Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Motorcycle crash in 14,” Dr. Possibelf says, slapping the file against my chest. I roll my eyes. This is her way of saying she’s done arguing with me about my presence on the ward tonight.

It’s demeaning that I should have to work a monthly shift on the ER floor. That’s what residents are for. Or those fools who actually choose to specialise in emergency medicine.

I should be in my office, investigating the odd outbreak of adenovirus in the hospital nursery.

Instead, I drag myself unwillingly down to the critical care section of the ER to spend an evening, if past stints down here are any indication, up to my eyebrows in runny noses and screaming children.

At least a motorcycle crash is mildly interesting. Stupid. But interesting.

A couple of minutes later, the flurry of activity tells me I’ve arrived at my destination, but suddenly I’m reluctant (well, more reluctant) to enter the trauma bay. There’s a superstitious feeling trickling down my spine, telling me I don’t want to know what’s in there. I shake it away. I’m a scientist. Superstition has no place in my life.

I ignore the inner voice that cackles, “superstition is your life, boyo.” Yes, my inner voice sounds like my harridan aunt. What of it?

Still, I peek my head around the door before I enter. There are three nurses and a first year resident working on the patient, so whoever it is is not in immediate danger of being ignored. Of dying maybe, but he’ll have plenty of witnesses if he does. I take in the crimson splashes on the white sheet of the bed, the aural atmosphere of steady beeps and low groans.

The resident is taking notes on a clipboard. One nurse is debriding a wound on the man’s arm. Another is reading the blood pressure relayed on the screen above the bed. The third is asking him questions in a soft, pleasant voice. I absently admire her control; that’s Moira, and she’s unshakable in a crisis. It’s handy when you’ve got hysterical patients.

Not that this man is hysterical. I can’t see more than a mop of dirty brown curls from where I’m at, but he’s answering Moira’s questions in a strained but steady voice. The soft rumble of his voice tickles at my memory, but I’m not done assessing the situation, so I ignore it for now.

Dispassionately, I take in the damage. Aside from the arm wound that the nurse is using forceps to pick gravel out of, there’s shallow road rash damage across the matching leg, hip and ribs. The wounds are dark. Blood and dirt as well as rocks. Hopefully they’re not too deep, or infection will be the real danger here. Shreds of dark blue fabric lace around the wound—they must have had to cut him out of his clothes.

He must be in screaming agony, but I ignore that as irrelevant, though it is somewhat interesting that he’s not, in fact, screaming. A quick scan of the rest of the skin I can see from here shows that the rest of his torso is mottled with bruises and cuts, though most of the latter are at least now bandaged and don’t appear to be bleeding any longer.

Satisfied that there’s no real need for me here, I stroll in to perform my other function: irritating the patient until they demand to be released and are, therefore, out of my hair.

“So, who’s this moron?” I greet Keris, the nurse who’d been checking the man’s vital signs. She turns to glare at me. Keris doesn’t have much patience for my…peculiarities.

She puts both hands on her hips, forgetting the felt tip pen she’d been holding, uncapped. I watch in amusement as ink begins to bleed steadily into her scrubs. In her round Scottish vowels, she scolds me. “Don’t you be actin’ an arse to my patient, Basilton Grimm-Pitch. He’s had a hard enough day, he doesn’t need you adding to the trouble of it.”

I grin, enjoying her feistiness. Not that I’ll let it stop me. “What? Are you trying to tell me that people who ride motorcycles aren’t feckless idiots whose only use is the potential organs they can donate?”

Keris’s eyes go dark and furious, and I sense another comment in my file in the offing. Not that I care. But before she can let loose the tongue lashing she’s clearly brewing, another voice pings at my consciousness. “Baz?” the man in the bed whispers.

I’m caught off guard for the first time tonight as I spin away from Keris to take in the face that’s now turned in my direction. My heart speeds up and I suddenly want to choke on my own spit, though I exert iron control to make sure none of this shows on my face.

I remember that shiver down my spine, out in the hallway. It’s as if my body knew before my eyes even gathered their evidence. It’s him. Leaning towards me, propped on his uninjured elbow. Bronze curls, not brown. Just dirty. Blue eyes gleaming at me out of a mask of dirt and pain.

The only man I’ve ever loved.

Simon fucking Snow.

“I—” my voice cracks and stalls in my throat and I scold myself furiously for showing that small breach in my heartless facade. I steel myself and start again. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re the moron in question, Snow.”

Simon has the nerve to roll his eyes at me before falling back against the bed. “Lay off, Baz. We haven’t seen each other in a dozen years. And we were on a truce last time I saw you.”

I muster enough snark to say, “Typical of you to believe that truces are infinite.”

He ignores me. I can’t handle that. I’ve never been able to stand being ignored by Simon Snow.

“So, how did you manage to cock yourself up so badly this time?” I ask, moving closer to him. Up close I can see the extent of the damage, and I hide a wince at the sheer quantity of skin he’s lost. Road rash is the worst. The darkening bruises are concerning me more. Skin will come back, but internal bleeding is the real bugaboo.

“Dunno,” he mumbles, sounding exhausted. “Was out for a ride on a country lane and then this gorse bush came out of nowhere.”

I frown. Gorse bushes do not, in fact, jump in front of motorcyclists. Simon would have had to veer off the road to find himself at the gorse's not-so-tender mercies. “Do you know what made you leave the road?” I ask, my voice sharp.

There’s something there, in Snow’s eyes. A shadow of knowing. So I sense the lie when he shrugs and says, “Dunno. I can’t remember.”

I narrow my eyes at him. Now, he’s truly caught my interest. There’s nothing I love more than stripping away all the lies people like to tell themselves and others. Why would Simon Snow, chosen prodigy of Watford boarding school, lie about whatever bump in the road set him off course?

People only bother to lie about things that are important, to them or to others. I’ve a lifetime of experience in telling myself and others lies, so I know what I’m talking about.

“Is your memory always so faulty these days, Snow?” I purr. “Early-onset Alzheimer’s, perhaps?”

“Fuck off,” he grumbles, but it was there again. That shadow of remembered fear and pain. And he didn’t manage to hide a wince at my Alzheimer’s joke.

It’s not Alzheimer’s, of course. Snow is only thirty; he’s four months younger than me, and I just turned thirty-one. But something about my accusation struck a chord.

This case becomes more interesting by the moment.

Simon

Ok, I know riding my bike was a stupid idea. Anyone with my particular set of problems who then puts himself in control of a motor vehicle is asking for a wreck.

I just thought that if I kept my speed below thirty and stuck to empty roads, I could risk it. I really wanted to feel the wind in my face again.

I wanted to feel like I wasn’t broken.

I guess the joke’s on me.

The Universe must really be mocking me for me to find myself in Baz’s hospital. Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch. Child of high birth and privilege. My former roommate. A brilliant scholar and a bullying arsehole. What gods did I piss off to land me here?

Since he entered the room, he’s mocked my intelligence, my motorcycle, and my memory. That last hit a little too close to home, and I know I didn’t hide my reaction well. He won’t let it go now. Stubborn doesn’t even begin to describe Baz Pitch. I sigh.

The pain is a lot, but still, I try to lighten the mood in the room, which has become far too tense since Baz walked in. “You’re just still jealous that I have a motorbike when your parents wouldn’t let you have one.” It was well known that Baz’s father and aunt were exceedingly overprotective of him since his mother died so tragically. I know he was jealous of Agatha (what I named my motorbike), because his eyes always used to follow me when I rode off, and he always had a scowl on his face.

The original Agatha wasn’t too fond of the bike either, but at that point, she’d dumped me, so she really had no say in what I did with my free time. I was careful not to let her know the bike’s name though.

Speaking of Agatha (the bike, not the girl), I wonder if she survived the collision. Baz has been running his gloved hands over my torso, checking my injuries in silence (which I’m doing my best to ignore) when I blurt, “Is the bike OK?” He startles. I guess he was concentrating really hard.

HIs face, which had fallen out of his typical sneer in his focus on the damage to my skin, jumps back into his favourite expression. “Is that really important now, Snow?” he scoffs.

“It is to me,” I say, but subside at his glare. I don’t know why I asked, it’s not like he’d know anyways.

Baz

Snow seems to fade after a weak attempt at banter and I note with some (well hidden) concern that his skin tone is getting more washed out by the minute. It might be the pain; my attempt at distracting him from it (by being the arsehole he expects me to be) was not exactly a rousing success. But Snow’s always had a ridiculously high pain tolerance…

“Trixie,” I address the resident in the room for the first time. “Have all of the bleeds been found and locked down?”

The young woman (too young, to my mind, to have completed medical school. She looks about 12) nods, and the tiny bells in her ears tinkle with the movement of her wild red pixie cut.

“Nothing was deep,” she says. “All surface wounds; scrapes and lacerations.”

“Then why,” I muse sarcastically, “Is he losing blood volume?”

“He is?” she startles. Her eyes fly to the vital signs board and immediately she notes what I just saw. Simon’s blood pressure has begun to fall and his heart rate is rising. It’s a slow change; it hasn’t changed enough to set off any alarms yet, and the nurses would almost certainly have noticed within seconds after I did. But I noticed first because I’ve been constantly scanning all of the data. And those numbers shouldn’t have changed at all if we’re only talking about surface wounds.

Simon is watching us, but his eyes have glazed over and I’m not sure he’s actually following the conversation. I suspect he’s losing consciousness.

And then he does. His eyes roll back in his head, and his head itself sags to the side. Fuck! That is not good.

I spring to his side (cursing the stab of pain in my wonky knee) and begin pulling at the sheet that’s been protecting his modesty since I entered the room. And there it is. His belly is fuller than it ought to be and feels hard to the touch. Internal bleeding. When I reach across and palpate his abdomen, just under his left rib cage, I find the source.

“He’s got a ruptured spleen!” I bark at the useless medical team. “He’s bleeding out internally! Get the surgeon on the line and get him prepped immediately!”

As the team jumps to follow my orders, I rest my hand on Simon’s shoulder. You’d better get through this, you moron, I tell him silently. I just found you again…

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: A Series of Unfortunate Accidents

Baz

Snow’s surgery was a success. I will deny being anxious about it until my dying day, but I did check his chart every few minutes while the surgery was ongoing. The surgeon managed to find and shut down the bleed and then repair the damage to Simon’s spleen.

For the next several days, I indulged myself by dropping by Simon’s hospital room to check on him. If he was asleep (usually the case), I just let my eyes hungrily take him in for a few minutes before getting back to my caseload. If he was awake, I’d spar with him verbally (as much as, in my judgement, he could handle). I tried to slip in a few questions about his accident or the seconds preceding it, but he was oddly close-mouthed about it. Of course, that only made me more interested in his story.

Then, one day, the seventh day since his admission to the emergency room, I dropped by his room to find a new patient in the bed he’d occupied. I refused to show my hand by asking anyone about him, but when I got back to my office, I pulled up his chart. It showed that Snow, S. was released AMA at 3 a.m. that morning. No reason or explanation was given.

After that, I sat back and pondered the situation for a very long time. Simon Snow, Mage’s golden boy and scholarship student turned school dropout, showed up in Watford General’s ER with injuries from crashing his motorbike into a bush. He was cagy about why he crashed, even outright lying to me. Then he checked out in the middle of the night against medical advice and disappeared.

I checked his record again and saw that he didn’t even give an address.

It was an interesting puzzle. I didn’t let myself dwell on how devastated I was by the loss of this second chance to spend time with Simon Snow.

It’s been two months since that day, and I haven’t given Snow another thought since then.

Alright, I’m lying. I’ve thought of him every damned day. Not that it gets me anywhere. So I don’t suspect anything out of the ordinary when Rhys approaches me for help with his case—a near-drowning victim.

Simon

I don’t try to hide my dismay when Baz walks into my hospital room. I’d really hoped I’d be out of here before he even knew I’d been admitted. It’s not like I’ll need a prolonged hospitalisation this time. But since I was brought in unconscious and half-drowned, the doctors are insisting on a bunch of tests to make sure I’ll suffer no ill-effects from the accident.

I’ve had to sit here with an oxygen tube up my nose and, when I complained about it, the head nurse, one I hadn’t met before, Niamh something, told me tartly that I was lucky I wasn’t intubated. So that’s whatever. And then they did an analysis of the dissolved gases in my blood, and an X-ray to make sure that all the water’s been expelled from my lungs.They’ve had me hooked up to electrodes to make sure my heart’s rhythm is normal. And I’ve just returned from a scan of my brain to make sure the minutes without air didn’t cause any damage.

I think they must just be bored today. So what if I stopped breathing for a bit and had to be resuscitated? That’s in the past, isn’t it? I’m being over-treated for something that’s no big deal.

Something that’s my fault.

It’s humiliating.

I should have better control than this. I should know to avoid hazards like motorcycles and nearby waterways, given my particular issues. Baz is going to take the piss and berate me for my stupidity and I just don’t want to deal with it.

And now he’s standing just inside the doorway to my room, his eyes glittering with that cruel fascination he used to show when I’d walk into our dorm room covered in scrapes and bruises from yet another accident or fight. Though I suppose, given that he went on to become a doctor, maybe it was just fascination-fascination.

Maybe Baz gets off on other people’s damage. I shudder and look away from him.

It’s not like he ever tried to help me. I was Mage’s errand boy, and therefore, I was the enemy and to be shunned at the least and actively slighted whenever possible.

From the perspective and wisdom of years, I know I’m being unfair. Baz was a kid, like me. And like me, he was probably subject to plenty of outside pressure. And he did testify on my behalf at the trial…

Maybe I should give him a chance.

Baz must have had his fill of sneering at me from the door, because he strolls up to my bedside, and opens his mouth to speak for the first time since he entered.

“So, Snow, are you suicidal or just stupid?”

In spite of myself, in spite of my recent resolve to try to put our past behind us, my fists clench and I can feel the hot blood rushing to my cheeks. I already feel like shit, but of course Basilton Grimm-Pitch has to do his best to make it worse.

“I already told the other doctor. I’m not fucking suicidal,” I growl.

“But you are stupid, hmm?”

I roll my eyes. I kind of walked into that one. “Fuck off, Baz.”

“So then, how do you explain running your motorcycle into a gorse bush and, not two months later, falling down a hillside to end up face down in a stream?” he asks, with deceptive casualness.

“Random accidents,” I mutter.

“Or,” Baz muses, his eyes alight with glee, like he’s caught me in a lie, “not so random.”

“Say what you want to say, Baz,” I say, jutting my chin forward. “You will anyway.”

Baz just smirks at me, but his attention is caught by the file my assigned doctor has just handed him.

Traitor.

“Looks like you’ll be staying with us for a while this time, Snow,” he says.

“Wait, what? I thought all those tests were just a precaution!”

“They were a precaution. To check for complications that might come up. And I don’t like the look of these lungs. You’re likely developing pneumonia as we speak.”

“You’re making that up!” I say, indignant.

Baz’s usual glare sharpens. “I do not make up medical test results to fuck with you, Snow. You will need to stay under a course of intravenous antibiotics for a few days while our specialists analyse some of these other results. Pneumonia’s no joke. Isn’t it better to prevent a nasty, possibly deadly illness if you can?”

He’s got a point, I suppose. And it’s not like I’ve got a fucking job to worry about right now. My most recent call centre job let me go after I missed a week of work from my motorcycle crash, and I haven’t found a new job yet.

And maybe he can actually help…

“You win, Baz,” I mutter. “I’ll stay put.”

Chapter Text

Baz

I spend the next several days studying Simon’s case history. I barely sleep and I don’t really eat. I subsist on coffee and nervous energy. There’s a mystery here, and I need to get to the bottom of it before Snow takes another runner.

I notice a troubling pattern, but it’s hard to pin down: frequent injury, seldom dangerous, throughout the ten years since he and I left school. I can’t decipher a connection between these incidents, so I actually go to the considerable trouble of ordering his childhood medical files from the care system.

What I read makes me feel sick.

There’s a pattern I’m all too familiar with there. Broken bones, burns, blunt force trauma. All throughout his childhood.

Markers of physical abuse.

And then there’s the injuries he suffered while at school with me, the ones I already knew about (the ones that made me so boiling mad I frequently lashed out at Simon for blindly following Mage’s orders). There’s stab and gunshot wounds, several instances of stitches, more than one concussion. And that doesn’t even count the many, many injuries I saw him just patch himself up, the ones that never made it into his medical record.

The memory of witnessing that still fills me with rage all these years later.

When I first met Simon Snow, he was the protege of the new headmaster. The headmaster my parents had already taught me to despise, for his progressive ideas and his overt disdain for tradition. But Simon was just eleven, small for his age and achingly thin. If I hadn’t been a blind fool, I’d have seen that the scrawny child he was posed no threat.

I was a little twat to him, there’s no sugarcoating it. I was a damaged child then, still traumatised six years later from witnessing my mother’s death. I held too fiercely to the family I had left, Fiona, my father. And that means I parroted the same bullshit to Simon’s face that I was hearing at home. And I did it with intent to wound.

From the perspective of years, I know I was lashing out because I was hurting. Simon Snow was just a convenient target and one who didn’t know how to fight back. At least, not the type of fighting back I was adept at. He could barely speak in those days. I remember him being called out of class at least once a week to work with a speech therapist on his stutter.

So I could talk circles around him from the beginning. And he didn’t dare fight back the only way he knew, with his fists, because fighting was grounds for losing his scholarship.

I doubt that Mage would have actually taken away his scholarship; Simon was too useful to him. But Simon didn’t know that, so he’d stand there and take my verbal flaying until his face was scarlet and his hands were knotted into fists. Then he’d run away and pound at something inanimate until his knuckles were torn and his ire had cooled.

I could have been a friend to him. It would have made what came later even less bearable, but at least I might have had greater influence over his choices if I hadn’t gone out of my way to make him hate me.

Mage stepped into the void I and others left in Simon’s soul. He made Snow his errand boy. He told the poor kid that dangerous people were trying to stop his reforms and so Simon would take packages and letters to his associates because nobody would suspect a kid. He even had the boy trained in self-defence, marksmanship and knife fighting, all with the same excuse. Enemies in high places, blah blah blah.

Simon took to that physical training like he never took to academics. Which was tragic for me, because by the time he was fifteen, his formerly scrawny body was as sculpted as that of a Greek god, and his face was just as beautiful as one. I was struggling with understanding that I was gay, but Simon definitely made things clearer for me. Not that it did me any damned good.

Fifteen was also the year when Simon’s ‘errands’ for Mage became more dangerous. Mage knew some dicey customers and Simon frequently ran into trouble with the sorts of people his mentor associated with. As I started seeing Snow get closer and closer to death with each close encounter, I grew frightened for him. This translated to me trying to convince him of the Mage’s ill intent, but I’d done my work too well. Simon wouldn’t believe a word I said.

