Baz with. Nothing I feel comfortable casting, anyway.
Maybe Penny was onto more than I realized—maybe I do need to think about coming up with my own spell....
Exams have begun. And I’ve got an earworm. Which wouldn’t be so bad usually—sticky phrases like song lyrics are how spells get their strength, after all. Except I need to be focussed on running through maths equations and important historical dates and a whole mess of spells. Yet all that’s in my head is the potential of this song.
I should wait until right before Baz leaves at the end of the term. Cast it on him as he’s taking his morning shower, then bolt for a northbound train.
It’s eating at me.
I could cast it now, tonight. Then I’d get to see Baz’s reaction tomorrow morning. Surely he’ll have some sort of reaction. And then I could keep an eye on him for the next few days, see if it keeps working. I’m not sure how long the spell will last. I might need to refresh it before we go our separate ways (unless he somehow catches on and pulverises me).
Plus, if something goes awry ... well, better to find out right away. I might need to confess to the nurse or whoever if someone needs to counter-spell him.
I mean, it shouldn’t come to that. It shouldn’t be a dangerous spell.
Just—hopefully—a touch unsettling.
I wait up for Baz to come back from the Catacombs. I do some revising until I can’t see straight. I practice my sword work on his side of the room—I figure that will somehow summon him. (It doesn’t.) I eat his crisps. (That doesn’t summon him either.)
Once midnight comes around, I tuck my wand under my pillow and get in bed. It will be too suspicious if Baz returns to find me up this late. I chew on my cross and dig my nails into my palms and knuckles—anything to keep me awake.
The tosser slinks back in after Merlin knows how long.
No need to pinch myself now—I’m all adrenaline the second he comes into the room. It’s an effort not to fidget while I wait for him to finish his bedtime routine and fall asleep. I wait, and I wait ... until I finally hear the soft, soft huffs of his shallow breathing which signal he’s sleeping.
I roll over to face Baz and point my wand in his direction. I’m always nervous to cast on someone else. Even Baz. I try to breathe calmly as I dip into the well of my magic in a way that feels cautious and measured.
This isn’t to hurt. It’s just to make him uncomfortable. To tip the summer hols in my favour—
I fight against the urge to tense as I whisper-sing the song lyric that has been stuck in my head all week:
“Dream a little dream of me.”
My magic sputters down my arm and out my wand in all directions. The whole room blooms with heat and smoke, and I’m sure Baz will wake up.
He groans, and my heart leaps into my throat.
Then he rolls onto his stomach ... and is still.
After a long moment of listening to his soft, soft huffs, I finally exhale with relief.
That could have gone so much worse.