#FINALLY caved and got the burning wheel book because its so fucking gorgeous

[hakuryuu]

spent a reasonable amount of money at powells (lying)

[beselten-pitch]

Mutually Assured Destruction

Alternate last year at Watford fic, written by the previous owner of simon-and-basilton

Chapter One / Chapter Two / Chapter Three / Chapter Four / Chapter Five / Chapter Six / Chapter Seven / Chapter Eight / Chapter Nine / Chapter Ten / Chapter Eleven / Chapter Twelve / Chapter Thirteen / Chapter Fourteen / Chapter Fifteen / Chapter Sixteen / Chapter Seventeen / Chapter Eighteen / Chapter Nineteen/ Epilogue

Chapter Five

Within two hours, everyone at Watford had heard about it. Gossip skipped through the hallways, and whispered voices exchanged hushed accounts of what had happened. Girls cupped their hands over boys’ ears, leaning close, talking low.

Did you hear? Baz Pitch and Simon Snow had another fight.

Were you there?

I heard Agatha was right in the middle of it. Were they fighting over her?

I heard Simon almost went off.

I heard Baz Pitch cursed him.

I heard…

I heard…

Within two hours, everyone at Watford had heard about it. There was a strange feeling in the air, as though balance had been restored. As though people were relieved.

They’d all been waiting for Pitch and Snow’s first fight, and it had arrived. The wait was over.

They were all still waiting for their last battle, though. The finale.

It was coming. The air was heavy with anticipation, and the hair on people’s arms stood up from the static of it. It was as though a wool blanket had been draped over Watford, and they were all suffocating beneath it.

The tension only grew. That’s what tension does best.

Rubber bands and patience, pulled and pulled and close to snapping.

It was coming. Everyone knew it; they could feel it. Stomping closer, closer, closer.

War.

A war built on the tension of so many rubber bands, so close to snapping.

 *

SIMON

He sat cross legged on his bed, papers spread around him. The window was thrown open, and he’d been hoping for a breeze to come by and spare him from the heat.

A rare, early-fall heat wave had swept through, leaving behind a campus full of overworked, overheated mages. Simon had been spending hours in the Catacombs, not to follow Baz, but just because he needed to be somewhere cool.

It was weird weather. Impossible weather.

It was a sign, according to the more superstitious students. It was a warning.

Simon had never been all that good at listening to warnings, though. He had a bad habit of ignoring them and continuing to do whatever the hell he wanted.

The door opened, and Simon half expected it to be Penny. Evidently the Cloisters had somehow managed to be even hotter than Mummers, and Penny had been spending every spare moment in Simon’s room attempting to escape the heat. Baz had attempted to pretend to be annoyed by her for the first few days, but by some strange miracle it seemed that they actually got along quite well. Simon had spent more time than he would’ve ever imagined listening to Penny and Baz debating over different theories and studies.

He’d tried to remind her that he was evil, that he was the enemy. But she’d just smiled and said, “Oh, Simon. I’m not swearing allegiance to the Old Families or anything. I’m having a pleasant conversation about the potency of certain spells in different languages.”

It was a lost cause, he decided.

As it turned out, though, it wasn’t Penny. It was Baz, and he was angry.

“Oh. You’re here.”

“Where else would I be?”

Baz laughed, and it was a strange sound, like metal grating against stone. “Sure. Where else would you be? I don’t know, Snow. Off running an errand for the Mage, perhaps? Buying his groceries, maybe? What does it feel like to be at a tyrant’s beck and call? They call you the Mage’s Heir, but I think it might be more appropriate to call you the Mage’s Pet. Or guard dog, perhaps?”

Simon sat there for a moment, taking in Baz’s rant. It wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard before, and not always from Baz. Countless students had commented on Simon’s constant obedience to the Mage, and Baz had been calling him names like that for years. It wasn’t new.

But the tone of Baz’s voice seemed to suggest that there was something more this time.

Simon pushed aside that thought and growled. “Like you aren’t just a tool for your family. Right. You’d do whatever the Pitches told you to.”

Baz slammed the door behind him, dropping his jacket on his bed. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and the first couple buttons of his shirt were opened. The heat was getting to him—normally he’d never be seen without a full suit.

Simon’s eyes caught on the hollow base of his collar bone, and he noticed the way Baz swallowed hard before replying.

“Really? I’d do anything they said? I don’t know, Simon. No matter what you might believe, I actually have morals. I know where to draw the line. And you know what? Burning down my cousin’s house? That constitutes as crossing the fucking line.”

“What?” Simon stood up from his bed, causing an avalanche of books and papers to fall to the ground.

“Don’t ask me what, Snow. You know what.”

Baz may have treated Simon like shit in the past, he may have pushed him down stairs and spit on him and tormented him, but his voice had never carried that tone of disgust before—it was a toxic-green sound that could only be compared to the feeling of silt squelching between bare toes.

“No, Baz, really—I have no idea what you’re talking about. Your cousin’s house?”

Baz grabbed his shirtfront, dragging him close. Simon’s hand grabbed in vain at his bedspread behind him, but he came away emptyhanded. Baz dragged him forwards, and Simon could feel the heat of his breath when he spoke.

