Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

I survey Baz's ornate bedroom door and consider knocking. I shouldn't have to knock, right? I mean, we've been roommates for seven years. Sleeping in the same room as Baz is pretty par for the course.

It's not like I'm sneaking into his room because I'm desperate to sleep next to him or anything. I mean, it's not my fault the room Mrs. Grimm set me up in is fucking haunted.

I don't look at him as I settle down on the couch with the blankets and pillow I took from the guest bedroom. I don't deliberately look at him, anyway. He's the easiest thing to look at, is all. I mean—look at him.

Smoke and mirrors, I'm pitiful.

I roll over and press my face into the back cushions. Everything smells like Baz. I'm pretty sure these pyjamas his stepmum left out for me are his. I'm surrounded by him.

It's easy to fall asleep to the faint sound of Baz's breathing.

Soft, soft huffs ...

✧☾✧

I jolt awake to find Baz curled up too tight on his bed. He looks like he's in pain.

"Baz?"

He screams and throws himself back against his headboard, looking right fucking terrified.

"Ohfucksorry!" I scramble off his couch.

"Snow—?!"

"Yeah, it's just me—"

"What the fuck," he wheezes, "are you doing in my room?"

"The guest room was haunted or summat so I decided to take my chances in here," I sputter. (I'm also trying not to laugh because the whole thing's a little funny. I've never heard Baz squeal like that before.) (It'd be a lot funny if he weren't just, you know, a victim of kidnapping.)

Baz bristles as I fumble towards his bed. He draws his knees to his chest.

"I'm sorry about scaring you—"

"Go away," he groans. It's then I notice his words are kind of muffled—not just from the way he's hiding his face in his knees. Fuck, spooked his fangs right out, didn't I? (I knew they come out when he's scared! I knew it!)

"You all right?" I sit on the edge of his bed, and he huddles in on himself more.

"Splendid, now fuck off."

I ruffle his hair, which makes Baz release another very un-Baz-like sound. "Just show me already, yeah? I've already seen your fangs in—" In our dreams.

Baz lifts his head enough to glare at me. "That's not the same," he grumbles.

"Show me." I smooth his hair back into place. "Please...?"

Baz hesitates. Finally, he rolls his eyes and carefully unfolds himself. I lean into his space to see, and he humours me by opening his mouth.

There they are. Two long, gleaming fangs. For real.

"Wicked."

"You're a complete nightmare...."

I smile. "Something like that."

Baz looks about as sheepish as I feel. He presses his lips together, cheeks puffy around his fangs, and he frowns at something past my shoulder.

"I can't ... sing like this...." He has a bit of a lisp.

My chest squeezes. "Y-you—you don't have to sing."

"I need you to believe me."

"I ... um. I do."

"You don't."

"Yeah, I do," I grunt and shove his knee. Baz jerks away, biting back a whimper. "Fuck—are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he says through his teeth.

"Are you in pain?" I crowd him some more on the bed. "Is that why you woke up?"

Baz waves a dismissive hand. "My hip, it ... twinges sometimes, that's all. Nothing to get worked up over."

"It pulled you out of your sleep—sounds like more than a twinge." I place my hand on his hip, though I'm not sure what good that'll do. Baz tries to bat me away—I don't let him. "Did Fiona's healing spells not help?"

"I think it is healed. It just ... healed wrong...."

"That can't be right."

"Are you a vampire doctor?"

"Are you?"

Baz sighs and slumps further against the headboard. He looks like all the life's been sucked out of him—way more than usual. The room is mostly dark—the clock reads half-past four—yet I can still see how deathly pale he is. It's hard to look at.... Harder than seeing him cry in the dream. At least there he wasn't holding it all in.

Neither one of us were.

I look down at my hand against his pyjama-clad hip. "Can I try something?"

"Sure," Baz drones, "because your track record with casting spells on me has been so exemplary."

"Shut up, yeah?"