Especially since I didn’t know how to talk to him with anything other than sarcasm and insults.

It wasn’t until the Mage sent Simon to retrieve a package from his latest collaborator, who went by the alias of Humdrum, that Simon began to break free from the man’s control. Something about Humdrum set Simon off. Maybe the same instinct that tells baby lamb that a wolf is near. He and Penelope Bunce started digging into the Mage’s background.

Then, in the course of that research, Simon also came across information on my mother’s ‘accident’ that convinced him to bring me into their little cabal.

I’ll never forget the day we found undeniable evidence that Mage had been using Simon to commit crimes: drug running and home invasion were the least of the things Mage had used Simon’s help to do. Simon had known none of it and was distraught. He didn’t want to believe it.

So he decided to confront the Mage, the idiot, and demand answers.

That’s where the gunshot wounds come from. Mage shot Simon three times, once in the shoulder and twice in the gut, and Simon used his last gasp of strength before collapsing to launch one of those lovely little throwing knives he’d become so expert in. His aim was true; the knife went right through Mage’s eye and pierced his brain, killing him instantly.

Simon almost died too, that day, and if it weren’t for the fact that Bunce and I had gone straight to the authorities when we realised that Simon had run off to confront Mage, he might have. But the police arrived in time to get Snow the help he needed. And then they arrested him as soon as he was well enough to leave the hospital, on charges of murder and conspiracy.

Simon was only ever guilty of being too trusting; even Mage’s death was self-defence. But it was hard to prove that when Mage’s records showed Simon’s involvement in almost every aspect of his criminal enterprise, and there were no witnesses to Simon’s confrontation with him in his office that night. Sometimes I wish I’d let Bunce go to the police on her own and chased after Simon myself. Maybe I could have saved him from what happened after, if I’d been there to witness, or even to intervene.

Or maybe I’d have died at the end of Mage’s gun myself.

Regret is a useless invention.

I hope, at least, that the months of work I did in researching and testifying in his defence makes up for what I made him suffer through in school. But maybe I’m fooling myself.

It worked, though. All charges against Simon were dropped. But his reputation was tainted in our world, so when he walked out of that courtroom for the last time as a free man, I never saw him again.

Until he crashed his motorcycle and ended up in my hospital.

Now, I can’t avoid the thought that I’ve been given a second chance to make things right for Simon. I know it’s ridiculous. What’s done is done, and nothing can erase the things he suffered. But my part in it has grated on me for years. Now that it seems that Simon Snow might need my help, I can’t let it go.

Simon

It’s odd, seeing Baz regularly again. He and I were roommates in school for seven years, and I saw him every day back then, but it’s been ten years since I left that place, and I never once ran into him anywhere else.

I feel weird everytime he stops into my hospital room with a probing question or a sarcastic comment. All of the nurses roll their eyes when he’s an arsehole and then when he’s gone, they apologise for him. Apparently he’s as much of a dick in his professional life as he was as a teenager.

That’s not fair. I owe teenage Baz a lot, even if I was hurting too much at the time to show any appreciation. I mean, my fucking mentor killed his mum and he still helped me. He’s the reason I’m not rotting in a jail cell at this very moment.

I was Mage’s errand boy for years, and I never questioned it. Never even argued that a 13 or 14 or 15 year old kid shouldn’t be asked to manoeuvre amongst hardened criminals. Penny used to argue with me over the ‘missions’ Mage sent me on, but I wouldn’t hear anything against him.

I was a fool.

One thing Baz probably doesn’t know is, I didn’t drop out of school willingly. While I was awaiting trial, and after, I tried to do my schoolwork remotely. I tried to keep up, to pass my courses. But I’d started suffering memory lapses and fits of severe distraction that year. I blamed the concussions I’d gotten in my work for Mage.

For all my effort, my grades dropped through the floor. At the midterm exams, which would have been two weeks before I’d be cleared to return to school, I failed every course.

I’d been doing poorly before the showdown with Mage too. When Baz hadn’t returned for the first few weeks of 8th year, I was out of my mind with worry. I didn’t call it that at the time, but I’m honest enough with myself now to admit I was scared for him. I knew Baz wouldn’t miss 8th year on purpose.

And then he returned; paler, thinner and with a limp that he has to this day. But he was alive. And instead of devoting more attention to my schoolwork, I got caught up in investigating the Mage with Penny’s help (and eventually Baz’s).

Long story short, I spent all of the fall term of school basically ignoring my coursework, resulting in, rather predictably, failing my exams. And my failing grades violated the terms of my scholarship. Penny’s mum, Mitali Bunce, took over after I killed Mage, and I know she felt bad about it, but there was nothing she could do. I was a nobody with no family, and there was no way I could afford the tuition at Watford academy without a scholarship.

So I dropped out of school. Or was kicked out. Whatever.

I spent the next several years just bumming around. Sleeping on friends’ sofas. Getting hired at, and then promptly fired from, job after job. It’s hard to keep a job when you have frequent memory lapses and can’t concentrate. I kept losing time; I’d blink, and five minutes would have passed and I’d have no knowledge of anything that happened in that period.

Finally, with Penny’s help, I managed to get a work-from-home job where I could work any time of day or night, which helped make up for how hard it was for me to focus for long periods. And I moved in with Penny too. A stable home also helped. I limped along, doing okay, for several years.

Until just over two months ago. Or maybe I should say two years ago?

Two years ago, Penny got married. Shepard’s an upstanding bloke and I was honestly thrilled for her. But I think that Shepard, not having spent the last several years with my decline, was much more sensitive to it. He told me my time losses were seizures. A quiet form of seizure that involved me just staring off blankly into space, not falling to the ground and twitching. But Shepard had had a friend with epilepsy, and he recognised what was happening to me.

He couldn’t explain the other symptoms, but he pointed out that frequent seizures could cause what I thought of as ‘concentration problems’. I wasn’t being constantly distracted, I was being frequently interrupted by electrical storms in my own brain.

He pushed me to go to a doctor. Penny had been trying to get me to go for years, but hearing a near-stranger say it made it more real. (Sorry, Pen).

Or maybe my mental health had finally improved enough that I could accept that I deserved to get better. Penny thinks I spent my first few years after Watford punishing myself for the whole situation with Mage by refusing to take care of myself. She’s probably right. She usually is.

So, I went to a doctor. In America, where we were at the time, getting ready for Shepard and Penny’s wedding. Shepard had to get me a fake ID and medical insurance card for the visit, otherwise I would never have gotten to see a specialist without being a citizen. He got those things easily, for which Penelope gave him some serious side-eye. But he told her, with that guileless smile that could win anyone over, that he wasn’t in the habit of breaking the law, he just ‘knew a lot of people’.

And Shepard really is a good person. He insists on tipping baristas and taxi drivers and never so much as jaywalks. But he thinks the American medical system is bloated with unfair costs and bureaucracy, so he was ok with working around it, this once.

Doctor Travis gave me a brain scan and agreed with Shepard. I had epilepsy. I was elated. And, I felt justified when the doctor told me that repeated brain injuries could lead to seizures. It was caused by my concussions as a teenager, just as I’d thought. We all thought we had an answer, finally.

But the medicines for epileptics didn’t do anything for me. I gave the doctor another chance, a few days before the wedding. He was apologetic, and said that other causes, like metabolic diseases or cancer, could also cause epileptic seizures, but since nothing like that showed up in my scans, they’d need more scans and more time. He also told me that some epileptics had been successfully treated by having a part of the brain removed, the part where the seizures originated.

That was it. I was not about to let anyone cut into my head (let alone a doctor seeing me on the basis of a dodgy fake identity). Not when I’d been getting along okay without it for years.

We came back to England and settled down in Penny’s flat as a trio. And things seemed fine, for a while.

I started riding my bike again a year ago. I stuck to back lanes and abandoned roads, and it seemed safe enough because my episodes seldom lasted long. It gave me a feeling of control that I’d been missing for most of my life.

I knew it was a stupid risk, but I’d started losing myself to despair again since Shepard moved in with us. I knew that, sooner or later, Shepard and Penny would want to start a family (they’re just waiting until they’ve paid off some old debts that Shepard owes). And when they do, they’ll need my room. I’ll have to start over on my own. But the only thing that’s kept me sort of functional over the years was having Penny’s help.

I think I wanted to prove that my problem wasn’t really serious enough to stop me from living my life.

It seems, though, that the seizures are actually getting worse. Since the accident, Penny has started timing them. She’s found that now I ‘blink out’ for full minutes instead of seconds, which had previously been the norm. Which explains how I lost control of my bike for long enough to veer off the road, and how I didn’t wake up fast enough to keep myself from inhaling water and partially drowning myself.

But the medical history of my seizures is under the name of Ronald Rain, in Omaha, Nebraska. Unless I tell the doctors about them, they may never know.

Unless I tell Baz about them…

Baz

I’ve reached a dead end. Snow’s medical records have given me plenty of things to be angry about, but nothing that explains why, in two months time, he nearly died twice from unrelated accidents. He says he’s not suicidal. He claims it’s a coincidence. But people lie.

It’s time to track down the lie.

Simon

I still haven’t decided what to do when Baz appears next at my bedside. He strolls in with a sneer on his face and a folder in his hands. He drops the folder unceremoniously onto my legs.

I refuse to take the bait. “You need something?” I ask. I keep my hands away from the folder, like it was a venomous snake.

“Your medical record,” he drawls, pointing at the folder. I fight back a flinch.

“Yeah, so?”

“It’s enlightening on many different things, Snow.” His face is unreadable. I know what he’s seen. The frequent injury, the broken bones, the trauma. That part of my life is over, but it’s left its marks on my body. I don’t want to talk about it now. What good does talking do? It can’t erase the blows that left the scars.

“Like what?” I reply, jaw tense.

Baz shrugs, but it’s more like a rolling of his shoulders than an up-and-down motion. “Like I said, many things. But if you mean ‘do I know why Simon Snow keeps ending up in life-threatening situations,’ the answer is no. That’s why I’m here. I’ve come to ask for the truth.”

My lips turn down. “I didn’t lie, Baz.”

He actually laughs at that. “Everyone lies, Snow,” he smirks. “And you’re a fool if you think I’ll believe you.”

“Because I’m a criminal’s apprentice?” I growl, gritting my teeth.

But that must not be what he was getting at because he looks disarmed by my reply. Even a little hurt. “Snow, I would never,” he says emphatically. “You were too loyal and trusting for your own good sometimes, but you were never a criminal. You were too fundamentally good for that.”

Now I’m the one who’s disarmed. “I think that’s the first nice thing I’ve ever heard you say about me,” I marvel.

One side of his mouth rises up in a wry half-smile. “Don’t get used to it,” he says. Then his expression goes impassive again and he points to the file. “I’m here, Snow, to ask you for what this file does not show. You may not have actively lied to the medical personnel, but you’re withholding relevant information, and a lie of omission is still dishonest.”

I wince. That arrow hit its mark.

“So,” Baz continues, “What is it, Snow? What is the missing piece that explains your extremely bad luck of late?”

I bite my lip. If I don’t tell him now, I really would have to lie. And maybe he can help. The truth doesn’t make me look good, but that’s my own damn fault, and maybe I should own it.

Baz

Simon’s eyes drop. The way he’s staring intently at the file on his lap while gnawing on his lower lip tells me I was one hundred percent correct. I wait. Snow’s always been such a glorious golden hero that I know he won’t lie to my face.

Finally, his eyes close and his chin drops. Here it comes.

“I’ve been diagnosed with epilepsy,” he admits quietly. “Two years ago. In America, which is why it’s not in my file.”

Now we’re getting somewhere! “So the crash, the fall, both were—”

He looks away. “Seizures, yeah.” Then he looks back at me and his eyes are flint and his jaw juts forward. “Spare me the lecture. I thought I was taking sufficient precautions. I never would have wanted to hurt someone because of my issues.”

I know he wouldn’t. He’s too honourable for that. “Only yourself, hmm?” I point out. He sinks back against the raised surface of the bed and sighs.

“Yeah. Except for myself. Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” I deadpan. “But, more to the point, you’ve given me a place to start. Have a good day, Snow.” Then I turn on my heel and stride away as decisively as my persistent limp will allow. I couldn’t stay there any longer. Everything about him makes me long to be soft and kind, and I can’t let my reputation in this hospital be ruined.

Besides, Simon Snow doesn’t want softness from me. He doesn’t want anything from me. But he needs me.

And I’m going to help him whether he likes it or not.

~~*~~

Snow’s brain scans don’t show any cell damage from oxygen deprivation. They also don’t show a clear reason for his seizures. Of course, this is just a basic MRI scan, meant to check for long term consequences of Simon’s drowning, but I don’t see any shrinkage of the temporal lobe, nor any scarring or other damage.

Of course, Simon’s American doctor may have just diagnosed epilepsy on the basis of his number and type of seizures, but epilepsy isn’t the only reason for seizures.

I rub the bridge of my nose between my eyes and sigh. It’s late, and I haven’t slept since sometime yesterday. I need rest. But how can I be sure that Simon won’t slip away while I’m at home?

Something occurs to me all of a sudden, and I swiftly pull up patient room records to confirm my memory. When I find what I’m looking for, I sigh in relief. Simon’s in a double room, but there’s no patient assigned to the second bed at the moment.

What I’m about to do is unprofessional to the extreme, but…Niall is the head doctor in Intensive Care tonight, and he owes me a favour.

~~*~~

Twenty minutes later, I’m shuffling off my shoes and making myself as comfortable as possible on the patient bed next to Simon’s. Niall was happy to reassign the nurse in charge of Simon’s care tonight in exchange for me ‘forgetting’ about what I caught him and Dev doing in a patient bed last month.

I wouldn’t have ratted him out anyways, but he knows I’m a man of my word, so it eases his mind to know I’ve actually promised not to say anything. He’ll take over Simon’s check-ins tonight, and I’ll get some much needed rest, while still being close enough to Simon that he can’t sneak out without my knowing.

As I rest my head on the inadequate hospital-issue pillow, I let myself indulge in what used to be my favourite pastime back in my Watford days; counting Simon’s freckles and moles and identifying patterns on his skin that resemble the constellations in the night sky.

The sound of his soft, slightly congested breathing eventually lulls me to sleep.

Simon

When I wake up, I’m not alone.

This by itself isn’t surprising. It was honestly more surprising that I got a double room to myself for several days. Most hospitals I’ve been in, there’s a shortage of beds and I’ve sometimes not even got a room, only a gurney in a hallway.

What is actually surprising is that I know my roommate. And I’m immediately taken back to years of waking up across from that silky black head and model-pretty face. Basilton Grimm-Pitch is asleep in the hospital bed next to mine, tiny snores coming out of his half open mouth.

I carefully and slowly pick up my phone from my bedside table and take a short video of him. I’ll be able to cut him off short next time he accuses me of being a mouth breather!

When I start to set the phone down, I get a good look at his face, and I freeze. He looks completely worn out. I don’t know how long he’s been asleep, but the deep shadows carved under his eyes are still there, and everything about his slumped posture speaks of his exhaustion.

I feel guilty for a moment, but then I roundly tell myself off for being self-centred. Surely I’m not his only patient. He’d hardly be working himself to the brink of collapse on my case alone.

Would he?

I sigh and set my phone down gently so that the noise doesn’t wake him. Then I lay quietly and watch him for a while. Again there’s a sense of deja vu. I’ve spent many evenings and mornings over the years lying in bed and watching Baz sleep.

He’s no less lovely than he was back in school, even if there are faint new lines around his eyes. Age or overwork? There’s no way to tell.

I’ve always been fascinated by how open and vulnerable he looks when he sleeps. When he’s awake, he’s sharp, composed. Always one step ahead of everyone else and not afraid to let them know it. The contrast between these two facets of Baz always drove me mad. I wanted him to be vulnerable when awake. To open up to me.

Not that he ever would. Basilton Grimm-Pitch spent all of our first seven years at Watford Academy making sure, with his every word and action, that I knew how beneath him I was.

All of that changed in 8th year though. I remember the day I asked Baz to help me investigate Mage. He’d never helped me with much of anything other than occasionally patching me up after a fight. And that, I figure, he did so he could spend the time belittling the choices that led to my injuries.

But he was the only person I knew who had the courage to openly condemn Mage. I know other students disliked Mage, but the headmaster was powerful and influential enough to make people keep their feelings to themselves. I’d always been angry when Baz criticised my mentor, but at the same time, I couldn’t help admiring his bravery in doing so.

So, I knew he might actually be willing to help. And I knew he was brilliant and would be a huge asset in the research.

But really, I think I brought him into our little team, formerly just Penny and I, because he came back to 8th year late, and changed. He was 8 weeks late back to school, and I’d just about convinced myself that he’d decided against an 8th year, though I’d spent a lot of those eight weeks wondering and worrying about him.

But he came back, and he was different. He had a limp, he was gaunt and starved looking and even paler than he usually is. And he was quiet. He barely bothered to insult me. He barely bothered with me at all.

And for some reason, I couldn’t stand being ignored by Baz Pitch.

So, one night when we were both in bed, facing each other just like we are now, I told him about my doubts about Mage, and asked for his help. And he agreed.

Why did he agree? I mean, I’m certain he wanted to bring Mage down. And he got what he wanted there. But then why fight the school board and the local city council for weeks to get me acquitted and reinstated? I was acquitted in the end, but even Baz couldn’t erase my shitty academic record. But Penelope told me about how persuasive he was, how he showed up at every hearing and every meeting to speak for me.

I’d thought he hated me. I’d thought he was only helping us because he hated Mage more. Because I’d given him some weak evidence that Mage might have known something about his mother’s accident.

Now I wonder if I ever understood Basilton Grimm-Pitch at all.

Baz

When I wake, Snow is facing the other direction, trying to look like he’s asleep. Moron. Like I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference after watching him sleep and fail to sleep for more than seven years.

I suppose he’s giving me a chance to compose myself after the indignity of falling asleep on the hospital bed next to his.

Little does he know, I’ve got no dignity left to lose.

Still, best to play it off. I sit up slowly and when I’m upright without any dizziness or faintness (I’ve worked myself into dehydration before, it’s not unlikely), I speak.

“What medicines were you prescribed for your epilepsy?”

Simon startles, so I guess he didn’t hear me sitting up. Lost in his thoughts? Or mid-seizure?

He sits up abruptly, with none of my caution, and to nobody’s surprise ends up swaying in place for a moment, his hand to his forehead.

“Dizzy, Chosen One?”

