Chapter Text
This is always how it was going to end. Simon Snow finally making a choice for himself and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.
He’s still sitting there, staring out at the ocean with the waves lapping at his feet. His golden hair shines in the setting sun, and I want to reach out and run my hands through it one last time.
I think back to the past week. The last few months. This last year. I knew things weren’t going well with us. I knew Simon wasn’t doing well. I just really thought that the trip to America was going to help. For a little while there I thought things were going to be okay. I thought he was going to be okay, and that we’d pick up the pieces and finally get to be happy.
I’ve loved Simon Snow helplessly and hopelessly, but I can’t keep him. Not if he doesn’t want to be kept.
“I can’t keep doing this, Baz.” Simon finally says. We lock eyes for the first time in ages. “I’m sorry but-” He’s got tears in his eyes and I’m foolish enough to hope they’re for me. He looks back at the ocean. “I’m not the person I was. I’ll never be that person again. The World of Mages doesn’t belong to me anymore. Magic, vampires, dragons - None of that is mine. Not anymore.”
“What are you talking about?” I know what he’s trying to say, but I don’t want to hear it. “Simon,” I use his name. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be allowed to. “Just because you can’t-”
“Stop.” Simon looks away. “Just stop. This isn’t an argument, Baz. I can’t do magic anymore. So, I’m not a mage. I don’t belong in the World of Mages.” He looks back at me, and I’m not sure what hurts more, the sad look in his eyes or the venom in his voice, “That's what your family is all about, isn’t it? Keeping out those without power?”
What does a person say to something like that? “That’s not-”
He cuts me off. Of course, he does. He’s Simon-bloody-Snow and he won’t hear a word of what I have to say.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” He sounds like he’s quoting someone. Maybe he is. “Believe me .”
Simon Snow is breaking up with me.
He gets up, wings stretching behind him. He’s like a dream. He just brushes past me. Simon Snow was a dream come true, and I’ve just woken up.
“Go back to Vegas, Baz.”
“I don’t want to go to Vegas, I want to go back home with you and work through whatever this is.”
“I don’t want that, Baz.”
“What?”
“I don’t want to ‘work through this.’ I want to move on. I want to get these bloody wings off and I want to live my life. I am tired of living at the whim of someone else. I am tired of having to rely on other people’s magic to leave my own house. I’m tired of hiding myself away, Baz. Aren’t you?”
“What does Penny think of this? Have you thought about her in all of this?” I snap. I know I’m being harsh, but this is how it's always been with Snow. We can’t just communicate, it’s always a fight.
“For once, I’m just thinking about myself. Besides, I’m not cutting her out of my life. I’m just leaving magic behind.”
“But you’re cutting me out?”
“I’m giving you an out, Baz.” He turns around and finally looks at me. “Take it.”
“I don’t want an out.”
“Merlin, you’re insufferable.” He actually looks annoyed. He’s the one trying to end things and has the audacity to look annoyed. Like having to break my heart is just an inconvenience to him. “You’re not listening.” It would make my blood boil if I wasn’t so broken by it. “We’re done, Baz.”
“We can’t be.” I don’t know what else to do besides argue. We can’t be done. This is not how our story is supposed to go.
He just shakes his head. “I’m sure Lamb will take you back.” He spits out the name. “You seemed happy enough with him.”
“Is that what this is about? I already told you it wasn’t like that. I was trying to find Agatha.”
“And look how that turned out.”
He’s unbelievable. Truly unbelievable. I turn away. I won’t watch him walk away from me again.
He puts his hand on my shoulders and I have to force myself to stand my ground and not turn around like a desperate child.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” He sounds sorry. It doesn’t make it any better. “Who knows when you’ll have another chance to learn about this part of you. I was being serious before, do you really want to go back to hiding? When there’s a chance you could just be ?”
“I’d still be hiding.” I lean into the touch. If this is really happening- If this is the last time I get to be near Simon Snow like this, I’m not going to deny myself. I’ve done that enough. “I can’t be a vampire and a mage.”
“You’d have to hide your magic anyway. It’s not like you’re staying here forever, you’ll have to return home eventually. The World of Mages won’t fall apart just because you don’t come back right away.”
“It could.”
He sighs and takes his hand off my shoulder and I really do have to stop myself from grabbing it and putting it back. “The world doesn’t actually revolve around you, Baz.”
That stings. By the pained look on Snow’s face, he knows it too.
So, he leaves.
Simon Snow has the nerve to just walk away from me on a beach in San Diego. As if we haven’t spent the last 8 years of our lives together whether we liked it or not. As if either of us were capable of just moving on.