Baz does, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. He must be in a lot of pain if he's allowing me to do this—not that I know what I'm doing, not exactly. In the dream, letting everything spill out seemed to work well, so ...

I close my eyes. I search out that bursting feeling from the dream, deep in my core. All that pressure that's been building up for ages. I imagine it flowing out and filling the empty spots in Baz ...

He gasps, going tense under my touch. I snap open my eyes to see us glowing—my arm is golden, lighting us both up from within as my magic rushes out of my body and into his. All the shadows in the room melt away.

"What are you—? How are you—?"

"I don't know—I just pushed. Is it hurting you?"

"No."

"Should I stop?"

"No!"

I move closer to Baz, grip his hip tighter. His fangs have receded. He's trembling, but he looks excited, so I don't dare stop. I leave the connection open between us, no longer pushing, just letting him take as much as he wants. Baz grabs his wand from under his pillow and points it at his hip.

"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water."

He's casting a nursery rhyme—there's nothing more powerful than those. They're rhymes we all learn as kids, get stuck in our brains forever, and are passed down through the generations.

"Jack fell down and broke his crown, and Jill came tumbling after."

This one is commonly used by mums on their kids, after they've come home from playing outside, all banged up. It takes a lot more magic than kiss it better, but it's far more thorough.

"Up Jack got and home did trot, as fast as he could caper."

It's for bruises and scrapes, though, not something as severe as this. Yet my magic is tearing through both of us, and Baz's hip burns under my touch.

"And went to bed, and plastered his head with vinegar and brown paper!"

I can't believe him. He’s extraordinary.

Baz sinks against the pillows with a soft sound of relief.

I'm slack-jawed. "B-better?" I ask.

"Better." Then he giggles. "Better than better."

"Okay, I think you've had enough."

Baz whines as I pull back, breaking our connection. The light slowly ebbs away, yet the room doesn't feel as dark now.

"All right...?" I ask, watching Baz try to shake off the buzz from my magic.

"I ... Yeah." He licks his lower lip and gives his head another shake. "I don't know how you did that ... but thank you."

"Me either. Glad it helped and didn't, you know, scorch your leg off."

Baz gives me a crooked smile. "My hero," he says with just enough sincerity for it to make my cheeks heat up. Then he clears his throat and bumps me with his knee. "Out of my way."

"Where are you going?"

"The toilet," he huffs.

I watch Baz head into his en suite. His posture is perfect again—he walks with an easy sort of pride. I sit on his couch and wait for him, bouncing my leg.

I gave him my magic. I've never done that before. I don't think that's supposed to be possible. Baz did the impossible, too, using another mage's magic and casting like he was Houdini himself.

Baz is marvellous.

And he's safe. He's alive. He's here—I'm here.

Baz comes out a few minutes later looking as put together as ever. The fire is back in his eyes. You'd never know he was trapped in a coffin for two weeks.

He gives me a long once-over, and my throat constricts. There's probably something I should say to him.... Instead, I pat the cushion next to me. Baz arches his eyebrow for a thoughtful moment, then he deigns to join me.

This really is Baz. In the flesh. He's giving me his classic imperious look, and it makes me hot all over, same as always. We've been here countless times before, but it has all new meaning. This is a look that makes me want to kiss him—and it's a look that means he's considering kissing me.

Why am I not kissing him?

I grab him by the back of the neck and crush our mouths together.

It's better than any dream. Because it's real. Finally. Baz is here, and I'm here, and this is real. He's safe. He's mine.

In our dreams, kissing Baz felt like something incomprehensible. This isn't quite like that. It's not a blanket of relief dampening out the world, and it's not some massive Big Bang. It's ... simple. It's a deep sense of completeness throughout all of me, grounding me, in my fingers and toes and the cavity of my chest.

It feels like I've been walking around with a piece of me missing all my life, and now that hole's been filled. We slot together. I'm whole.

I'm home.

Baz presses me into the back of the couch and swings a leg over my lap. I slide my hands under his pyjama top, rubbing his waist, feeling his cold skin for the hundredth time, for the first time.