He makes a rude gesture in my direction. “Fuck off Baz. And the med name was levetiracetam”

I nod. That’s standard for epilepsy sufferers, if a little old school. “Anything else?” I probe.

He shakes his head. “The doctor wanted to do exploratory surgery, but I was leaving America and didn’t have time for that.”

“Are you still taking levetiracetam?”

Again he shakes his head. “No, I quit taking it after my second visit to that doctor. It never had any effect anyway.”

I frown. The defined procedure in such cases is to try other anti-seizure medications before jumping to surgery. I wonder if Simon’s doctor saw something on his scans that I’m missing? I’m not a neurosurgeon, after all.

I ask Simon and he looks confused. “He didn’t say. He also didn’t say there were other drugs I could try.”

I shake my head in disgust. “Quack,” I mutter. Then I sigh. “I’ll have our neurosurgeon here, Dr. Minos, take a look at your scans. In the meantime, Epilepsy still seems the likeliest explanation. I’ll give you a prescription for eslicarbazepine acetate; you can give it a try, see if it’s any more efficacious.”

“Esli–what?” Simon says.

I roll my eyes. “I’ll write it down.” I hop down off of my bed and stride (well, limp) towards the door. I don’t look at Simon, though a sinking sensation in my gut tells me I may never see him again. But the hospital protocols won’t allow me to keep him here just because I have a hunch that I haven’t figured out everything yet. That hunch is based on nothing I can define, which means I won’t be able to convince Dr. Possibelf.

“Baz, wait.”

I’d almost made it out the door when his words jerk me to a stop like they were connected by a string to my spine. I sigh and slowly turn.

“What, Snow? Got anymore lies you need to clear up?”

Simon looks affronted, but then sighs. “I deserve that.”

I snort. “You deserve worse.”

Simon runs his arm over his eyes and then sighs, louder and longer this time. “Alright, Baz, I get it. I’m a liar and an idiot. But are we going to talk about why you decided to sleep in the bed next to mine?”

I look at him for a long moment. His blue eyes are staring into mine as if he can read his answers in them. He’s earnest and good and beautiful—and I need to get out of here before I declare my undying love for him.”

“No,” I reply, and walk out.

Chapter Text

Baz

Ever since Rhys determined that Simon was well enough to finish recuperating at home, I’ve been torn. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to what’s going on with Simon than simple epileptic seizures. But is a feeling enough reason to show up at Simon’s door and cross examine him?

So far, I’ve decided it’s not enough, but I have to remake that decision every single day when I start to miss him. I keep a file with duplicates of everything I’ve learned about Simon’s condition on my computer’s desktop against all regulations (if someone were to see Simon’s private medical records because I was careless with secure file storage, I’d be out of a job). I can’t explain it, but I need it close. I review it every so often hoping for new insights.

A month later, I walk into my office to find Simon Snow himself glaring me down.

Simon

I felt hopeful when I tried the new med. I even gave it a full four weeks. But not only are my seizures not getting better, I’m pretty sure they’re getting worse. I’m ‘waking up’ with missing time a dozen times a day, and Penny says my absence seizures, where I stare into space as if lost in thought, happened four times during dinner last night. During roast beef! I have never had so much trouble paying attention to my favourite meal before.

So I’m furious. Furious at the drug, for being useless. Furious at myself for being so fucked up and broken. And furious at Baz for not fixing me. There’s nothing I can do about the first two, so I’ve come back to Watford General to confront Baz.

He pretends I’m here on a social call, the twat. “Good morning Snow. Did you drop by to sample our stellar cafeteria offerings?”

“Fuck you,” I hiss. “Your damn meds didn’t help at all. They made me worse!”

I suddenly have Baz’s complete attention. It’s a little disorienting; his focus is so complete that when he trains it on you, you feel like you’re at the end of a gun. And I know what it feels like to be at the end of a gun.

“Made you worse?” His voice is sharp. “That isn’t possible. There are epilepsy drugs that have exacerbated symptoms in some patients, but that’s not a side effect of the drug I prescribed.”

“Well, they have gotten worse,” I say mulishly. “Every day I have more seizures than the day before.”

“Still absence seizures?” he probes. I nod.

“Yeah. I’m still blanking out, nothing more. But it’s destroying my life!”

I suppose I should be grateful that I’m not having grand mal seizures, falling to the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth. But these spells of mine are making it impossible to complete tasks or focus on much of anything.

Baz skips right past my hysterical comment and says, “Several times a day? Great!” and then he turns and hobbles out of the office as fast as he can with his wonky knee.

I stare after him. ‘Great?’ What the fuck?

Baz

One of the main challenges of dealing with a seizure patient is that you can get so much more information from doing an EEG while they’re in the seizure. And since they occur at unpredictable intervals, they can be hard to catch ‘in the act’ as it were.

It’s not good news that Simon’s having seizures several times a day. But it is great news as far as recording his brain activity during a seizure while he’s hooked up to our machines.

It takes me an hour to arrange for a room and a machine for Snow, but I have my administrative assistant, Pippa, walk casually past my office every few minutes and text me to let me know if Snow tries to leave. He doesn’t. He stays there the whole time. Pippa does enjoy telling me, however, that she thinks smoke will start rising from his ears soon, he’s looking so enraged.

Lovely.

When I stroll back into my office, Snow bounds out of his chair, face red and fists clenched. “Are you just giving me the runaround, Baz? What happened to your fucking professional ethics?”

He’s beautiful when he’s angry. But it would be wrong of me to push him over the edge just because I enjoy seeing what he looks like while he teeters on it. So I do my best to sound conciliatory when I say, “I was just setting up an exam room for you, Snow. It took some time to get the use of the equipment I needed.”

“He squints at me, not looking particularly appeased. “Needed for what?”

I smile widely this time. “To catch your seizures in the act, Snow. Now, follow me, please.”

I stride off as confidently as this damned knee will allow me, and, after several seconds of grumbling and huffing, I hear Simon jogging to catch up with me. “What kind of test are you giving me?” he demands when he catches up.

“An electroencephalogram,” I tell him. “It’s used to measure brain electrical activity.”

Simon rolls his eyes. “I know what an EEG is. The doctor in America tried one on me.”

“Did he catch an actual seizure on it?” I say, slowing down to hear his answer.

“No,” he scowls. “But he said that the activity in my brain was consistent with the aftereffects of epileptic seizures.”

I nod. “That’s usually the diagnostic criteria, since it’s rare to actually catch a seizure on the EEG. But if you’re having them several times a day, we’ve got good odds that you’ll seize while you’re hooked up to the machine.”

“Oh.” He looks thoughtful. The red has faded from his skin and his eyes aren’t snapping with rage anymore. Pity. “So that’s why you said it’s great that my seizures have increased?”

“It’s not great that they’ve increased, Snow,” I correct him. “It’s extremely bad news actually. But, diagnostically, it’s helpful.”

Simon

Baz has barely placed the last electrode on my skull when the rainbow light show behind my eyes begins. It’s usually the only warning I get that I’m about to seize; it’s over in a fraction of a second, and then I blink out.

When I look into Baz’s face again, he's looking at me in consternation.

“What?” I ask, feeling a little defensive. It’s hard to think past the lethargy that follows the seizures. The sleepiness I get from these seizures is one of the main reasons I can’t focus enough to keep a job lately. If it were just the seizures, I’d have a momentary lapse that I could catch up from quickly. But the exhaustion I feel afterwards makes me struggle to focus on anything.

“Snow,” Baz asks, interrupting my fuzzy thoughts. “Who told you that you were having absence seizures?”

I bite my lip. I suspect I know how he’ll react to my answer. Ah well, there’s nothing for it. “Google,” I answer sheepishly.

Baz’s lips tighten and his eyes narrow with annoyance. “And the doctor you saw?”

I shrug and look away. “I just described them to him based on what I’d read online, and he agreed that they sounded like absence seizures.”

“Quack,” Baz snarls. Like, actually snarls. His hands are curled into fists and I suspect, if Doctor Travis were in front of him, they might be curled around the American doctor’s neck. “You are not having absence seizures,” he says forcefully.

Wait, what?

“I’m not?” I say weakly.

Baz shakes his head. “Tell me, Snow. Is your seizure ever preceded by an aura? Like a coloured edge to your vision?”

“Yeah,” I say, surprised. How did he know? “It’s rainbow coloured.”

“Of course it is,” I think I hear him mutter.

Baz

Simon Snow is having focal seizures. Specifically, if he’s been mistaking them for absence seizures, he’s been having focal impaired awareness seizures. Absence seizures are nearly always under thirty seconds and Snow blinked out for over two minutes. That, with the aura he sees beforehand and the lethargy he’s exhibiting now, all point to a partial complex seizure of the temporal lobe.

This explains some of the things that were inexplicable before. Like how Snow could lose consciousness for long enough to nearly drown and to crash into a bush while riding a bike at low speeds.

It’s still consistent with epilepsy. But this type of seizure can have some more troubling roots. They’re more common in people who’ve had brain injuries, tumours, strokes or brain infections.

Snow definitely has a history of head injuries, so it’s entirely possible that all of his current troubles stem from his troubled past. I’ll know more once the technician analyses the EEG patterns.

Infinitely more troubling than the root cause in his past is the potential implications for his present.

I’ve been staring at the EEG results for several minutes (I’m not an expert, but it gives me something to do to look useful while the nurse removes the electrodes from Snow’s head) when he approaches.

“Baz,” he says firmly. “I can tell something’s got you fussed. Is it bad news? If it is, just tell me, I can take it.”

I rub my thumbs against the palms of my hands while I consider my response. “I’m not an expert on EEG results.”

Simon laughs. “I never thought I’d see the day where you admitted that you’re not an expert at something.”

“I’m not an expert in many things,” I say. “I don’t know how to knit with cat hair or how to parasail, for example.”

Snow looks surprised. “Well…that’s random. Still, I can tell you’re worried about something. If it’s about me, I have a right to know.”

I sigh. “Can I ask you some questions about your living situation, Snow?”

Simon looks taken aback. “Why?”

I examine his hopelessly expressive face. Right now, he’s radiating wariness. Am I approaching the radius of another lie?

“Because you’ve said you’re having several of these seizures a day. I need to know what kind of supervision you have available to you. You’ve said you live with Bunce and her husband?”

Simon nods slowly, his forehead wrinkled as if he’s trying to parse out what I could possibly do to harm him with that information. Oh Simon, if only you knew. Harming you is the very last thing on my mind.

“Do they work from home?” I demand.

Simon shakes his head, looking even more confused when I swear. “How many hours a day are they away from the flat?” I ask. Even one hour is too long in this situation.

He’s bewildered, but he must decide there’s no harm in answering because he says, readily enough, “They both work night jobs, and then Penny teaches classes at the university in the morning, while Shepard has a second part time job as a driver for Deliveroo. They want kids, and they figure they’d best earn and save as much as they can while they’re still young enough that it’s easy.”

I groan. It’s as I feared. Bunce always was a go-getter, and it seems that hasn’t changed. And I know Simon doesn’t have anyone else. The whole time he was hospitalised, his only visitors were Bunce and her husband.

‘Why is that a problem?” Simon asks, his voice softer now, and worried.

“Because, Snow, focal seizures are a different animal from absence seizures. Sufferers will often perform inexplicable actions while in the grip of them. While you were out earlier, you talked about making a ham and butter sandwich and you tried to get out of the exam chair to go do that.”

“I did what?” Simon is aghast.

I nod. “Precisely. With your roommate's work schedules, you’re effectively living alone for two thirds of the day, and that cannot continue. You are a danger to yourself at all times, especially if these seizures are getting more frequent. Sufferers of this type of seizure have been known to walk out of their homes and right into traffic with no awareness of their actions.”

Simon

My heart sinks in my chest. I think immediately back to my two accidents. Could that be what happened? Is that why I’ve nearly killed myself twice now?

I feel a sick sense of despair. I don’t have people. Not like Baz does. I don’t have a family. All I have is Penny and Shepard, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to ruin their lives by needing round-the-clock monitoring.

Baz must see something concerning in my expression because his mouth tightens. Then his face relaxes again and he sighs. “Very well, Snow. Stay right here; I need to make some phone calls”

Without a word more, he walks out. I stand there for a minute, tempted to just head home, no matter how stupid it might be for me to be alone now. But Baz said to wait. Maybe he’s got a more reasonable alternative than for me to hire a home health aide, which I could never afford, or to demand that one of my friends quit their job to babysit me, which I would never do.

It’s almost a half hour later when he returns, and to my surprise, he’s left off his white coat and scrub trousers, and is wearing a simple jumper and dark jeans. I stare at the jeans with my mouth hanging open for a moment before I manage to collect myself. I didn’t know Baz owned any clothing that wasn’t a medical uniform or a three piece suit. They look good on him; hugging his long legs and accentuating his extremely nice arse.

And now my face feels like it’s on fire, and I know I’ve turned bright red. Baz eyes me in some confusion before speaking. To my relief, he doesn’t comment on it.

“How did you get here today, Snow?” he asks.

I frown. Why does that matter?

“I took the tube,” I say, warily. Baz doesn’t like that answer—his mouth tightens. I suppose I understand why. If I’d seized while at the station, I might have ended up falling on the tracks. He doesn’t comment though; only shakes his head.

“Follow me,” he says.

I follow him out to the covered parking structure, though I have to trot to keep up, his legs are so long. His limp is barely noticeable now. He must have taken something for the pain. I remember when he came back to Watford 8th year, late and with an extremely painful looking limp. It drove me mad that he wouldn’t tell me what happened to him. I wonder why it never healed all the way?

Finally, we pause beside a sleek grey Jaguar. Is this Baz’s car? Apparently it is, because he presses a button on his key chain and the doors unlock. “Get in,” he says curtly, and unthinkingly, I obey.

I have second thoughts only a moment later. Why on Earth would I put myself under Baz’s direct control like this? What if he’s planning something awful?

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, and there’s an edge to my voice that I can’t control.

Baz glances at me, but his face remains inscrutable. I learned that word from Penny in 8th year, when I was raging about how hard it was to read Baz’s fucking stone face. She said he’s inscrutable and then had to explain the meaning to me. It’s perfect. Baz is the very definition of inscrutable.

“I’m taking you to your flat,” he says, and then turns and faces the steering wheel again and starts up the car.

Oh. Well…that’s kind of him, isn’t it? Wait—why is Baz being kind?

Baz reverses smoothly out of the parking spot and then follows the endless spiral of the parking garage until he can exit onto the main road. I watch him. He’s an excellent driver. Really, he’s excellent at everything he does, it used to make me mental.

I thought I was jealous of him, because I’ve never been good at much of anything. But now, I don’t know. Baz never smiles, and even though he’s no older than me, faint lines of worry and care already crease his forehead. For all of his perfection, it doesn’t seem to make him happy. At least I’ve had plenty of happy times over the years. I wonder if Baz envies me?

He glances my way, and his expression doesn’t change, but I see his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Then he clears his throat. “When we get to your flat, pack a bag with some clothing changes and toiletries.”

“Why?” I ask, astonished.

He sighs. “I spoke to Bunce. She confirmed what you said about her schedule and seemed very concerned about my request for you to have 24 hour supervision. She said she’d manage it, but I could tell she wasn’t sure she could. I offered to let you stay with me while I’m not at work, and I changed my work schedule so that my off hours correspond with Bunce’s work schedule.”

I’m distracted for a moment. “How did you get Penny’s number?”

He rolls his eyes, even though he keeps them on the road ahead. “She’s your emergency contact. The one thing you did give the hospital when you didn’t give a home address.”

Oh. I consider that. Then, the rest of what Baz said sinks in. “I can’t live with you!” I yelp.

In a voice of exaggerated patience, Baz says, “You won’t be living with me. Not exactly. Staying with me for a part of each day would be more accurate—”

“Fuck accurate,” I interrupt. “You hate me! Why would I live with you for sixteen hours of every day?”

He’s silent for a moment. Finally he says, in a voice that’s very carefully expressionless, “You are my patient. You need to be with another adult at all hours of the day to ensure your safety, at least until we can find a treatment that works. Bunce can’t do that for you. I can.”

“And Penny said okay to this?” I demand.

“I had to do some convincing,” he admits, his voice as dry as the Sahara. Good. I’m glad Penny didn’t just hand me off to the first doctor that asked for me.

Why would he want to do this though? I voice the question aloud, and he actually glances at me before looking back at the road. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought his face softened for a moment there.

He doesn’t answer for a long time, and I wait with my arms crossed over my chest. I’m not going to live with Baz unless he has a better reason than ‘I’m his patient.’

His voice is soft when he finally answers, like he’s reluctantly dragging the words out of his throat. “You’ve suffered so much, all unfairly,” he says. “I always wished I could help, back then. Now, I can help. And I’d like to.”

I’m struck dumb by his answer. He and I don’t speak for the rest of the drive home. I don’t speak, but I don’t stop running Baz’s words through my head. The way he said that I’d suffered. Like he was angry and sad about it. I can’t get over it. Baz cared? All those years when he snarked and mocked me for letting Mage send me on his errands, he cared? He wanted to help?

Once I get to the flat I share with Penny, I pack up my life without arguing, like a man in a dream.

Baz

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Penelope Bunce says, flatly.

I’ve left Simon alone in his room and gone to the kitchen to join Bunce for a cup of tea. Her afternoon class starts in half an hour, which is why I’m taking Simon to my flat immediately, rather than picking him up later.

“I know. You made your opinion abundantly clear on the phone earlier,” I say wearily.

Bunce’s face softens. “Baz. I know you’re not the villain Simon liked to portray you as, back in school. I’m all too aware of how you saved him from prison or worse. But…you and Simon have always been like oil and water. And I just know that the first time he loses his temper at you, he’s going to storm out, and then we’re back to the beginning.”

She has a point. I know she does. But hearing her say these things aloud just makes me more determined to make this work. “I can be amiable,” I say, and internally wince, because that definitely sounded defensive.

She smirks and cocks an eyebrow at me while she sips her tea and I sigh. “I’ll take good care of your dread companion, Bunce,” I say, instead of arguing the point farther.

“I used to call myself that,” she muses. “I kind of like thinking of it the other way round.”

“You want to be the hero of the story?” I snort.

“I want Simon and I to be compatriots. Why does either of us need to be a hero? Isn’t it enough that we’re both good people?” She’s glaring at me mildly. The light reflects off of her glasses so that I can’t see her eye colour, but I can tell from her expression that she’s being earnest.

“It’s enough, Bunce,” I say gently. “And you are. Good people, I mean. You always have been. Both of you.”

Her smile now is more genuine. “Thank you, Basil. Talk to Simon more like that and you might have a shot at making this work.”