“Don’t you dare walk away from me, Snow.” I growl, “You can’t just decide that you’re done with magic. Done with me. ”
He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t turn around.
“Simon!”
I don’t cry. That’ll come later, I think. When I’m alone and I’ve actually processed what’s just happened.
I hear someone shuffling through the sand behind me. I turn, half-hoping it’s Simon coming with an apology and a plea to let’s give it one more shot- I won’t give up on us -
But it’s just Bunce. She’s got a smile on her face and a glint in her eye and I can’t help but think that this is what she’s been waiting for. Maybe she’s always hated me for how I’ve treated Simon our whole childhood and she’s thinking that this is just what I deserve.
Then she speaks and I realize-
“Baz! You’ve got to come and check out Shepard. I’ve already shown Simon, but I’m bringing him back with us. He’s got this curse or something. He claims it was a demon. A demon, Baz! Can you believe that? I want to see if my parents have ever seen anything like it.” She stops and actually looks at me.
I realize that she doesn’t know a thing. Am I really that unimportant to Simon that he hadn’t told his best friend that we’d broken up? Were we already that far gone?
“Baz?” She takes a step closer and I back away. “Are you okay? What happened?”
“Did Simon not say?” I ask. I have to know.
“I don’t…” She looks back at the flat. Simon and Shepard stand on the balcony talking. “Simon didn’t say anything. What’s going on?”
Of course, he didn’t.
I smile. It’s broken and jagged and sharp in all the wrong places.
“I’m not going back to London.”
“You’re staying?” She looks stricken, and I almost feel sorry. “You can’t not come back, Baz. Even Agatha is coming!”
“She’s not going back to stay. She’s just grabbing her wand.”
“You’re not staying here, Baz.” She looks determined. She’s hardened her gaze in a way I haven’t seen since we went to go save Simon from the Mage. She looks down at her hand where her ring used to sit. “You have to come back with us.”
“I don’t have to do anything, Bunce.”
She reaches out and grabs my arm. “You can’t stay. What about your family? What about Simon?” She’s got tears in her eyes. Some far away part of me is glad that at least someone cares enough to want me to go back.
“Snow doesn’t want me.” I pull my arm out of her grasp. I try not to feel too bad about the way I can see it break her heart. “You’re his friend first, Bunce. Don’t pretend otherwise.”
She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t move, her hand still outstretched.
“Give the normal my ticket, there’s no point in it going to waste.”
“Don’t do this Baz.”
“Do what? Take the opportunity to learn about what I am and what I’m capable of? Am I supposed to just go back to London like I didn’t run into a colony of Vampires? Go back to pretending I’m not what I am?” I’m shouting. I didn’t mean to shout at Bunce. I take a breath and lower my voice. “It’s what Snow wants me to do. He thinks it’s for the best.”
“So you’re abandoning us? Just like that?”
“It’s not forever,” I say, and I mean that. I’m a magician. I’m not letting the World of Mages move on without me. “Just long enough to get some information.”
She wipes at her face and I realize she’s crying. “You better stay in touch.”
“Sure.” I look behind her at the flat. Shepard’s gone inside and it’s just Snow on the balcony, his wings folded neatly behind his back.
“I mean it, Basil.” I look at her. “Stay in touch. I don’t know what’s happening with you and Simon… but you’re still my friend.”
“Thanks, Bunce.” I try to think of something else to say, something to do that would let me stay for just a bit longer. Nothing comes to mind. I feel for my wand in my pocket to make sure it’s still there, and then I leave. “I’ll see you around.”
I start to, at least. Then Bunce speaks up and I turn back, “You’re going back to Vegas, then?”
“Yeah.”
“How are you getting there?”
I’m not sure. I don’t have a car or the cash to get a taxi all the way back there. I definitely wasn’t going to walk. “I’ll figure something out.”
“Why don’t you come with us to the airport? We’re leaving in a few minutes.” She looks hopeful. Far too hopeful.
“I don’t think I can.”
“Of course you can, we’ve got plenty of room in the car.” She pauses. “Well, not plenty, but there’s enough room for you.”
“I’ll figure it out, Bunce. I don’t think Snow wants to see me right now.”
“If you’re sure-”
“I am.” I’m not.
“Right.” She rocks back on her feet. “Basil?”
“Yes, Bunce?”
She doesn’t say anything. Just rushes forward and envelops me into a hug.
Bunce isn’t much of a hugger, at least not with me, but I can’t deny that it’s nice. At least right now, after everything, and still so far from home. I hug her back.
It’s probably the closest I'll ever get to hugging Simon Snow again.