Baz's groan makes my magic rush to the surface again.

I have to break the kiss to calm down and breathe. He uses the opportunity to unclasp my cross with trembling fingers. Then I definitely can't breathe. He tosses the necklace to the other side of the room and gives me a searching look. All I can do is nod and nod and pull him back in for another kiss. Fuck breathing. This is the perfect kind of breathless.

"I won't hurt you," he says against my lips.

"I know."

"I've never bitten anyone."

"I know."

We kiss. Lips, cheeks, jaws. Down his neck, down my neck.

Baz's hair is as silky as I imagined. His teeth are less sharp, and his growls are more so. I can't pin down the way he tastes—all I know is I want more of it.

Each of Baz's kisses breaks me apart and puts me back together again.

I'm home, I'm whole.

"Are you mine?" I ask.

“Did you mean it when you asked me to be?" When I nod, Baz leans back and hits me with a dazzling smile. "Then yes."

I smile right back. "Does that make you happy?"

"More than you can imagine."

I kiss him again.

After a long time, he whispers, "I meant all of it."

All of it ...

Is that possible?

"You love me...?" I whisper back.

Baz tightens his jaw and only nods.

"'For a long time'...?"

Baz rests his forehead against mine, eyes closed. "Yeah...."

I hold on and breathe him in.

"I meant it, also," I manage eventually. "Uh. Well. The good things, anyway. When ... when I wasn't pushing you away."

"Are we done with that now?"

"I am. Are you?"

"Yes."

I lean in, and Baz meets my mouth. We pull each other closer and closer, until there's nothing between us, not even space.

All I've ever wanted is to fill my days with him.

All I've ever wanted is to make sure he's always here, with me. Where no one can hurt him. Where he's safe.

All I've ever wanted is to keep him connected to me, forever, in every way possible.

Is that too much to ask?

"I don't know what's going to happen with the Mage or the Humdrum," I confess, "but no matter what, I'm never letting you go."

I can't read Baz's expression. "That's a big promise, Snow."

"I know."

"You sound confident."

"I am. I only make promises I can keep," I say, voice steady and sure.

"Prove it," Baz says, voice soft and fervent. "Prove it to me every day ... and every night."

I gulp. My grip on his waist tightens. "I will."

We stay like that on Baz's couch, kissing and holding each other, until I've got no choice but to break for a piss. Even that feels like too long to be separated from him. When I come back to the room, Baz has thrown open the curtains. The room is awash in rose gold morning light. For the first time in ages, it's a welcome sight.

I join him at the window, both of us squinting into the sunrise. "Morning already?"

"By your definition, anyway." He turns on his heel and starts pulling clothes out of his closet.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed." He eyes my pyjamas (his pyjamas) and his mouth twitches briefly. "You should as well."

"What for?"

Baz lays jeans (jeans?) and a posh jumper onto his bed, assessing. "We'll have some breakfast, then hit the road."

"Where are we going?"

Baz gives me a weary look. "To Watford, you twit."

I blink, taking a minute. (I'm still stuck on the promise of breakfast.) (And Baz in jeans.) "We're going back today? Right away?"

"Why not? I'm in pristine condition, thanks to that magic trick of yours."

"Right...." I pat my stomach thoughtfully.

Baz sighs and heads for his bedroom door, tugging it open. "Let's get you fed," he says. I notice the shy droop of his lashes as he hesitates in the doorway, one hand outstretched for me. "All right?"

I stare at Baz, standing there with his tousled hair and rumpled pyjamas—all from my hands. His mouth is well-snogged, and his skin is flushed with magic and sunlight. He's a radiant mess. And so fucking solid. My heart throbs.

I set my hand in his. It's the realest thing I've ever felt. He's more real than I can bear.

"All right," is all I manage around the lump in my throat.

Baz squeezes my hand. "Or would you rather sleep more first...?"

I shake my head. I can't stop smiling.

"No," I say. "I'm wide awake."

☼