My mouth quirks up on one side. “I’ll do my best,” I say.

Chapter Text

Simon

Baz is silent on the drive to his flat. It’s not an angry or frustrated silence though, I don’t think. He just looks…thoughtful. Almost soft, if that could ever be a word that applies to Baz.

I’m still frustrated over this whole situation. My body has betrayed me in the worst way possible, delivering me into the hands of my enemy.

I guess I don’t really think of Baz as my enemy anymore. I think he even cares, in his irritable way. But it’s hard to think of him in friendly terms, like I’d think of Penny or Shep. But then again, he’s made no real effort to be friendly, so maybe I’m thinking of him exactly as he deserves.

He pulls up to an electronic gate and pushes a button on his key ring. I scowl as the gate clatters obediently open. Posh bastard. Who can afford a property that has its own gate in the heart of London? I bet he lives in a mansion here too, just like his family does in Hampshire. At least, I assume they live in a mansion. Baz was always dropped off at school in the fall by some sort of luxury car.

I guess his folks aren’t billionaires, or Baz would have been dropped off by limo or helicopter or something. But I bet they’re millionaires. And now Baz has this fancy degree and fancy doctor job, and he probably doesn’t even need it. He probably could live off of his trust fund from his mum and da.

I guess it’s admirable if he’s working even though he doesn’t need to, I reluctantly concede.

My thoughts are cut off when we come to the end of a long drive and end up facing…not a mansion, as I’d supposed. Instead, it’s a large block of flats, easily six stories high and twenty or more flats on each story. And it’s one of three or more other flat blocks that I can see from here. I deflate. So, not a private mansion. An expensive flat, to be sure, given that these buildings are aggressively modern and minimalistic. And they’re set off from the main road and overlook a rather pleasant looking park, but still; not exactly a mansion. I’m almost disappointed.

Baz lifts an eyebrow at the expression on my face, but doesn’t ask. Instead, he uses the car door frame to pull himself to his feet. Then he holds onto the door for balance while I retrieve my belongings from the back seat.

“You should use a cane,” I blurt, as he nearly overbalances from trying to stand and to close the car door at the same time. He glares at me.

“I didn’t ask you,” he says tightly.

“I know. It’s just…you’d have an easier time of it, wouldn’t you?”

“My mobility is not your concern, Snow,” he says. And then, as if to prove to me just how not handicapped he is, he sets off at a brisk pace, leaving me to jog to catch up. Prat.

I feel vindicated when we reach the elevator and I notice that he has to lean against the wall for balance. I don’t say anything though. Staying with Baz is going to be uncomfortable enough, even without me pushing his buttons. It bothers me to watch him struggle though. Why does he have to be so stubborn?

We’re silent in the elevator together. Baz does live on the top floor, it turns out. So his flat is probably one of the most expensive here. I scowl. He probably lives in a fucking home of the future, with everything white and sterile and powered by artificial intelligence or something. I don’t think I could bear that kind of atmosphere for sixteen hours a day. Those days I spent in the hospital were miserable enough, and they weren’t helped by the fact that all I had to look at day in and day out were white walls, white sheets, white pillows. White white white.

But when Baz unlocks his door with an ordinary metal key, what I see on the other side is—well, definitely not that.

Oh, there are traces of the future-forward aesthetic, in the white paint on the walls and the expensive looking telly over the mantel. But nothing else is what I’d pictured.

I roomed with Baz for seven years. How did I not know how much he loves colour?

Because that’s what I see: colour everywhere. His sofa is the colour of golden wheat, with maroon throw pillows and a golden-brown throw folded over the back of it. Every piece of furniture I can see from here is gold too: blonde wood with a honeyed finish. And not one piece is in a modern style. If I were to place the furnishings here, I’d suspect they’re from a fashion at least thirty years out of date. The furniture is newish, but the style of it is definitely not.

His floors are polished wood as well, a darker shade. More like mahogany. And they’re covered in a scatter of cheerful throw rugs in dark reds and golds, browns and blues. The walls are covered with art. Not that bizarre approximation of art you see at the Tate, but real old-school art. Landscapes and portraits in oils with gilt frames.

I turn to stare at Baz in astonishment, but he’s already limped into the kitchen and I can hear tea-making sounds from in there. I sigh, and drop my duffel on his sofa before following him.

His kitchen, at least, is a modern marvel. The high-tech stainless steel refrigerator, microwave, oven and dishwasher are modern, at least. But the cupboards are painted a soft cream, and his countertops and bar top are made of some stone with a rosy-grey tint. There’s a vase of light purple flowers on the simple wood table, and an oddly frilly apron hanging over the back of one of the bar stools.

My eyes fix on that apron. Colour is one thing. I could see Baz wanting his home to look different from his workplace. But frills? I can’t resist. I lift it off of the chair to get a better look at it.

It’s got red ribbon ties and a single red frill around its edges, and on the chest part, there’s a drawing of a mouth with a single fang dripping red blood. Under it, it says, “I always feed my guests before I eat.”

I can’t help but laugh. I knew Baz was dark, but I never knew he had a sense of humour about it.

He turns at my laughter, and when he sees what I’m holding, I’d swear he blushes. “Fiona got me that,” he says. “I never got around to replacing it.”

“Don’t replace it,” I say, still amused. Then I blink, and Baz is standing at my side instead of on the far side of the kitchen from me. A wave of exhaustion makes my limbs tremble, and Baz helps me to a seat at the bar.

“I seized?” I ask. His face is tight, worried. I wonder how I ever thought he was inscrutable? His feelings do show on his face, it seems. They’re just harder to read than the emotions of an ordinary human being.

My attention is wandering, as it usually does post-seizure, but I’m pulled back to Baz when he says, “You did. Two and a half minutes this time.”

I wince. “Did I do anything barmy?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. This time you just stared off into space.”

I heave a sigh. “Well, that’s relieving, I suppose.”

Baz turns to his kettle, and now I notice that it’s steaming. It must have finished heating while I was out of my head. He pours the hot water over the tea infuser, and then carries it to the table, setting it in front of me before returning to the stove to prepare his own. “Do you still take milk, no sugar?” he says over his shoulder.

“That’s right,” I say, my face trying to frown and smile at the same time (and probably just making me look daft). Why on Earth does Baz remember how I take my tea? I won’t ask though. If I do, he’ll just say something shitty about my horrific manners at the tea table, haunting his dreams or summat like that.

We drink our tea together in silence. But for once, with Baz, it’s not an uncomfortable silence. He brings out a sleeve of lavender biscuits and I eat most of the packet. He has one biscuit, which he dunks in his tea more than he actually eats it.

He’s lost in thought. When I finish the tea and stare at my empty plate rather forlornly, he finally looks up. “Oh!” he says, and he sounds surprised. Did he already forget I was here?

“I apologise, Snow. Let me show you to your room so you can relax; freshen up or whatever you want.”

He leads me down a short hallway that leads to two doors. The one on the right, it seems, is going to be my room. “Is that your room, then?” I ask, pointing to the other.

He gives a short nod, hands me my duffel that he was carrying for me (it’s like he thinks I’ve got broken arms or something) and turns abruptly and walks away.

I sigh. Well, there’s nothing for it. I turn the knob, expecting to see a basic guest room. A twin bed perhaps. If I’m lucky, there might be a telly so I won’t have to join Baz for the evening. I guess I’ll have to join him for dinner, though, since I doubt there’s a kitchen behind this door.

The door swings open to reveal a room that’s nearly as large as the whole bloody flat I share with Penelope and Shep.

I can feel my eyes bugging out as I survey the space. Instead of a lonely small telly, there’s an entertainment centre that takes up a whole wall, with books, a blu-ray player, a music system and an enormous flat screen television. The bed, with a salmon pink duvet and actual bed curtains takes up nearly half the room. That, and the furniture, polished teak like the living room, make this literally the nicest room I’ve ever stayed in in my life. And that includes the hotels Penny and I stayed in on our trip to America, which I’d formerly considered the height of luxury.

Did Baz accidently send me to the wrong room? I have to ask.

I turn towards where he’s now rinsing our tea things in the kitchen. “This room?” I ask, to be certain.

He turns and scowls at me. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No!” I startle him with the force of my reply, so I make myself lower my voice. “It’s extremely nice. I thought it was too nice to be the guest room.”

Baz’s shoulders drop when I’m done. “Oh, is that all? I want it to be nice because my aunt and sisters stay with me from time to time.”

Now I’m feeling guilty. Is putting me up going to keep Baz from seeing his family? But when I ask, he laughs and says, “No, they’re in Ibiza right now, and won’t be back for a month. And my aunt is shacking up with some new bloke, so I won’t see her for at least six weeks. You’re fine, Snow.” He turns back to the dishes.

“If you’re sure,” I say dubiously. Then I finally allow myself to enter the room and put away my things.

Baz

Living with Simon Snow is surprisingly peaceful. It probably helps that, for the most part, he stays in his room when I’m awake. We’re only together for meals and the short drives to drop him off at his flat so Bunce can supervise him during my shifts, and to pick him up on my way home after work. During those alone-together times, I work hard to keep from antagonising him. I don’t want him to get fed up with this arrangement and go home for good.

If I’m honest, I never want him to go home. I refuse to examine that thought. It’s not hope. I know there’s no hope for him to fall in love with me. He’s straight. And he hates me. But maybe he hates me a little less now?

The EEG tech confirmed my diagnosis of focal impaired awareness seizures. And she said that the right temporal lobe was the locus of the problem. But she was no more able to find a specific source for the seizures than I was.

I suppose it’s relieving that I didn’t miss anything. But we’re back at square one. And the fact that Simon’s having these kinds of seizures frequently is extremely out of the ordinary. Usually focal seizures happen less than once a day, and I’ve personally witnessed Simon having one about once every hour.

The excessive electrical activity in his brain puts him at a high risk of brain damage if we don’t find and correct the cause soon.

“There’s surgical options,” I say to him during breakfast one morning.

He freezes with his more-marmalade-than-toast halfway to his mouth. The orange jam starts to drip onto his shirt. “Brain surgery?” he says warily.

“Yes. A couple of different types. There’s exploratory surgery. The problem with that is, we don’t have a very good idea of where the seizures are originating from, so this may end up as poking around in your brain without much hope of finding anything.”

He grimaces. “That doesn’t sound promising.” I nod in acknowledgement. It’s frustrating as hell, but exploratory surgery won’t be much use unless we can get a seizure locus to show up on a scan.

“What about the other option?” he asks.

My lips turn down. He won’t like this. “A known treatment, perhaps even a cure, for severe epilepsy is a resection. A small part of the brain, the area where the seizures originate, is removed. It has a high success rate for stopping seizures.”

“Remove part of my fucking brain?” he yelps. I knew he wouldn’t like this. “Is it really that bad?”

I think he sees the answer in my eyes, because he takes a long, shuddering breath. “Tell me,” he says, closing his eyes in resignation. “What’s my prognosis? Why is brain removal a better option?”

I sigh. “Brain damage, if the seizures aren’t controlled. Specifically, effects on memory, emotional regulation and personality.”

“You mean, if this isn’t controlled, I could become a different person.” He sounds numb.

“There’s evidence of shortened life span too,” I reluctantly add. “Long term symptoms can reduce the lifespan up to ten years, according to the most recent studies I’ve read.”

He snorts. “If we don’t get this figured out, I won’t want those years anyway.”

A chill slithers down my spine. “What do you mean?” I ask carefully.

“Baz. You can’t deny that I don’t exactly have much quality of life right now.” He holds up a hand to stop my retort. “Baz. No, don’t speak. Listen to me. I’m basically a prisoner right now. Not your prisoner,” he adds hastily. He must see the hurt in my face. “You’re just trying to help me. Thank you for that.” His smile is tenuous, but it is a smile at least. “No, I’m a prisoner to this disease. I can’t even walk to the corner chippy without a babysitter. I don’t want to live like this, Baz.”

“Just—give me a bit more time,” I say, feeling desperate. “There’s a few more meds we can try, and a few more types of scans we can do. Then…then we can consider your surgical options.”

He nods his assent. “Thank you, Baz.” His smile makes my chest hurt. No smile should be that sorrowful, especially not Simon’s. Simon’s face was made for joy, not sadness. “I mean it. You’ve really been there for me, and you had no reason to be.”

“Simon,” I say, swallowing hard. Am I actually about to be vulnerable with him? With this man who I’ve loved for more years than I’ve not loved him?

I am.

“I regret…I regret so many things. But, most of all, I regret pushing you away. Making you think I hated you. Making you feel less.”

He looks surprised.

“Making me think you hated me? You didn’t hate me?”

I shake my head. “I never did. I just…there were so many outside influences in my life, people I desperately wanted to please or impress, and being friendly with Mage’s chosen one would have made those people very unhappy. I’m sorry. I should have made my own decisions about how to act. But I was young, and stupid.”

“We both were, Baz,” Simon says, and he reaches out a hand and lays it over mine. It’s warm and soft. It’s clearly been years since he used it in the kind of manual labour and exercise that used to make his skin hard and calloused. I stare at it. “I was a prat to you, too. I gave as good as I got, honestly. We were both immature brats. I stopped blaming you for that years ago, Baz.”

“I—” I clear my throat, trying to pull back the tears that burn my eyes at his forgiveness. I don’t deserve it. But I’ll take it. I speak again. “I want to try again, Snow. Try to be friends, I mean. If you’re willing to give me another chance.”

Simon smiles broadly, and this time there’s no hint of sadness in his face. “I’d love to, Baz.”

If my heart wants to hear those words as “I love you, Baz,” I’ll never tell.

Chapter Text

The next few weeks feel like scenes from The Odd Couple, if Oscar were having frequent seizures and driving Felix out of his mind with worry. Living with Simon Snow is like living with a particularly handsome squirrel. He’s got boundless energy, and very little ability to self-regulate that energy. And he’s a slob, though maybe I’m just overly used to my life being orderly in a very specific way. He was a bit of a slob in school, but both the required chores at Watford and his pathetic lack of material goods limited the damage he could do.

Snow practically leaps out of bed in the morning. I’m usually woken at least an hour before I’d prefer by the clatter of him moving about his room or messing around in the kitchen. By the time I emerge from my room, blinking sleepily, he’s generally got a pan of scrambled eggs and bacon or sausages on the table (after the first day, he’s at least used a towel underneath the pan after I gave him a bollocking for potentially scarring my dining room table).

Over breakfast, we generally discuss how he’s feeling, and how many seizures he can remember from the night before, so that I can document the effects of the various drugs I’m trying him on. Not that he remembers his seizures, but the disorientation that he always feels on waking from them is memorable, and he’s taken to jotting down how he feels on a notepad by his bed as soon as he’s alert enough to realise what’s happened.

The remainder of the day outside of my work shifts generally has us watching telly together and, at my insistence, doing household chores. But Simon Snow just doesn’t see dirt the way I do. If he drops crumbs while munching on crisps during 2 Fast, 2 Furious, he’s content to let them stay on the sofa and on the carpet. If he drops jam on his shirt during breakfast, he’ll get what he can with his fingers (followed by licking his fingers clean—which I refuse to watch, for reasons of my own sanity), and then continue wearing the stained shirt all day long. When I bring it up, he shrugs and says, “It’s not like anyone sees me but you. Why should I dirty another shirt?”

And then, he thinks tidying up just means hoovering and wiping down counters. The day I pull out my steam cleaner and do the carpets, he is enthralled. “You actually wash the carpets?” he asks, astonished.

“You don’t?” I snark at him.

He rolls his eyes at me. “I didn’t even know that could be done,” he admits.

I shudder to think what might be growing in the carpets of his and Bunce’s flat.

I’ve stopped looking in his room, for my own sake. He never makes his bed in the mornings, and he thinks the entire floor of his room is a laundry basket. The one time I brought it up, he looked at me askance, and said, “why should I make my bed in the morning when it’s just going to be messed up again that night?”

It’s appalling.

Simon

Living with Baz again is like living with a particularly fussy vampire.

I swear he is constantly thinking about dirt. He follows me around the flat, wiping surfaces I’ve touched practically while I’m still touching them. He insists on hoovering dropped crumbs before I’ve even finished the crisps.

And he’s drawing my blood every fucking day. Sometimes twice a day.

I mean, I know why. He’s checking my blood for concentrations of the drugs he’s giving me. Some of them are experimental (for the use we’re putting them to), and the correct dosage is a matter of trial and error. He needs to keep an eye on my various electrolyte levels for imbalances caused by the medication or by my seizures.

And he’s checking to see that my numbers of different blood cells aren’t affected by the drugs. He told me he’s watching for allergic reactions, side effects and other things that might show up in my blood even before I’m really feeling anything.

So, he’s got good reason to draw blood from me frequently. That doesn’t stop me teasing him about being a vampire.

Honestly, it’s an apt comparison. He’s got that wickedly deep widow’s peak (how he’s not balding at all is beyond me; most men our age I’ve seen with a widow’s peak like his are steadily losing all the hair around it). And he’s too pale most of the time because the bloke never spends any time in the sun. Too pale for someone with his particular heritage, I mean.

For a caucasian, he’s actually fairly dark skinned. But he’s told me, during some surprisingly companionable talks we’ve had over washing up (him washing the dishes, me drying) that his mother was a quarter Egyptian and half Italian, which explains that hint of olive in his skin tone. He’s still too pale compared to how I remember him in school, when he spent hours outside everyday, practising and playing on the school football team.

That’s why, today, I’ve hatched a plan to get him out of the flat for a while.

It’s Sunday, which happens to be one of Baz’s two full days off a week (he works two other half days, and then twelve hour shifts for three days). So, as we’re sipping our morning tea, I casually mention that I haven’t been down to the park that girdles his block of flats. He eyes me curiously, but must see nothing suspicious on my face, so he nods and suggests we take a walk after we clean up our breakfast things.

Once we’re outside, I breathe deeply. It’s been weeks since I’ve gotten the chance to actually enjoy nature. Not that this carefully manicured park for posh people is natural, exactly. But it is green. And there are birds in the trees and scuttling insect life underfoot. It feels like nature.

We stroll without an apparent goal in mind, but I subtly steer us towards the sports facilities on one side of the park. We walk past tennis, squash and badminton courts, and then we’re amongst the large grassy fields set aside for football, cricket and rugby.

“Want to play some footie, one on one?” I suggest, trying to make it seem like I don’t care what his answer is.

He stares at me for a long moment, before asking, “what if you seize during the game?”

I look sharply at him, but see nothing other than mild concern in his expression. I guess he’s right to be concerned, but if I don’t get to run in the next few minutes, I think I might go mad.