“Like hell you don’t. The place stank of magic. Simon Snow, the Mage’s little atom bomb. So he finally decided to treat you like the weapon you are, did he?”

His voice was low, and it didn’t sound like silk or velvet or a ballpoint pen running over lined paper. There was gravel in his throat, grinding each word out with a threat already attached.

Simon struggled away from him. They could both feel the humidity dropping in the room, the way the air singed their skin.

Not again. Dammit, not again.

He took a deep breath, trying desperately to push the magic down.

It didn’t work.

“I swear, Baz, I swear. I had nothing to do with this. Nothing. I was here, at Watford—I—”

Baz was shaking, his knuckles turning even whiter than usual as he clutched Simon’s shirtfront.

“Of course you had something to do with this. I’m not stupid, Snow. If the Mage was involved, so were you. You’re the Chosen One, after all. Right?”

The temperature in the room spiked, and Simon’s golden face turned pale.

Not again.

 *

BAZ

He almost didn’t notice it, the way the room grew dark around them. The way the heavy air was starting to spark against his skin.

He was somewhere else.

Fiona hadn’t known about the attack when she took him there. They were going to meet with some of the Pitches’ extended family, to plan.

(As much as Simon accused him of plotting, he really had no say in it. He mostly just watched as the rest of his family plotted how they were going to use him to get the Mage.)

They’d rounded the last corner to his cousin’s house, and oh. It was almost beautiful, the way it blazed. Almost.

The flames were bursting through windows, stretching out for oxygen and fuel. Part of the roof had already caved in, throwing sparks and cinders into the sky. The remainder of the building seemed skeletal, with lone beams silhouetted against the glow, already blackened by the heat. The fire swallowed the house whole and then turned to the surrounding trees, unsatisfied with its meal.

Baz had gotten out of the car and walked towards it. He did that, sometimes. He got close to fire just to test his limits. Just to see if a stray spark would happen to land on his arm or shoulder and take him away. Just one spark, one snap-bang-crackling flash of flame, and he’d be gone.

Fiona had wrenched her door open and gone after him, dragging him away from the burning house. She’d thrown him in the car and screamed at him.

“Basilton, what the fuck? What the FUCK? Do you have a death wish? Is that it?”

She’d screamed at him, and screamed, and then she cried. In a split second, his aunt went from yelling at him to sobbing in the driver’s seat, forehead on her steering wheel.

They drove away. They had to—Baz couldn’t be close to fire. The rest of the Pitches and Grimms flooded to the scene, stopping the flames from spreading and searching for bodies. He felt like a coward, face pressed to the window, watching his family fight the fire while he fled the scene. He’d been coughing from the smoke, and part of the queasiness had likely come from that as well. But when he forced Fiona to pull over and let him stumble out of the car to vomit on the side of the road, he knew he wasn’t sick from the smoke.

He was sick because he knew. He knew who had done it, but he couldn’t bear the thought.

The magic in that place…the air had been saturated with it. It left his skin buzzing and his head in a fog.

Magic like that only ever came from one place.

Simon fucking Snow.

His vision was clouded with smoke and flames and the scent of magic heavy in the air.

Magic was heavy in the air now.

Baz blinked the flames out of his eyes, focusing on Snow.

He was so close to going off, and he was straining so hard not to. Baz could see it in his face, the way the blood was draining away, the way he was grinding his teeth.

He just snarled at him, not carrying if his fangs were showing. “Is that your answer to this, Snow? To just blow the fuck up again?”

Simon struggled, trying to pull out of Baz’s grasp. Baz clenched his fist tighter around the fabric of Snow’s t-shirt and shoved him back against the door, pinning him there.

“I swear, Baz,” Simon gasped. His face—Crowley, he was gorgeous. Gorgeous and desperate, “I didn’t do it. Baz. I swear.”

He’s so fucking beautiful.

He’s a murderer.

“Yes you did. You killed them. You set that fire and you killed them.”

Baz didn’t recognize his own voice. He didn’t recognize the tears dripping down his face. He didn’t recognize the sympathy in Snow’s eyes.

He didn’t recognize anything.

 *

SIMON

I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.

He couldn’t do it.

The magic was spilling out from his chest into his limbs, filling him up. The room already smelled like smoke. He pressed a hand against the doorframe behind Baz’s head, pushing back against it, trying to get away. Being this close to Baz, this close to his hurricane eyes and fanged mouth, he couldn’t control it.

I can’t do it.

He didn’t want to be the one who destroyed Watford. He didn’t want to be the one that blew up the only place on Earth that meant something to him.

He wanted some goddamn control.

“Baz,” he whispered. He was begging, now. He didn’t have a choice, “Baz. I didn’t. I promise you, I promise you, I promise you. I didn’t do it. I would never—”

And then Baz cut him off.

 *

BAZ

He was out of control. He was out of control.

That was the only explanation.

Although, in that moment, with his lips so firmly pressed against Snow’s, he felt more in control than he had in the last seven years.