A fic about Simon learning the truth for the Carry On Countdown
But there’s so much unsaid.
At first I think the voice is just in my dream, but then I start to wake up and it’s still there.
I spell the lights on to see Baz sitting up in bed, staring at me with wide eyes.
“What, Baz?” I groan, “I’m trying to sleep.”
Neither Baz nor I say a word, but the lights flicker off again on their own. The voice seems to be coming from everywhere. It’s soft, almost a whisper, and now that I can hear it better it sounds feminine.
“What’s going on?” Baz asks.
The woman appears between our beds.
Baz jumps back with a shout and normally I would have my sword ready by now but this time I know not to.
“Simon,” she says to me, like she’s pleading.
She’s short, and there’s a pale glow coming off of her but I think her hair is blonde. Her eyes are big and blue.
“I thought the Veil had closed,” I say warily.
She stretches a hand out to me, and maybe I was drawing nearer without realizing it, but I can almost feel it when she palms my cheek. “It’s me.”
She looks like she might start crying. “You are not the Chosen One.”
For a second, the globe stops turning.
“Davy chose you,” she says, her voice tearful. “He chose me. He said we were stars.”
“Wait,” I try to stop her, “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“He said we could change everything.”
She takes my hand in hers and I can just barely feel it. “I wish I’d been here, Simon.” She smiles through tears. “My rosebud boy.”
Baz’s intake of breath is quiet, but she spins around to face him.
“It was you,” he says to her, “not my mother.”
“No,” I tell him, “it was your mother.”
“Don’t let him,” the woman says, but she’s talking to Baz now. “Don’t let him hurt my boy.”
His brow furrows. “I know you.”
She grabs his hand in both of hers, and he flinches back a little but holds her gaze. “You can’t let him,” she begs.
“Who are you?” I ask one more time, my voice getting louder because she’s becoming translucent and I need to know.
She returns to me and kneels beside my bed. “My boy,” she whispers, pressing her forehead against mine, “my rosebud boy.”
Something about her eyes, about her voice, strikes a chord in me, and I think I know her.
She covers my eyes with her hand, and for a second I can smell her, and she smells like home.
She’s gone when I open my eyes.
I’ve been back for hardly a week and everything is already sideways.
Snow and Wellbelove have broken up. Wellbelove has made several passes at me. I can barely sleep without being back in that coffin. The Veil has opened and I’ve missed a Visiting from my mother. Snow and I have formed a truce.
And now the dead are finding ways through the Veil to talk to him, apparently.
Snow looks… well, he looks like he’s seen a ghost, and I’m shaken enough that I probably do, too.
I can’t get her face out of my mind. I knew it as soon as I saw it, but I couldn’t figure out how at first. Then she spoke to me, and I knew her eyes, her mouth, the way her brow drew in.
Because they were him, and I know him like I know to breathe.
Snow hasn’t moved since she disappeared, and I’m starting to wonder if he even can.
There’s a sob, and he clamps a hand over his mouth like it wasn’t supposed to come out.
I want to tell him it’s okay, that I won’t make fun of him this time, to just cry until he’s better, but I don’t know how to make any of these things not sound stupid. It’s clearly not okay.
And anyway, he seems to have given up on not crying, because he’s hidden his face in his pillow and I can see his shoulders shaking, even in the dark.
We’re silent, apart from the occasional sob from his bed.
He’s looking at me, and his eyes are wide.
“There’s a photo in the Mage’s office,” I tell him, “of him, but younger, with some other students. She was one of them.” I don’t mention how chummy they look in the photo, or that I was only able to recognize her from how much she looked like Simon.
“It was her, that night,” he says, “talking through the Veil. She called me her rosebud boy.”
I frown. “I thought it was ‘Snow’ you hated.”
“You only call me ‘Simon’ when you’re afraid I’m going to break or something, like I’m a spooked animal.”
It’s a perfect opportunity to say something horrible (he’s already crying, I wouldn’t even have to try) but I can’t bring myself to hurt him right now.
He’s quiet, like he’s thinking. “Come here.”
“You don’t have to try and comfort me or anything, just come over here.”
I hesitate, but it’s like he’s drawing me in. He’s always drawing me in.
I push the covers back, cross the room, and sit cross-legged on his bed, facing him.
For a moment, neither of say anything. His breathing seems to have steadied for now. He doesn’t look at me, which is good, because that way he can’t see how I’m looking at him.
Then he scoots closer and places his forehead on my chest with a solid bump.
I huff out a chuckle because he’s ridiculous (and extremely cute).
“I know,” I say, sobering, “I’m not laughing.”
“I need a living thing right now.”
You’ve come to the wrong guy, I think to myself but I know what he means. Someone who’s there, now, and isn’t going to vaporize at any moment. I’m momentarily glad that I still have a heartbeat, because right now he’d notice if I didn’t.
“I think it was my mother.”
His shoulders start to shake again and his hands fly up to cover his face and that’s when I decide fuck it.
I wrap an arm around his shoulders and he responds immediately like he’d been waiting for permission, clinging to my waist and sobbing into my shoulder. My other hand comes up to smooth his hair and he’s practically in my lap now but I pull him closer anyways, and his grip on me is like a vice, tightening because he knows I’ll allow it.
“Shh,” I tell him, “breathe.”
He tries, but it’s like he can’t get a full breath.
“Hey.” I push him back but only far enough for him to meet my gaze. “We’re gonna figure it out, okay?” His curls fall into his face and I brush them back with my fingers. “You help me find my mother’s killer, I’ll help you figure out what your mother meant.”
“What if she’s right, Baz?” His eyes are wide and wet. “What if I’m not the Chosen One?”
“Then your life just got a whole lot easier.”
He chokes out a laugh, but it just turns into a sob and I pull him back to my chest. His hair is tickling my neck and it’s all I can do not to press kisses to the top of his head but even though this is so different than anything we’ve ever done, I know we’re not there, so I rest my chin on his head and try to convince myself that it’s enough.
I plan to get up as soon as he calms down enough to let me go, but even when his breathing slows his grip doesn’t loosen, and I think maybe he’s fallen asleep like that. “Simon?”
“I know,” he says into my shirt, “but don’t go.”
“Alright,” I murmur, “I won’t.”
He’s starting to sag in my arms, like the weight of everything has finally turned into exhaustion. I tip us carefully sideways so we’re lying down on his bed, and he seems to relax a little but he doesn’t let go, and I don’t think he plans to. I reach down with one arm to pull the covers over us, and we’re wrapped around each other like I only ever thought we would be in my wildest dreams. One of his legs hooks around one of mine, like he needs to bring every part of me as close as he can.
I don’t know how we’re going to come back from this, but I know I don’t ever want to.
At last, his grip loosens and his breathing deepens. The rhythm of his chest against mine is steady and I can feel myself slipping away.
Just before I fall asleep, I hear him.
I only have the energy for one word: “Here.”
Maybe that was all he wanted, because he doesn’t speak again.
Maybe I’m delirious with everything that’s happening, but I’m feeling particularly brave.
So I press one kiss to his forehead before slipping away entirely.
But you seem to be in good hands.