“The ground looks springy enough that a fall shouldn’t be dangerous,” I point out.

Baz purses his lips and stares at the pitch for several seconds. Then he sighs and gives in. “Just for a bit,” he says.

We make our way to the resident equipment shed and Baz produces a key and unlocks the aluminium door.

Inside is a dragon’s hoard of sports equipment. Cricket bats, tennis racquets, croquet mallets, golf clubs and every sort of ball imaginable. All in pristine condition. “Rich twats,” I mutter. Baz scowls at me.

We retrieve a football from a net of larger balls hanging from one corner of the shed, and exit the shed. Baz carefully closes and locks the door after us, which I roll my eyes over, since we’re going to be right next to the shed while we’re playing, and we’ll just need to unlock it again after.

But the last weeks have been proper educational when it comes to getting along with Baz, so I keep my mouth shut.

Once we step foot on the pitch, Baz drops the ball and bounces it between his knee and the side of his ankle for a bit (show off), before sending it arcing down the field with one beautiful kick. I laugh and race after it.

Baz

Okay, maybe I have become too much of a shut-in. I haven’t played football since my knee was injured, but the old skill is coming back to me now. My orthopedist keeps telling me that the joint will feel better if I exercise it regularly, and I keep ignoring him.

Maybe I should have listened.

Because chasing the ball across the field, blocking Snow’s attempts at scoring, and skillfully kicking the ball between his legs or over his head and into the net is exhilarating, and my knee hardly twinges. I know I’ll feel the aftereffects tonight, but this? Right now? Seeing Snow laugh and run and play? Seeing him smiling at me, specifically at me? It’s worth whatever muscle and joint pain I suffer afterwards.

I’ve almost loosened up enough to laugh with him when disaster strikes.

Simon

I get out ahead of Baz and drive the ball down the field.

The one area where I’ve got an advantage over Baz is in running the field. He’s still as brilliant at footie as he was in school, but his knee injury slows him down. I wish he’d tell me what happened to his knee. When I asked him about it in 8th year, he shut me down.

Maybe I ought to ask again? The man grinning wildly as he chases me down the field isn’t the same Baz I knew back then. I mean, I thought he was: he was a proper arsehole the first few times I saw him in the hospital. But since we’ve basically been living together? He’s kinder than I’d have ever guessed.

And faster than I thought, because I hear him, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts and his feet hitting the grass with steady thwacks. I try to guess which side he’s coming up on, so I can swerve in the opposite direction and keep control of the ball.

I guess wrong.

The ball continues on merrily without us as Baz and I collide and I fall. I clutch for him as I go down out of momentary panic, and, unfortunately, he’s off balance, so I drag him down with me. We land hard, still tangled and my breath is knocked out of me.

When I manage to breathe again, I realise that I’m literally on top of Baz. We’re pressed together from head to knee. His chin is pressing uncomfortably into my collarbone and our hips…

My eyes fly open wide and I fight off the urge to shove away from Baz. He's motionless; he might be injured. But I don’t want him to feel my extremely ill-timed physical response to his body pressed against mine.

I wriggle awkwardly and get my knees on either side of his hips, so that now I’m straddling him. Which is not much better, because now I’m looking down at his elegant torso. His shirt flew up when we fell and I can see a large slice of his toned stomach.

I can also see that our closeness has had an effect on him. His trousers are pinned around him by the way he’s fallen, and they aren’t hiding anything.

Oh fuck, I think I’m in trouble.

Baz

That better not be a banana in Snow’s pocket.

When we fell, I was briefly winded, so I lay still, eyes closed, to catch my breath. But then there was Snow, wriggling on top of me, and my own predictable reaction happened…and I decided that I’d never open my eyes again. I didn’t want to see the condemnation in his eyes, the recriminations he was probably feeling because his doctor had a literal hard-on for him.

But then I felt his own erection brush against mine as he wriggled and now I know two things.

I still may never open my eyes, but now it’s because I don’t ever want this moment to end.

Simon Snow might be attracted to me. And now he knows I’m attracted to him.

If I open my eyes, will this whole reversal of the natural order of things be just my imagination? Or will I see a Simon Snow who is ashamed or embarrassed by his reaction and disgusted by mine?

It’s better not to know. So I guess I’m never opening my eyes.

That turns out to be a mistake, because apparently Snow’s thrown into a panic and starts shaking me. “Baz! Baz, are you alright? Baz!”

He’s going to give me a case of whiplash if I don’t give up my pretence soon. I let my eyes flutter open, and I’m gratified to see his blue eyes brimming with worry.

“Oh thank god,” he says. “I was afraid I killed you.”

I can’t help it; I roll my eyes. I thought I was the dramatic one. “I’m fine, Snow. Or I will be, once you get off of me.” I am my own worst enemy. Why did I have to say that? I could have happily lain here under him until it was time to lay me in my grave.

Simon flushes, and immediately rolls away from me and then sits up. At least the stupidity of the conversation has served to reduce my problem (though I eye Simon’s trackie bottoms in some wonder, because his problem is still very much present. And very…erm…impressive. Does he get off on humiliation?) He won’t look at me, and his blush is spreading from his cheeks to his ears and neck…

“Well, that’s enough fresh air for me for today,” he says, and his voice is high and breezy in a very fake way. He hoists himself to his feet. I see him look down at me uncertainly, blushing even harder and I realise he’s trying to figure out how to help me to my feet without exposing his erection.

I decide to save myself from the relentless blustering he’s likely about to embark on, and push myself to my feet. “I’ll put the ball away,” I say carelessly, and walk past him without hazarding a glance his way. If he can pretend our little encounter didn’t have an effect on him, I can pretend too.

I just wish it didn’t feel like it was killing me to do so.

Chapter Text

Simon

I feel awkward around Baz for several days after I got a stiffy from being pressed up against his body on the grass of the football pitch. But he continues on as if everything is normal, and I’m finally able to relax and be myself again. Or as much myself as I ever feel these days.

The seizures aren’t improving. We’ve tried no less than four medications now, and two of those were experimental. I don’t know what kind of connections Baz had to use to get them. But my seizures are happening more and more often, and lasting longer each time.

I can tell Baz is worried. I’m scared. I don’t want to let the doctors go poking around in my brain, but I’m rapidly running out of options.

This is the sixth week since I started living almost full time with Baz. How much longer will he want to tolerate me?

I’m not sure why he’s tolerating me now.

I spent the entire day with Baz today. Penny had some medical appointments, and Shepard was offered some overtime; they need the money if they want to start a family, and I know they’re both thinking about it. Penny offered to take me with her. but I didn’t want to seize in her doctor’s waiting room and cause a panic.

I offered to just stay home on my own, but all three of them, Penny, Shepard and Baz, practically had a conniption over that idea. So Baz took me in to work with him. I spent my morning in his office playing my Nintendo Switch while Baz kept me well supplied from the staff cafeteria.

Still, it was dull. And I hate feeling like a burden. So since Baz brought us back to his flat, I’ve been pacing my room. I hate this. I want control of my life back. I want…

Baz. He’s knocking at the door. Quietly, but firmly. Like he does when he wants something from me.

I guess I was pacing rather loudly. I sigh and scrub my hands through my hair.

“Come in,” I say.

He opens the door a crack and pokes his head through. “Simon?” he says.

“Yeah?”

“I wondered if you wanted to go out for a bit? I’ve got a sailboat at the marina and I need to check on it. I thought we could take it out for a spin, get some air and sun?”

For a moment I just stare at him, jaw hanging loose. Baz owns a sailboat? Baz likes to sail? I mean, Baz is posh, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. But he was always so…I dunno… stay-at-home-ish? When we were kids, he played on the football team of course, but all his other pursuits were academic.

Sailing just seems like such a carefree pursuit, and he’s always been so intense.

Baz mistakes my silence for dissent and starts to withdraw his head. “It’s ok if you don’t want to. I can check it some other time.”

“No!” I blurt and then wince at my own volume. But as soon as he decided I didn’t want to do this, I realised exactly how much I did want to do it.

He pokes his head back in. “No?”

“No, I mean I want to go. Just let me get some shorts on.” I’ve not been on a sailboat before, but I have taken rowboats on the Watford moat, and across streams on some of my missions for Mage, and I suspect the same principles apply: I’m going to get wet.

Baz gives me a brief smile and withdraws and I scramble to find appropriate clothing for an afternoon on the sea.

Baz

I don’t know why I’m surprised when Snow takes to sailing like a duck to water, but I am. Sailing is a rich man’s sport. When would he have had a chance to learn?

The answer is, he wouldn’t have. But Snow’s incredible physicality seems to make him adept at nearly anything that involves using his body rather than his head. Not that he can’t use his head; he just avoids doing so whenever he can.

And his head has been rather unreliable of late.

So I spend the afternoon giving Simon the barest of instructions in managing the lines and the rigging of my beloved Artemis (and trying very hard not to stare at his arse in those concerningly tiny red shorts), and he spends the afternoon following my instructions flawlessly.

We’ve caught a good steady wind now, so Simon ties off the lines and flops down next to me where I’m manning the helm. I keep my eyes pointed straight ahead.

“So this is what you do when you don’t have to babysit headcases like me?” he asks, idly watching the rise and fall of the deck in front of us. His voice is casual—too casual. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

He’s beautiful. He always is. But something about the sun lighting up his skin, the wind tossing his curls, his blue eyes squinting towards the horizon (the sparse hairs on his strong legs glinting golden in the light)…something about all of that makes him irresistible. I swallow.

“You’re not a headcase, Snow,” I admonish him. He glances quickly at me and then away again, his eyes darting with the swiftness of the birds wheeling overhead. I sit up straighter. “You don’t really think that, do you?” I ask.

“I’ve been useless since school, Baz,” he says softly. “I’ve not been able to hold a job or even make a life. If I didn’t have Penny and Shepard, and now you, I’d probably be living in a cardboard box under a bridge right now. If I was even alive. If I hadn’t just walked in front of a car during a seizure and freed everyone from the burden of my existence.”

He speaks in a light tone of voice, but there’s no hint of a smile on his face. He’s not joking. He really thinks that. It’s intolerable. Damn and blast, I wish I were driving a car so I could slam on the brakes right now!

Instead, I’m forced to keep at least one hand on the helm and one eye on the empty sea ahead while I try to convince this incredible man that the world needs him.

“Simon,” I say, “You know that none of the things that have happened to you are your fault, don’t you?’

“Aren’t they?” The lightness is gone from his voice. Now it comes out hard and fast, like bullets leaving the barrel of a gun. “I was the fool who followed Mage, who did everything he asked of me. I was stupid, Baz. I’m not blameless. If, like you said, the injuries I got fighting Mage’s battles are the reason for my seizures now, I really did bring all of this on myself.”

That’s it. I can’t bear this. The ocean is going to have to keep being empty, because this requires my full attention. I engage the wheel lock to keep the boat on our current heading and turn and grab Simon’s hands in mine.

Simon

“Simon!” Baz says, his eyes burning. They’re so brilliant like this, all silver-grey and glow-y. I’m hypnotised by them. “You were a child! None of it is your fault. You were a child who was abused and taken advantage of by an adult who had charge of you. The fact that you managed to break free from that influence in spite of your lack of resources and without anyone to teach you how to assert yourself—that makes you brave, and strong. You deserve so much more than what you got.”

His eyes are hypnotic. I can’t look away. Except I also can’t help but notice how soft his lips look as he says these astonishing things. They’re pink, and damp where he licks them. Suddenly I realise I’ve been wordlessly staring at his lips for a long while. Too long. He’s looking at me strangely. I’ve made this awkward.

I should pull away, say something light, break us out of this limbo we’re trapped in. But his lips look so soft….I think I might kiss him…

And then his face is coming closer, and closer. And before I can decide what to do about that, his lips are brushing mine. Once. Twice. On the third whisper of a kiss, I push forward and hold him in place. I push against him and he meets me with equal force.

I’m kissing him. I’m kissing Baz. And it’s everything. I’ve been wanting this for so long. Since school for certain. How did I never realise?

Baz

I’m kissing Simon Snow. And he’s kissing me back. How did I get so lucky? His mouth is hot against mine. He’s breathing raggedly, in those brief moments between kisses. I think if he didn’t actually have to breathe in order to live, he’d never let me go. Even as it is, he holds my face close each time he pulls away and gasps his hot breath over my lips.

I don’t want to do this, but I also don’t want to end up a cautionary tale. “The boat,” I mumble between kisses. “Have to…steer”.

He pulls away from me and I shudder at the heat in his gaze. “Drop anchor,” he commands in a growl that makes a pulse of electricity travel through my core.

I do. Unfortunately, the mechanical actions of making the boat fast and bringing the sails parallel to the wind direction give me time to think.

Too much time.

What is this? Is it just proximity? We’ve been around almost nobody but each other for weeks. Are we just both hard up for it?

That brings up another thought. Is Simon gay? Or is he just experimenting? Can I trust this or is Simon Snow going to break my heart?

Simon has retreated inside the cabin, so when I’m done I approach with some trepidation. What if he greets me with recriminations? What if, now that he’s had time to think, he realises that he doesn’t want this?

I step into the dimness and blink rapidly as my eyes try to adjust. Before they can, though, hot hands are on my forearms and Simon is drawing me gently forwards. He stops when he hits the cushioned bench against the far wall and folds himself down. Then, without a word, he tugs at me until I settle onto it next to him.

My eyes are adjusting now, enough to see the intensity of his gaze. “Alright, Baz?” he whispers.

My throat is too tight for speech. All I can do is nod.

A smile curves his lips and then he’s sliding his hands up over my chest and slipping his fingers through my hair. He cups the back of my skull to hold me steady and then he kisses me. He kisses me again and again, but not frantically. Now he’s being thorough and sensual in his movements and he’s making every inch of my skin prickle with sensation.

Back in school, when I had to deal with watching Simon and his girlfriend snogging right out on the Great Lawn, I dealt with it one of two ways. Sometimes I made myself scarce and worked my arse off at football or revising, anything to fill my mind up with something other than that fucking image.

Or I scurried off to our private shower in Mummer’s house and spent the next hour imagining myself in the place of his golden girlfriend while I wanked myself to completion.

I’ve always prided myself on the power of my imagination. Now I’m feeling extremely humble, because during all of those lonely afternoons, nothing I imagined came even close to this. And we’re only kissing!

At least, we were only kissing. Before I even suspect his direction, Simon is slipping one hand from my jaw, skimming down over the front of my button up, and weaving his fingers between the buttons over my stomach. There he begins to rub the skin of my abdomen softly even as he keeps his lips and tongue busy with mine.

I fight down an embarrassing noise. At least our position, sitting side by side with only our faces turned towards each other, keeps him from feeling my other embarrassment. I’m fully erect just from a few minutes of snogging.

Then he pulls away suddenly, wincing. Before I have a chance to ask him what’s wrong, he mutters, “aura”, and then goes still. I sigh in frustration and worry, and start the timer on my watch.

Three minutes later, he comes out of the seizure and sighs, letting himself slump forward into my chest.

“That—that really sucks, you know?” he mumbles into the fabric of my shirt.

I smile a little, and say, “I hope you mean the seizure and not the snogging.”

Simon snorts a laugh and then smiles into my eyes. “The snogging was brilliant. I’d rather like to do it again.”

I can feel my chest swelling with happiness at that. “When we get home, we can discuss it,” I smirk at him, trying to hide the way I’m melting at his words.

“I’ll hold you to that,” he grins. “But maybe without the discussion part.”

For the rest of the afternoon, we keep a careful distance from each other. But just because Simon keeps his hands off me doesn’t mean he leaves me alone. His eyes follow me everywhere and they’re sharp with intent.

I even think I catch him licking his lips while he stares at my arse.

By the time I’m tying the Artemis to her mooring, I’m feeling like electricity is sparking over all of my nerves. He wants to kiss me again. He basically said as much. Does he want to do more than kissing? I’m not very experienced. I mean, I’m not a virgin (is he a virgin? He did say he’d avoided people for the most part since Watford) (No, he couldn’t be, right? I mean, there was Agatha…).

I shake my head to shut down that line of thinking. I’ve never much enjoyed thinking of Simon and Agatha…together, like that.

We’re silent for the drive back to my flat. I can’t think of anything to say because my mind is full of kissing and sex and Simon…me, having sex with Simon… and I’m fighting down my quite natural response to that line of thought.

Simon seems to be thinking hard about something, but I don’t dare ask what it is. What if he’s regretting what happened between us? I’d rather put off that unhappy realisation for as long as possible, thank you.

Finally I can’t take it anymore. “Penny for your thoughts?” I ask, with a nervous laugh.

He eyes me inscrutably from where he’s curled himself into the door on the passenger side. For a moment, I can tell he’s considering whether to lie or prevaricate; I’ve seen that look on too many patients to be fooled by it on the face I know best in the world besides my own.

Fortunately, he decides on the truth. “I’m worried about having a seizure tonight.”

I glance at him and then back to the road. “You’re practically certain to have a seizure tonight, you’ve been having them several times a day.”

He rolls his eyes and then his eyes drop away from mine. “That’s not what I mean. I mean I’m worried about having a seizure…during.” He says that last with special emphasis, but it takes me too long to figure out what he means.

“During sex,” I say flatly. “You’re worried about having a seizure during sex.”

“Yeah. That'd definitely be a boner killer,” he tells his navel.

I have to fight down a laugh. More from hysteria than from actual humour, I think. This is not a funny situation, after all. “Not to mention that an unconscious person can’t consent,” I say grimly.

“Shit,” is all he says. And in my head, I repeat the sentiment.

Shit.

Simon

I want Baz so bad I feel like I’m going to crawl out of my skin with the wanting. But this is an impossible situation. More than likely, whatever we do, it will be interrupted by my seizures. What if I seize while Baz is inside me or I’m inside him (I’m not sure which I want more. Both sound really good right now)? Besides being awkward as hell, he’s right; the moment I’m not conscious, I can’t consent to sex, legally or morally.

I could tell him I’m fine with it until I’m blue in the face, but I’ve gotten to know Baz in the last few weeks better than I ever knew him in school (though the person I was back then would never have believed his understanding of his roommate was lacking. I thought I knew Baz backwards and forwards. I was so, so wrong.) Baz has an unshakeable moral code. All those weeks ago when he raged at me for believing he’d make up medical data to fuck with me, I thought he was just being dramatic and trying to piss me off. But I’ve come to realise that he truly was offended by my accusation.

It’s an impossible situation. I want him, and I can’t have him.

This fucking disease is destroying my life.

I curl into myself further in my discontent and wince when my position change puts pressure on the erection that’s been semi-present ever since Baz and I kissed on the boat. Unconsciously, I press the heel of my hand against the outside of my flies and fight to keep from groaning at the sensation. Then my eyes fly open wide.

“Baz! What if we took care of ourselves…but together?”

His head spins toward me so fast I’m afraid he’s going to veer off the road. But even without his complete attention on his driving, he still drives expertly, the perfect tosser.

He eyes me in disbelief before turning back to the road. He doesn’t answer my question immediately, but I know he’s thinking about it. His cheeks are too red for any other explanation to fit.

Finally, I can’t stand the silence. “Well?” I ask impatiently. “What do you think?”

He finally speaks, slowly and carefully. “You’re suggesting…mutual masturbation?”

I nod vigorously. “Why not? You wouldn’t be touching me, so there’d be no worries over consent if I seized. And it would still be hot as hell.”

The corner of his mouth that I can see from this angle curves up slightly and I know I’ve got him. “That sounds…doable,” he murmurs.

That’s enough for me. I heroically keep my hands off of my crotch for the entire rest of the ride back to Baz’s flat. I’m hardly going to risk losing control now, when I’ve got a much better prospect on offer.

Things get awkward again, the moment we park. Baz turns the engine off and then just sits there, staring ahead of himself. Is he regretting our plan already?

“We don’t have to do anything,” I blurt out. “It was just a thought—-”

“No, I want to,” he interrupts. Then he shakes his head. “Sorry, I just got lost in thought there for a moment.”

Baz

Simon nods, though he still looks worried. I’m sorry for that. But the moment I stopped the car, the reality of everything hit me all at once. Simon Snow snogged me today. Simon Snow wants me. Wants to get off with me, even though we can’t have sex.

What even is my life?

By extreme force of will, I manage to unbuckle my seat belt and step out of the car. Simon follows me back into my condo, trailing behind, silent as a shadow.

Once the door snicks shut behind us, I turn to him and clear my throat.

“Bedroom?” I ask, forcing the words through a tight throat.

“Baz,” he says, softly, kindly, “we don’t have to do this. If you’re at all uncomfortable about it—”

I realise that this opportunity is sliding right out of my grasp, so I interrupt him. “I’m not! I want this. I’ve wanted this for a very long time. I’m just…nervous.”

Simon relaxes at that, and smiles at me. “A long time, hmm? How long exactly?”

I let the corners of my lips quirk up and say loftily, “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

Simon’s grin widens. “A challenge, huh? I can never resist challenges.” He takes my hand and heads into the flat, pulling me willingly behind him.

“I know,” I whisper under my breath. I want to be something he can’t resist.

Simon

I’ve never seen Baz like this. He’s soft and smiling, and his eyes are full of stars. All because of me. Because I kissed him.

I like him like this. I’m already strategizing ways to keep him like this forever.

I should probably be more surprised that I want to kiss Baz. That I want to do…other things, with Baz. But I’m not. I think I’ve always known. I’ve just been hiding that knowing from myself, because I never would have thought I could have him.

Now that I know I can? Have him? I want everything, all at once.

I tow him behind me all the way to the hallway that splits off into our two separate bedrooms, and then I pause, uncertain. Baz isn’t uncertain, though. He slips around me and tugs on my hand, and I follow him willingly into his bedroom.

I’ve never seen it before. Like the rest of his flat, it’s light and colourful. The walls are a pale yellow, and the floors are polished golden wood. The furnishings are all pale wood, as is the simple bed. It has a soft looking duvet in patterns of green and gold, and a pile of pillows, all blue and green and yellow.

Baz drops my hand when he reaches the bed, and turns to face me. I smile into his pale, intense face and lean forward, touching my lips softly to his. His hands fly up to cup my face and he deepens the kiss. I let him. When he pulls away for a breath, I wrap my hands around his hip bones and kiss him, over and over.

And then the lights start up around the edges of my vision.

Baz

Simon goes stiff in my arms, his eyes wide and wild. “Aura–” he manages to choke out before he sags in my arms. I’m not expecting to suddenly be holding his entire weight, so I stagger, and then struggle to lower him to the ground carefully and slowly. He’s twitching and shaking in my arms and I’m suddenly terrified.

This is not the way his seizures usually go.

This is a grand mal seizure. And Simon’s on medication to prevent and control seizures. That means his condition is progressing.

He’s getting worse.

I pull out my phone and start a timer. Then I roll Simon onto his side so that if he vomits, he won’t choke on the bile. He doesn’t vomit, just twitches and flails. Foam drips from his mouth.

The sharp tang of urine fills the air; he’s lost bladder control.

All normal, I reassure myself, but I watch the timer with desperate intensity, even as I gently stabilise Simon so that he can’t roll onto his face or back. The timer has just ticked past the two minute mark when Simon’s tremors cease and he sags into my arms. I just hold him, stroking his hair, as he slowly comes back to himself.

Finally, his eyes open. “Wha’ happened?” he slurs.

“A seizure,” I say shortly.

“Why ‘m I on th’ ground?”

I don’t want to distress him right now, so I simply say, “it was worse than usual.”

He thinks about that for a long moment. It’s obvious that the cogs in his brain are spinning slower than usual. Finally he moves to pull away, and I let him go.

He sits up, and then winces. “Fuck me, I pissed myself?” His voice is stronger now, but his eyes are still glazed.

“Like I said, it was worse than usual. Look, let’s get you in the shower, and we can talk about it more tomorrow.”

He looks pained, like the idea of moving is more than he can fathom, but when I reach down, he accepts my help and I pull him to his feet. Then, when he wobbles, I jump forward, pushing my shoulder under his arm and draping it around my neck. We shuffle awkwardly together towards the bath.

I help Simon into the shower, and, when I find him sitting on the floor next to the bath fifteen minutes later (wrapped in a towel and staring blankly at nothing), I help him to his bed. I’m too worried to even gawp at his freckled golden chest.

He doesn’t even manage to stay awake long enough to pull the covers up over himself. I do it for him.

I straighten the flat in a daze, and then shower and tuck myself into my virtuously lonely bed. And then I stare into the darkness for the next several hours.

Chapter Text

Simon

I wake up alone in my own bed. The last thing I remember was Baz pulling me into his room and snogging him against a wall.

Did that even happen? If it did, what could have gone so badly wrong that I ended up back in my own bed?

I mull over that for a while, but my head is achy and feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool, so I don’t get anywhere by the time there’s a firm knock at the door.

“Yeah?” I call out, or try to. My voice comes out a croak. My vocal cords feel burnt. The last time I felt this shitty, I had food poisoning from eating some Thai leftovers that had gone off. Did I puke last night? Why can’t I remember?

Baz, apparently tired of waiting on me, cracks the door slightly and calls through the gap, “Simon, are you decent?”

Am I decent? I haven’t even had a chance to take stock. I painfully push myself into a sitting position and inspect myself. I’m wearing a white T-shirt and joggers. That’s odd. I don’t usually wear anything on top when I sleep. But I’m definitely decent.

“Yeah,” I try again, with slightly more success this time. Baz lets the door swing open far enough that I can see his face through the gap now. He looks pinched and worried.

“I’ve got to work, and Bunce just called; she’s been offered some extra shifts. So I need you to get dressed. You’re coming in with me. I need to run some tests on you anyways.”

I groan. More tests and another day trapped in Baz’s tiny office? Lovely.

Baz

It’s once again my monthly ER shift, and between trying to keep Simon fed and entertained in my office, and dealing with automobile accidents and pneumonia and food poisoning, I haven’t had a chance to request the MRI room.He did have an MRI when he nearly drowned, but it was a basic one. Back then, the emphasis was on scanning for potential brain damage after the anoxia he suffered.

I know his brain functions are fucked. I need to know if his brain structure has anything to do with it. So I plan to get him in for a scan with and without contrast to get a clear and detailed picture of his brain and with Magnetoencephalography, which maps where in the brain the seizure takes place.

I’m casting a fractured tibia as I contemplate ducking out of the last fifteen minutes of my shift to reserve that MRI room. That’s when Dr. Possibelf, my supervisor, appears in the doorway to Exam four and orders me curtly to her office. I turn over the casting to the physician’s assistant who’s helping me steady the ten-year old’s arm. He immediately calls a nurse over to assist him, and I follow Possibelf out of the room, nerves jangling.

She’s definitely got the demeanour I generally see on her right before she gives me a dressing-down. I’ve seen it often enough. The problem is, I haven’t done anything today to provoke it, so far as I know. I’ve not mocked patients, disdained orderlies or ignored orders. I’ve been a model doctor tonight. For me, at least.

I force myself to put on an unbothered expression before I step into her office. No need to let her know she’s rattled me. Of course, Dr. Possibelf isn’t like me. She doesn’t go around unnerving people on purpose. Which means she really is going to give me a dressing down over something.

I stroll to the area in front of her desk and quirk an eyebrow at her in question. She doesn’t rise to the bait, though. Her placid expression never wavers. She just sits, a large, strong looking woman, her bulk making the chair look doll-like. Her hands are folded neatly in front of her, and her long, shining silver plait is draped decorously over her white lab coat.

I wait. I won’t be the one to break the silence.

Possibelf gazes coolly at me for a full minute. I hate it when she does this. I’ve always been insanely competitive, as a rule, and a stare-off is no exception to that rule. I tilt my chin up and stare coldly back. She doesn’t blink. I swear the woman is a lizard, with some sort of transparent third eyelid.

Finally, she blinks. But not like she needed to moisten her eyes. No, she blinks like she’s simply given into societal pressure to appear human.

“Dr. Pitch,” she says, continuing to blink at me slowly. “Am I to understand that you’ve been keeping a patient here, in your office, all day?”

Oh. Oh. So that’s what this is about. Fuck, I never thought she’d notice.

“I…” I try to speak, but the words jam up in my throat. I swallow, and try again. “He’s a…friend.”

“Is he not also your patient, Doctor Pitch?”

I fight to control my expression. This is bad. Helplessly, I nod. “He is.”

Possibelf taps a few keys on her keyboard and her reptile eyes flick over the screen. “According to Mr. Snow’s medical records, you’ve been prescribing him a number of medications in the last month. Including some experimental ones.”

“His condition is deteriorating, Doctor,” I defend myself. “I’ve been searching for something that can control the seizures he’s suffering from.” I feel my lower lip tremble and forcibly still it.

Possibelf sighs, rubbing her forehead with her index and middle fingers. “I don’t doubt that you are trying to help him, Basilton. But the code of conduct for this hospital is very clear. We do not get emotionally involved with our patients.”

“I’m not—” I protest, but Possibelf sweeps a dismissive hand through the air, cutting me off.

“You’ve shown a severe lack of judgement when it comes to Mr. Snow, Basilton. He’s your friend, you’ve admitted as much. That alone disqualifies you to be his doctor. But you’ve gone further than that. You’ve ensconced him in your office while you are elsewhere for hours at a time. And Dr. Davies tells me that you’ve even moved Mr. Snow into your home.”

Dammit, Rhys, I think.

‘Basilton, you’ve left me no choice. You are too deeply involved in Mr. Snow’s life to be unbiased in his care. I am transferring his patient files over to Dr. Davies. You may no longer prescribe for him or make decisions about treatment. And you are on probation. Do not step one more foot out of line, Dr. Pitch, or I will have to relieve you of duty.”

My heart is sinking into my shoes. I open my mouth to try to argue, but Possibelf’s face is a stone. There’s nothing I can say that will convince her to let me keep caring for Simon.

I keep my face still with an effort. “As you wish, Doctor. May I be excused?”

She nods slowly. “You may.”

I force myself to turn slowly and leave Possibelf’s office with no show of pique. I’m feeling all the pique, though. As soon as I’m out of visual range, my feet speed up until I’m jogging, forcing myself through the pain in my right knee. I’ve got to catch Rhys before he leaves for the day.

Simon

I’ve just managed to reach level 19 on Candy Crush when Baz storms into his office, eyes wild and hair flying around his head. “Get up, Simon!” he barks. “We’ve got to go!”

I don’t argue. I’ve never seen Baz like this, so whatever’s the matter has got to be urgent. I shove my phone in my pocket and bounce to my feet. “Where are we going?”

“Radiology,” Baz calls over his shoulder as he heads out the door and down the corridor at a rapid clip. I jog to catch up.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because this is my last chance to get you into the MRI machine. We’ve got a twenty minute window between the last patient and when the department locks up for the day.”

That’s odd. That’s distinctly odd. I know Baz said he wanted to get a brain scan for me today. I don’t understand why it took all bloody day, and now we’re having to rush around.

“Baz, stop.” I come to a halt myself.

Baz takes a half a dozen more steps down the corridor before he realises I’m not following him. He spins to face me, looking agitated. “Simon, there’s no time.”

“Make time,” I insist. “I need to understand why this is suddenly so urgent. What aren’t you telling me?”

He sighs and runs a hand through his already disordered hair. He won’t look at me. “Last night…you had a grand mal seizure.”

“Grand mal,” I say, my mind going blank and staticky. “Isn’t that the twitching and foaming at the mouth one?”

He nods. “Your symptoms are morphing. We need to get to the bottom of this now. Now, let’s go!”

I want to know more. Question after question crowd to my lips. But I know better than to push a Baz who’s this discomposed. I just focus on not losing him in the twists and turns of hospital corridors.

When we finally arrive, I see Dr. Davies standing and waiting outside the door to the MRI room, looking ill at ease.

He glances at me, and then at Baz, and sighs. “Let’s get this over with,” he mutters, and pushes the door open, holding it so Baz and I can slip through.

Davies runs through a list of questions, rapid fire. Do I have any metal implants in or near my head. Am I wearing any jewellery or hairpins (why does he even need to ask, given the state of my hair?). Am I claustrophobic.

After I’ve answered everything to his reluctant satisfaction, he has me put on a hospital gown (neither he nor Baz offer me any privacy. I guess there’s no time for that. At least they let me keep my joggers on) and helps me lay down on a padded table.

He hands me a panic button to press in case I have a problem while I’m in there and a pair of ear plugs, and then slides me head-first into the machine with no further conversation.

At least Baz prepared me for the actual machine. I guess I’ve had an MRI scan before, but I was unconscious from nearly drowning at the time. It’s…well, boring, more than anything else. I wish Baz had given me headphones that played music instead of just ear plugs. It’s just a lot of trying hard to stay still so they get a good scan, and trying to ignore the odd thumping and knocking sounds that are loud, even with my earplugs in.

Afterwards, they let me put my shirt on, and then Baz disappears into a small room with Dr. Davies and the technician who ran the machine. They leave me out in the hallway with hardly a word. I sigh.

More waiting, I guess.

Baz

“What am I looking at here?” I say to the radiology tech. The man scowls at me. I know I’m pushing him into overtime…unpaid overtime, as he clocked out as soon as five o’clock hit. Department rules against overtime, I’m guessing. But getting the scan without an interpretation was useless, and so Davies talked the man into staying. But he doesn’t have to like it, he’s making that clear. “You know I legally cannot interpret the results. The radiologist will be in tomorrow morning—”

“I won’t tell anyone. This will be unofficial,” I interrupt him. “And I know you know something. I saw your expression change when you looked at the scan.”

His brow lowers and he glares at me. I stare right back at him, a challenge in my eyes. Finally, he sighs and looks where I’m pointing: Simon’s left temporal lobe. There’s something there, something I didn’t see on any of his previous tests. A dark spot that doesn’t resemble the tissue around it.

The man frowns, but more in a professionally thoughtful way than in annoyance now. “A lesion,” he says. “They’re usually unrelated to the reason for the scan, though.”

“Are there any other abnormalities here that would explain the patient’s seizures?” I demand. The man glares at me. He really doesn’t like me and his boss hates me; The head radiologist and I have clashed before over scan results. But he’d damn well better be professional about this, Simon’s depending on him. In a slightly more conciliatory fashion, I add, “I mean, if he’s having constant seizures, we should see some impact on the structure of the brain, right?”

My desperation must have shown in my voice, because the tech’s expression actually softens a bit. “Epilepsy doesn’t always show up in MRIs, no. But your boy’s got a steadily worsening case, and that can usually be attributed to a physical cause, which we might be able to see in an MRI.”

“Other than that lesion, are you seeing any abnormalities?” I ask. The tech (I’d probably have more luck getting cooperation with people like him if I actually knew their names) (something to ponder later) (much later) turns to look at the scan again. I watch with as much patience as I’m able to muster as he examines each part of the image carefully, sometimes zooming in to get better detail.

After about five minutes of this, I’m ready to explode (which I really shouldn’t be; five minutes is practically a sprint when it comes to brain diagnostics) (I’m in no mood to be reasonable right now, though). The tech straightens and clicks his tongue. “I’ll have Dr. Smythe examine this tomorrow when he comes in, but for now, I have to agree with you. The lesion is the only abnormality I see at the moment.”

“Thank you,” I say, and then turn on my heel, hurrying back to Simon. I hear Davies apologising for me in the background (For what? I said thank you!), but I ignore both of them.

Simon looks up and smiles tiredly at me when I approach. “Any luck?” he asks.

I purse my lips. “Maybe…you’ve got a lesion in your left temporal. It may not mean anything, but it reminds me of something… I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m going to review my medical journal back copies tonight.”

“What’s a lesion?” he asks.

I shake my head. I’m not up to explaining this right now. “It’s just something, a shadow in the scan that we didn’t see last time. It might help us figure things out.”

Simon nods slowly. He doesn’t look particularly encouraged, but it’s not like there’s anything concrete yet. In silence, but hand in hand (what’s the point of hiding now?), we depart the hospital

Simon

Baz has been buried in medical journals for hours now. He didn’t even make dinner! Instead, when I tentatively suggested a food break, he threw his wallet at me and told me to order pizza and leave him alone.

So I have. Left him alone, I mean. I didn’t bother ordering pizza; I’m not completely useless in the kitchen. And I’m not going to spend Baz’s money when he’s not getting anything out of it; it makes me feel too much like a charity case. I made myself an egg and cress sandwich and ate it with a side of cheese and onion crisps in my room.

Baz never even noticed.

I know he’s trying to help me. I know I shouldn’t be moping about something as silly as the fact that he hasn’t kissed me today. After all, we just started kissing only yesterday. It’s not like I should be accustomed to physical affection from Baz.

But the hours of boredom and then sudden frenzy of activity at the hospital left me off balance. Something’s upsetting Baz. I don’t know if it’s that lesion he saw in the scans, or maybe something else. After all, he seemed upset before he saw my scans.

And I just want him to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be alright. That we’re going to be alright.

When I fall asleep, Baz is still sitting at the table, flipping through journals.

Baz

This is it. This is what I remembered. And now I wish I had remembered anything else but this.

It’s an article describing a post-mortem. A man in his forties, with steadily accelerating seizure symptoms and a lesion in his left temporal lobe. It turned out to be cancer. A tumour putting pressure on the hippocampus, causing neurons to spark and misfire. A tumour that kept growing, making his seizures worsen until his brain was badly enough damaged to make death a blessing.

In this case, the tumour was not discovered. The man’s seizures worsened to the point of causing severe brain damage and eventually death.

The implications are…I don’t want to think about the implications. But I have to. I have to explain Simon’s options to him.

I have to get myself under control.

I rub at my eyes. They’re burning. I don’t know how long I spent on searching through my back issues of the Lancet. I lift up my wrist and blink blearily at my watch.

6 a.m.

Simon…I left him alone all night! The last thing I remember was yelling at him to leave me alone...

Fuck.

Simon

A cold hand is threading through my hair. Lifting and separating each curl and pulling away, letting the curls slide through his fingers and pop free once he reaches the end of the strand. Then he runs his fingers through my hair and does it again. And again.

Baz.

The name rises up out of my sleep-fuzzed brain and my eyes pop open. “Baz…” I say, my voice hoarse from exhaustion. I don’t know what time it is, but I don’t think I’ve been asleep for more than a couple of hours.

His fingers pause in their combing of my curls, but then resume. “I’m here, love,” he says softly.

My heart beats a little faster at the endearment. “Love” he called me. Am I his love? We hadn’t talked about what we are to each other yet.

I think I want to be his love.

I blink sleep-crusted eyes and then lift my chin to look up at him. He’s sitting beside me on the chair from my desk, which he’s pulled up level with my hips. His hand is still in my hair. He looks like he’s been hit by a lorry. His face is white and pinched, his eyes red. His hair forms a tangled halo around his head–he must have been tearing at it.

He looks–tragic.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, suddenly wide awake.

He sighs and lets the hand in my hair drop, folding it together in his lap with his other hand. “I think I know what’s wrong,” he says, and he won’t meet my eyes.

Fuck, it must be bad.

I sit up so abruptly that Baz startles away from me, like he thinks I might take a swing at him. I wouldn’t. It’s been years since I’ve actually been mad enough at Baz to try to hit him. And I’m not at all mad now.

Just scared.

I close my eyes and gather myself. When I open them, Baz is watching me, looking wary. “Just tell me,” I say tightly. “I can take it.

Baz

I watch Simon’s face as I describe what I’ve found. He flinches at the word ‘tumour’ and again at ‘cancer’. His face goes blank and white when I describe the final outcome of the case I read about. His eyes won’t meet mine, and he goes so still, I wonder at first if he’s pre-seizing. He’s not.

As soon as I finish my story, his eyes snap back to mine, and it’s my turn to flinch. There’s so much there: confusion, exhaustion, fear. The pain of a life with too much suffering and too little hope.

His lips open, but no sound comes out at first. Finally, he clears his throat and says, “so, what are my options, then?” His voice is careful, detached.

He’s gone cold on me, remote. It hurts. It hurts so much. I understand it; he’s pulling away and focusing inward, marshalling all his resources for the battle ahead. I’ve seen it before, when he worked for Mage and knew he was facing a task that might kill him. I hated it then and I hate it now.

“There are options,” I say, “but none of them are good ones if we can’t pinpoint the location of the tumour with more precision.”

“Chemotherapy? Radiation?” he asks.

I nod. “And, like I brought up before, exploratory surgery.”

“I’ll lose my hair and get sick,” he says quietly.

I frown. “Yes…and no. If the tumour is benign, you may not need radiation and chemo. I mean, you still might, but it’s less certain. Especially if the tumour can be removed whole.”

“But we don’t even have exact proof that there is one,” he reminds me. “You said it could be damage from an injury.”

I wince at the reminder of Simon’s past sufferings, but soldier on. “Yes, that’s exactly the problem. If we do exploratory surgery without a clearer idea of what we’re working with, we might be poking around and damaging parts of your brain for no purpose.”

“But the lesion—” he says.

“--Gives evidence of damage potentially caused by the tumour, but, if it is a tumour, hopefully it’s much smaller than the lesion area.”

Simon gaze looks inward for a moment. Then he asks, “If I don’t have the surgery, what am I looking at?”

My lips twist. Then I sigh. He’ll find out sooner or later. “Your doctor will likely order more scans to map the area, to try to confirm that it actually is a tumour. If it is, he might be able to biopsy it to see if it’s cancerous, depending on how accessible it is to a needle biopsy. Whether it’s cancerous or not, he might suggest radiation or chemotherapy to shrink the tumour, or might suggest a ‘wait and see’ approach.”

“Wait…” Simon’s brow furrows. “‘My doctor’? You’re my doctor!”

I look away. “Not anymore. Possibelf took me off of your case yesterday.”

Simon’s eyes shoot wide open. “Can she do that?” he says, his voice rising and his fists balling at his side. “What if I say I don’t want to change doctors?”

“It won't change things. You and I now have a personal relationship. Hospital policy says I’m not allowed to treat someone I’m in a relationship with.”

Simon scowls. “That’s bullshit!”

I sigh and shake my head. “Nevertheless, I don’t have the power to change her decision. Dr. Davies is your doctor again, though, and he’ll likely allow me to assist.”

Simon still looks mutinous, but this is something neither he nor I can change, so I say instead, “Your doctor will also always listen to what you want, Simon.”

At that, he sighs, and slumps back on the pillow, his eyes closed again. He looks so young and vulnerable against the whiteness of the linens, that my throat tightens and tears sting the backs of my eyes.

As he lays there, processing how his world has suddenly changed, I make a vow. I’ll save you, Simon, I say in the depths of my mind, or die trying.

~~*~~

When he finally speaks, I’m ready for him.

“So. Outcomes,” he says quietly, his eyes still closed, I suspect to hide his reactions to my words. “What are my possible outcomes for each option?”

“For radiation and chemo, well, you’re familiar with the widely known effects of those. There are also potential problems like neuropathy, which is loss of sensation or extra sensation due to nerve damage, a common side effect of radiation. Hair loss could be permanent. Damage to the skin and blood vessels in the area the radiation is applied. Changes to hormone levels, changes to vision…”

“I could go blind?” he interrupts me, his beautiful blue eyes opening and fixing on me.

I shake my head. “Not likely. But it can cause cataracts. And brain problems, like trouble thinking clearly. In rare cases, because it is radiation, it can cause a second brain tumour to develop years later.”

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath. I look away. Observing his reactions to this feels wrong; like I’m invading his privacy.

“As for chemotherapy,” I forge onward, “The long term effects besides the nausea and general illness from the toxins include memory loss, mental fog and hearing loss.”

I hear a soft noise from Simon, but I refuse to look. “As for the exploratory surgery, that can cause, obviously, brain damage. Since it’s in the left temporal lobe, that could affect your ability to understand and produce language.”

He laughs, suddenly. “Brilliant. So I can go deaf, blind, lose my memory, my ability to think, my ability to talk. Fucking hell.” I look back at him, pained. I know I’m not responsible for the outcomes I’m describing, but I feel like I’ve put Simon on a rack and now I’m turning the screws. Like his pain and fear is my fault.

He meets my eyes. His expression is tight, like he’s holding everything in with all the strength he has. We look at each other for an endless moment. I try to tell him how sorry I am with my eyes. If he’s trying to tell me something, I can’t read it. Finally, he breaks our connection by looking away. “Go on then, tell me the rest.”

I frown. “The rest?”

“The final option. What are the outcomes if I decide to just wait and see.”

I fight back a shudder and then force myself to speak. “Brain damage. Increasing until it eventually renders you brain dead. Or, there is the possibility that you just don’t wake up from the next seizure.”

His eyes snap back to mine, wide and horrified. “Does that happen often?” he whispers.

I shake my head. “Not so often, though with your symptoms worsening, it grows more likely by the day for you.”

“Shit,” he sighs. He thinks for a moment, his eyes turned inward. Then he pins me with those heart-stopping blue eyes again and says, “what would you do, if you were me?”

Simon

Baz gapes at me for a moment. I took him off guard, I think. That’s okay, as long as he answers me. I can’t make this choice by myself. And I trust Baz more than anyone, even Penny (not that I’ll ever tell her that).

Baz’s mouth has shut and he’s looking thoughtful now. I wait. I won’t rush him, even though I’ve just learned that I’m probably existing on borrowed time.

When he finally does speak, though, I’m confused.

“Did I ever tell you how I came to have this limp?” he asks softly. I stare at him in surprise, but he just waits patiently for me to respond.

“No? I just knew that you came back months late in the school year, and you had it when you came back,” I admit.

He nods as if my answer was what he’d expected. “Right before the start of school in 8th year, I was abducted. My kidnappers held me in a tiny room, a cellar, I think. My feet and hands were kept tied to a chair for nearly 24 hours a day. I was given water, no food.”

An ache starts up behind my ribs. I’d been searching the campus for Baz and ranting about him being off plotting against me…and he’d been tied up, starved, tortured.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

He nods. “I’d tried to fight back when the goons grabbed me, but they got in some good hits. During the scuffle, I broke my leg.”

I suck in a breath. “But you got away,” I say, “right?”

He sighs. “Obviously. But not for weeks. By the time I was discovered and rescued by a mixed force of inspectors from Scotland Yard and some private detectives my aunt hired, well…my leg had healed badly, with a significant amount of nerve damage. Scar tissue had built up. The doctors had to re-break the leg to set it straight, but nothing really could be done about the damaged nerves and scar tissue.”

“Did they ever…” I start, and then pause, not sure how to finish. But Baz nods as if I had finished.

“Did they ever figure out who was behind it? They did. But not until you’d already killed him.”

I go still. Mage. Mage had Baz abducted and tortured. Impotent rage boils up under my skin. I clench my fists. If I had Mage in front of me now, I think I’d kill him again; this time on purpose. “Why?” I snarl.

Baz slumps against the back of his chair. “Politics? Money? It doesn’t matter now.” I start to speak but he gives me a quelling look. “It really doesn’t. Done is done, and the guilty have been punished, you saw to that. That wasn’t the point of this story. The point is, I had the chance to get my leg repaired, years later. I could have walked normally again. There was this new procedure…well, it showed a lot of promise.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“It didn’t work,” he says bluntly. “I had surgery after surgery, each time attacking the problem from a different angle. But nothing ever worked.”

I feel a sharp stab of pity for Baz and what he’s been through. But I still don’t get why he’s telling me this.

He must see my confusion in my face because he looks at me and then laughs a little.

“The surgery was dangerous,” he tells me, sobering. “And it got more dangerous each time.” His intent gaze pins me in place. “I got a bone infection after one surgery. A blood clot after the next. I could have died. I could have lost my leg entirely. People told me the risks were too high, the chance of success too low. I still had the surgeries.”

“Why?” I ask him quietly.

“Because,” Baz says, with a slightly twisted smile, “they might have worked. I didn’t just want to keep going as I was. I wanted what I had before. I wanted to feel whole again.”

The stab of pity grows stronger, but I still don’t know why he’s telling me this. I say so, as tactfully as I can.

Baz’s smile is sad. “You asked me what I’d do, in your position. I was telling you what I did do, when I was facing a choice like yours. I did everything I could to try to get back what I’d lost.”

He and I stare at each other for a long moment before I speak again.

“What can we do to increase my chances with the surgery?” I ask.

Chapter Text

Baz

“He goes from having a seizure every half hour to no seizures in nine hours? Just when we need him to have one?” I don’t realise I’m tearing at my hair until I feel Simon’s hand on mine, pulling it down and away from my head.

“It’s bad luck, that’s for sure,” Rhys scowls. “We could come back tomorrow, see if anything happens overnight?”

I look at Simon. He’s lying quietly in the bed, his eyes closed now, though his hand still cradles mine. My eyes can’t stay away from the shaved portion of his skill and the sutures there. Two days ago, Snow was put under anaesthetic, his skull opened up and a set of electrodes slipped inside. He’s been in this bed in Intensive Care ever since, healing, and since early this morning, we’ve been waiting for the electrodes to measure a seizure and help us pinpoint the possible tumour location.

Only, inexplicably, he hasn’t had a single seizure in all that time.

I am beyond frustrated. I know he’s not miraculously healed; he had six seizures the night before the procedure, including another grand mal seizure. But if he doesn’t have one while the electrodes are inside his skull to measure it, we’ll be back to our original option: cut into his brain and start on a fishing expedition.

“I was certain the flashing lights would set him off,” Rhys is saying. I tune back in to the conversation with an effort. This is important. The fact that I’ve barely slept in a week is irrelevant.

I frown, struggling to force my sluggish brain to process. “We’ve tried stopping his meds. And sleep deprivation. What else is there?”

Rhys shakes his head and presses his thumbs into his closed eyelids. “I can’t think of anything else. Fuck, I need a nap.” I nod in commiseration. He’s not been as sleep-deprived as me, but we’ve been taking turns monitoring Simon round the clock for the last two days. I’ll owe him my fucking third-born child by the time all this is through.

The thought of children makes me wince. For a brief, magickal moment nearly two weeks ago, I imagined a future with the man in front of me. A relationship. Someday, marriage. Maybe a family. Now, looking at his face, nearly as white as the pillow he’s resting against, all I can hope is that he has a future.

What I wouldn’t give right now to be sitting across my kitchen table from Simon, homemade pasta and candles on the table. My best Chianti swirling in our glasses as we make a toast to the future.

Wait—

“Alcohol!” I blurt.

Rhys looks at me in confusion. Simon’s eyes pop open, and his hand flexes in surprise, freeing mine. He stares at me too. Quickly, I explain, “alcohol has been known to trigger seizures. I’ll be right back!” I spring out of my seat, newly energised, and hurry out the door before either of them can comment. I’ve got a bottle of Jameson in my file cabinet.

~~*~~

It’s been two hours, and Simon and I have been steadily demolishing the bottle of fine whiskey. He was stiff and anxious at first, but soon the alcohol sanded down his raw edges. Mine too, I suppose. He and I have been sharing stories of our youth, of what life was like for us outside of our interactions with each other when we were young.

I didn’t know how hard he’d had it, growing up in the system. Now I can never unknow it. The more disturbing his stories get, the tighter I cling to his hand.

In return, I tell him about growing up half-orphaned, since my mother died after rolling her car on a rainy night. When the investigation concluded, we found out that she lost control of the car because someone had half-cut through a brake cable. And my mother had just gotten her car back from our local auto shop that afternoon.

Knowing this did us no good at the time; it was far too late to catch the murderers. By the time we released our evidence to the police and the police set out to round them up, every one of the employees from that auto shop were already dead.

When the forensics lab had tested the victims/ murderers, they found a strong poison in their systems. The same poison was found in empty wine glasses and a bottle of expensive wine. But the trail dead ended there.

Simon knows about the crime against my family, of course. It was Simon who found a connection between the accident and Mage in eighth year. He came straight to me and I’m grateful for it. I suspect that Mage had every one of the stupid numpties he’d hired murdered to cover his tracks, but he had an airtight alibi, having been seen by hundreds of people at an important government function that day.

“So who killed ‘em?” Simon slurs.

I shrug unhappily. “Police couldn’t find evidence of anyone else on the scene, and tracing the poison got them nowhere. Prob’ly were killed by the person who hired them…the Mage…that’s what my father and aunt think anyways.” I cover my mouth as I burp.

“I’m sorry you had to lose your mum like that,” Simon says, solemnly. The effect is somewhat undercut by the way his eyes cross as he tries to focus on me. I snort a laugh at the ridiculousness of his expression and then Simon laughs at the sound I made and soon we’re giggling together, having completely forgotten anything about dead mothers and abusive foster parents.

“You know wha’s funny?” Simon mumbles.

“What?” I ask, forcing myself to speak slowly so my speech doesn’t slur.. I’m pretty sure I’m drunk, but it’s a matter of pride to hide it.

“All th’ years I fought w’ you…and I was in love w’ you the whole time—that’s so stupid. I’m so stupid.” He laughs through his teeth like a donkey braying.

I laugh too, at the sound. Then my sluggish brain processes what he said. “Wait, what?”

Simon’s face is turned away from me, so I reach out to shake his arm. “What did you say?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, his head rolls towards me like its strings have been cut. His eyes are open and his face is vacant.

“Simon!”

Simon

I don’t have a clear recollection about what happened after I seized in the intensive care unit.

A combination of drunkenness, exhaustion, and my usual post-seizure fuzzy-headedness make everything a blur. Baz tells me that I went into a seizure and they got the measurements they needed. They waited until my blood alcohol had dropped to a safe level and then they sent me back into surgery to have the electrodes removed from my brain.

I slept for almost fifteen hours after the surgery, Baz says. After I woke up in the hospital, he drove me home, still half-asleep, and put me to bed in my own room. I had just enough mental capacity to wonder when I started to think of Baz’s flat as home, and the guest room there as ‘my room’, but not enough capacity to answer my own questions. Instead, I fell asleep again, for another eight hours.

Now, we’re back in Baz’s car, headed in to consult with Dr. Davies on the outcome of the electroencephalogram.

“Do you think it’s enough?” I ask, letting my head loll over towards Baz. It feels hard to hold it up. Despite all the sleeping I’ve been doing, I’m still exhausted.

“Mmm?” Baz hums, flicking his eyes towards me and then back to the road. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…is there enough data now? To make the surgery worthwhile?”

He looks at me for a long moment. Too long, considering he’s driving. But we don’t smack into the back of a bus, so that’s something. When he turns away, his lips are pursed. “Baz?” I push.

“There’s going to have to be, Simon,” he says in a low voice. “You can’t go on like this.”

I sigh and drop my head back against the seat rest again. “Ok,” is all I manage.

~~*~~

Dr. Davies talks for a half an hour, about what the scans show, what my options and prognoses are. A lot of it is medical jargon that passes right over my head. I’ll have Baz explain it later. But what stands out is Baz’s fury over the timeline the doctor gives me.

“He can’t wait six weeks for surgery!” Baz shouts. He’s risen to his feet and is leaning menacingly over Dr. Davies’s desk.

From what I can tell, Rhys Davies puts up with a lot from Baz. To give him credit though, he doesn’t back down. “I don’t make the schedule, Pitch,” he says tiredly. “All I can tell you is, that’s the first available slot in Minos’s schedule.”

“I’ll see about that,” Baz says. The edges of his lips are turned down and his eyes are actually sparking with anger. “Snow,” he says, turning to me, “I’m going to need you to wait outside for me. I’ll try not to be long. Here,” he tosses me his wallet. “Get yourself a drink from the lunch cart. Get me one too. And food if you want it.” He’s turning on his heel and darting out the door before I can even get a word out.

I look back at my official doctor. “Do you think he’ll manage to get an earlier date?” I ask. Davies has worked with Baz for the majority of his career here. If anyone would know what Basilton Grimm-Pitch is capable of, it would be this man.

Davies sighs and shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Baz does somehow always get what he wants.”

“Yeah,” I say. After all, I’m something he wants, aren’t I? And he got me without much of a fight. I shake my head. That’s not fair; he’s been nothing but good to me, and he’s gone out of his way not to push me. Honestly, I’ve been the one pushing him!

I talk to the doctor for a few more minutes before saying, “I guess I’d better go…get some coffee.” Davies nods and gives me a strained smile. He’s turned back to his computer screen before I’ve even finished standing up from my seat.

I shove my hands deep into my pockets and show myself out.

Baz

I think I may have actually just promised Minos my third-born child, but I got Simon a surgery date that’s only a week out. When I tell Simon, he just nods.

“Aren’t you glad?” I say, a little surprised at his passivity.

“I knew you’d manage it,” he says with a shrug. Then, reluctantly, he turns to look at me. “Thank you,” he says softly. “You’ve done so much for me. I want you to know I appreciate it.”

I want to protest that I’d have done as much for any patient, but that would be a lie, and the one thing I never do is lie to a patient. I might destroy them with brutal honesty, but I won’t lie. There’s no patient in the world other than Simon who I’d move into my house in order to keep him safe. And, while I’ve been known to take large risks to save patients, I’ve never gotten so close to risking my job before. So I just nod in acknowledgment.

“Here,” Simon says. “Your pumpkin abomination.” He hands me a lidded styrofoam cup.

I sniff in pretended scorn. “You mean my genius recipe, Snow.”

He laughs a little, but sobers too quickly. “Baz,” he says and then stops, scratching the back of his head.

My eyes narrow. I can tell from his body language that he’s nervous about whatever he wants to say to me. “Go on,” I prompt.

“I—I talked to Penny while you were talking to the surgeon. She’s taking this week off to spend with me before my surgery. So…erm, I don’t need to stay with you for the next few days.”

“Oh,” I say, my body going numb. So that’s it then? Bunce will take care of Simon until his surgery, and then, presuming his seizures are cured, he’ll move back in with her? Anguish swells up in my chest. I want to shout, “what about us?” and “You said you loved me!”

But Simon probably doesn’t even remember his drunken confession. And he was with me because I insisted, and because he needed me. Now he doesn’t need me. There’s nothing more I can do for him.

I can tell he’s staring at me. I can feel his gaze burning into the side of my face. But I can’t look at him. “Do you want to drop by my place to pick up your things?” I ask, keeping my voice neutral with tremendous effort.

I see his head shake out of the corner of my eye. “I’ve got more than enough at home,” he says quietly.

At home. Because my home is not his home, much as I wish it were.

Simon

Baz is quiet for the entire drive to mine and Penny’s flat. Too quiet. And he won’t look at me. He doesn’t understand that this is the best thing, the only thing. He’s got his work, and my lifespan might be measured in days.

I took advantage of my time alone with Doctor Davies to ask him the questions Baz has been weaselling out of answering.

The doctor told me I’ve got a three percent chance of dying on the table, and a sixteen percent chance of having brain issues after it. So, even if I survive the surgery, I might not be the Simon Baz knows anymore. And if the tumour is cancerous…my chances of survival drop to thirty percent.

I won’t drag Baz down with me. Better a clean break now than lingering heartbreak later.

It’s hardly been ten minutes when Baz is gliding to a stop at the curb in front of Shepard and Penny’s flat. Well, and mine, though until today, I’d started to think that my move in with Baz might be permanent. The more fool me, I suppose.

I reach for the door handle, only for the automatic lock to snap down. I turn to stare at Baz. He’s put on sunglasses (London’s fabled gloom has deserted her today, and it’s as bright as sunny California out there, as if to mock me for my own black mood). I can’t read him. “Baz…” I trail off, waiting for him to explain.

I see a muscle in his jaw jerk, and then he’s pulling the sunglasses off his face and pinning me with his icy glare. I stiffen. I haven’t seen this Baz in weeks. Have I done so much damage that I’ve set us back to the beginning?

“You, Simon Snow, are not going to do this,” he says, and his voice is hard.

I firm my jaw. He may be the doctor, and probably the love of my life, but he doesn’t own me. I have too much pride to pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about. “Why not?” I growl.

“Because,” he tells me, his face still devoid of emotion, “I know you. And this isn’t what you want.” He turns abruptly and hits the unlock button and my door unlatches. Baz puts his hands on the wheel and faces forward. “I’ll pick you up Friday for your pre-op appointment.”

“Baz, you don’t need—” I argue.

He glares at me. “I’m aware that I don’t need to. But I’m going to. I’ll see you then.” Then he slides his sunglasses back on and turns away, making it clear that our conversation is over.

I sigh. Even if I beg Penny to take me, Baz works at the hospital. There will be no keeping him away unless I want to make a scene, and I wouldn’t put Baz’s job at risk like that.

“Fine,” I mutter, and then I push the door open and step out of the car.

Chapter Text

Baz

Simon is quiet after his pre-op appointment with Dr. Minos. Nothing too terrible happened there; he signed paperwork and was given instructions on what to do or not do for the next twenty-four hours. He’ll be admitted tomorrow morning at eight a.m., but he’ll have to fast starting at midnight tonight.

Which gives me an idea.

I see what I’m looking for almost too late and I have to cut sharply to the left to enter the parking lot. Simon grabs at his door rim, shouting “Wha—?”

When I pull into a parking spot at the Pret, he looks at me, eyebrows raised. “Starting at midnight, you won’t be allowed to eat for nearly twenty-four hours,” I remind him.

“Yeah, so?”

“So, assuming you’ve got no big plans today…” I trail off to allow him to answer, and to my great pleasure, he shakes his head. “Then you are going to eat your way through Pret’s entire sandwich menu, my treat. You’ll be so stuffed you won’t even want to eat tomorrow.”

Simon’s smile is so wide, it’s blinding.

Simon

That bastard. I keep resolving to do the right thing, to save him from suffering my death or damage from tomorrow’s surgery, or, months from now, from brain cancer. And he keeps doing things that are so thoughtful I want to either cry my eyes out or snog him into the nearest wall.

I don’t want Baz to hurt. But he’s giving me that look, that cocked eyebrow and smirk. That challenge that I’ve never been able to resist. And then he has to up the ante.

“I’d understand, of course,” he says, voice dripping with condescension, “if you’re not up to the challenge. If you’re feeling poorly, I can take you home for a nap.” His tone makes it clear that I’m a child if I don’t agree to this.

The worst thing is, I know he’s manipulating me. I’m not stupid. But from the worried glint in his eyes, I also know he’s doing it because he cares about me, and so I have to give in. Because I want what he’s offering. And because I want to make him happy. Because I love him.

Also, clearly he thinks he’s joking about me eating my way through Pret’s menu. I’m about to show him otherwise.

We start with breakfast. It is still breakfast time after all. Baz’s eyebrows crank up as I order a ham and cheddar croissant, a bacon, egg and cheddar roll, an almond butter, blueberry and banana sandwich and both flavours of frittata. I do avoid the vegetarian options because it feels hypocritical. I’m definitely a carnivore.

To that I add a pain au raisin, a chocolate croissant (though that one’s more for Baz) and a blueberry muffin. And I top it all off with a blueberry, granola and yoghourt pot, a mango and lime pot and an egg and spinach pot.

I eat it all, too. Though I let Baz have bites of anything he’s interested in. He didn’t bother ordering anything for himself after he saw the spread I was charging to his card.

Not that I rush through it. I do eat the hot foods with some urgency. Cold scrambled eggs are nasty. But after those are polished off, I take my time with the yoghourts and fruits and pastries. And while we eat, we talk.

We talk about small things. About what video games we like to play. It turns out that Baz hates the violent fighting games I favour; he says he can’t turn his brain off during them because he’s always mentally calculating how to deal with the injuries in the games. And I’m not a fan of the puzzle games he prefers. They’re beyond me, some of them, and others I just don’t have the patience for. But we overlap on sports games. We both like MarioKart, FIFA, and Need for Speed. Really anything that involves competition.

And we talk about larger things. Why Baz chose to go into medical school—”I could never stop thinking that, if I’d known how to stop her bleeding, my mum might not have died.”

“You were just a kid, Baz,” I tell him, my voice soft.

His head is tilted down, his hair loose and falling into his face. He tends to do that when he feels vulnerable, I’ve noticed. Like his hair is a mask that will protect him from a harsh world. It’s odd..I never used to think of Baz as someone who’d ever need or want protection. But I know better now, and I’m glad for it. Glad that he lets me see this side of himself.

“I know,” he says, nodding enough to set the hair in front of his eyes swaying.

I tell him what it was like, growing up in care. Not knowing anything about my history. Not having anyone who was unequivocally on my side. “I wonder,” I tell him, “if this brain thing of mine is the reason I was orphaned. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe my mum died of it or something.”

“I suppose it’s possible,” Baz says. “But most brain tumours aren’t hereditary. Less than five percent, in fact.”

“Still,” I shrug.

When we’ve had time for breakfast to wear off, I stand, tugging Baz to follow after, and make my way back to the counter. He stares, wide eyed, while I order Pret’s entire sandwich menu, from the chicken and bacon sandwich to the salmon and cream cheese. (I skip the vegetarian options, because, why?). I add a selection of their salads and soups, and a side of mac and cheese.

Baz’s eyes grow wider and wider with each selection. I smirk at him and pretend I’m doing this because he made the mistake of promising to pay for the whole menu today.

That’s not why I’m doing this. I’m not even that hungry anymore, but sandwiches and salads keep, and picking at food for the next several hours gives me an excuse to sit here and waste Baz’s time.

Plus, who knows? It could be my last meal. May as well make it an epic one.

Baz

I half expect my credit card company to put a hold on the charges from today. They’ll probably take one look and think that the entire customer base of this Pret stole my credit card and passed it around to buy themselves lunch.

But I’m not sorry to have had this day with Simon. This morning when I picked him up, I could see the fear in the tightness at the corners of his eyes, and the slight tremor of his hands. Simon Snow, who was always utterly fearless when we were in school, was terrified. But as we talked and shared and laughed and ate (and ate and ate and ate), I noticed his hands steady and his eyelids droop a little as he relaxed.

He’s got reason to be afraid; of course he does. Nobody goes into brain surgery and comes out completely unscathed. Even if things go perfectly, he’s got a long road to recovery in front of him.

His seizures are an ever-present guest, if an uninvited one, at the table with us, but I just watch to make sure he doesn’t choke during one and wait for him to come out of them. Luckily, the auras he sees just before seizing give him a chance to frantically swallow (or spit out) anything he’s chewing before things can go bad.

When each seizure is over, I pretend nothing happened and continue the conversation right where we left off. From the relief in his expression, I think he’s grateful for that.

As we leave Pret that evening (loaded down with several bags of uneaten sandwiches, good heavens), I glance at him out of the corner of my eye.

“Where to, Snow?” I ask. I keep my voice light. I don’t want to pressure him to choose one way or another. I desperately want him to come home with me, but I want him to want it.

He’s facing the sidewalk ahead of us, but I can see him watching me out of the corner of his eyes. He chews on his lip, and I heroically resist chiding him for the bad habit. I don’t want any negativity on my part to drive him back to his flat with Bunce and her husband.

Finally, he clears his throat. “You remember what we talked about, that last night at your flat before…before my big seizure?

My breath catches in my throat. I remember kissing Simon for the very first time in my sailboat. I remember tugging Simon to me, kissing him and kissing him. I remember our plan for how to have sex without the absence seizures imperilling Simon’s ability to consent. I remember everything stopping, after Simon went into a full grand mal seizure.

Do I remember? Is he joking? That night was the first time I remember feeling truly happy since Watford. And the last time.

“I do,” I manage to squeak out past the blockage in my throat.

Simon

I’m being selfish. I know I am. If it will kill Baz to lose me now, what will it do to him to lose me after we have sex?

It will be worse, I’m sure of that.

But…I might die tomorrow. Or months from now, from brain cancer. Or lose myself and live on as a living, breathing husk. And I’m terrified. I want Baz. I want to wrap myself around him. I want to pull him inside of me so that our two hearts merge into one.

He wants it too. And I’m too weak to deny him. To deny myself the comfort of his arms tonight.

I want him. And I’m going to have him.

At least this once.

Baz

It’s midnight.

Until a moment ago, I was fast asleep, my arms wrapped around Simon. But then something in the pattern of his breathing changed, and I woke up. He was having a seizure, but at least it was just a typical focal seizure. It didn’t even wake him. But, after keeping watch over him until he started snoring again, I don’t think I can sleep again right now.

Part of my insomnia is happiness. Simon and I made love tonight, and it was everything I wanted it to be. We couldn’t have penetrative sex, of course, but we kissed, and we touched each other. We didn’t hurry; we had the whole night at our disposal, after all.

We brought ourselves off with our hands first. I’ve never been so aroused as I was, just from watching the way emotions flowed across his face as he orgasmed. It triggered my own orgasm, and I’ve never come so fast before.

Then, emboldened by our success (and after nearly another hour of kissing and touching), I dared to bring him off with my hands. I watched him the whole time, for any sign of a seizure beginning, but luck was on our side: nothing happened. Nothing other than Simon gasping wetly into my neck as he spilled into my fist.

After a minute or two of breathing harshly into my collarbone and shivering with aftershocks, he took me in hand and did the same for me.

We both fell asleep after a sketchy (joint) shower. (It wasn’t sexy; we showered together because we were both so tired that neither of us was sure we could stand up through a shower on our own). (So we propped each other up and scrubbed each other down and then barely towelled off before tumbling into his bed).

So, I’m happy. But I’m also terrified.

I’ve been putting on a brave face for Simon for weeks. I’ve emphasised the positive outcomes over the negative. I’ve pointed out that the odds of survival and recovery are far higher than the odds of death and brain damage. I’ve told him that more people have benign tumours of the brain than cancerous ones. And all of those things are true.

I just wish I could believe them.

Right now, I’m desperately wishing that I’d overcome my family’s prejudices and my own teenage selfishness and asked Simon out when Mage died. Or even before that. We might be facing the events of tomorrow after years of marital bliss at this point.

Or our relationship could have fallen apart, I suppose. Maybe we’d be divorced or broken up now and Simon would be facing this alone. Or, not really alone, but without the comfort of a lover’s arms to shield him from the future.

I’m being foolish for thinking about all this. Who’s to say that, if Simon and I had gotten together young and then later broken up, that he wouldn’t have found someone else to love?

I think he loves me. He said so, once. But he was drunk. Does that even count?

But love isn’t always enough to save a relationship. After all, I’ve loved him for half of my life, and, until I took a wild chance and kissed him on my sailboat, I didn’t even have the balls to start a relationship with him.

My head is starting to ache. I should get up and make some tea. Simon needs his sleep, and he’ll be distraught if he wakes to find me sleepless and aching over his potential fate. Or so I think until a warm arm snakes around my middle and pulls me back against an equally warm chest.

“Let it go,” Simon whispers into my hair. “What will be, will be. Worrying about it won’t make it better.”

I shudder against him. “I don’t know if I can help it,” I admit softly.

“Sure you can,” Simon mumbles. “Just don’t think.”

“Don’t think?” I say, confused.

“Yeah,” he yawns into my hair. “‘S pointless. Thinking won’t make the bad stuff go away. It just makes it seem worse. I don’t. Don’t think, I mean.”

“How can you not think?” I ask. I twist in his arms so I can look at him. He blinks sleepily at me and smiles.

“Easy,” he murmurs. “I just turn it off. Point my brain in other directions.”

“What other directions?” I ask. My voice is rising. I sound hysterical, so I force myself to speak in a softer voice. “How can you help thinking about it, when it matters so much?”

He shrugs and grins at me. “I just can. Defence mechanism, I suppose. But as for other directions, well, you could think about the day we just had. I am.” His eyes are hot on my skin. I feel like they’ll burn me if I don’t look away.

My cheeks heat and I look down at his chest, away from those too-knowing eyes. I watch my fingers thread through his sparse chest hair. He’s breathing easily and he looks beautiful. You’d never know how dreadfully ill he is from looking at him.

“I am thinking about it,” I admit. “My mind just has the capacity to do both.”

He laughs gently and lifts his arm up from where it’s encircling my rib cage. He brushes my hair out of my eyes and leans forward, letting his lips brush against mine. “I must be doing a shit job if you can think about more than my mouth on your skin right now,” he whispers against my lips.

I shudder. He’s got a point. My world has suddenly narrowed down to the centimetres of skin that his lips are touching. “Simon…” I moan. He covers my mouth with his and swallows any other sound I might have made.

When he finally pulls back, I’m dazed and happy. “Better?” he whispers.

“I love you!” I blurt, and then squeak and hide my face in his shoulder. But he doesn’t let me hide, just chuckles and lifts my head up so I’m facing him again. .

“I love you too,” he says solemnly, and I feel tears burn at the corner of my eyes. “But hold that thought. After tomorrow, say it to me again. And I’ll do the same. And we’ll start our new life…or, at least, my new life, with you in it. For good this time”

“I will,” I say, and then yawn. He yawns too, and we both giggle. Things are still terrifying and horrible…but Simon loves me. He wants to be with me. And he was completely sober when he said it this time.

I fall asleep with a bubble of hope growing in my chest.

Simon

The lead up to surgery is like a fever dream.

I know Baz is somewhere in this hospital, perhaps watching events unfold on the hospital’s cameras or on words added to my files (that I know he has on his computer). But his superior, someone bizarrely named Possibelf, was quite firm about the fact that he couldn’t be in here with me. So he kissed me thoroughly, desperately, one last time outside the doors to the preoperative holding area, and then watched me walk away with wide, wet eyes.

That’s my last clear memory. Now, vague figures bustle around me, touching parts of me, making measurements. I hear voices, but they feel distant, separate from me. Even my own voice. I feel like I’m hovering over my own body, watching all of this happen to someone else.

They take my vital signs, over and over. I think I’ve felt the blood pressure cuff around my arm five times since I woke up this morning. They draw blood. I don’t know what for, my surgery has nothing to do with my circulatory system. I sign paper after paper. Half of what is done to me is never even explained. But I can’t care.

Different doctors talk at me about what to expect, what are the possible outcomes, and what steps to take after surgery. Assuming I have an after surgery. I let it just flow past me. I let everything flow past me. I’m swept up in a raging river of events that are flooding through my life and upending everything, but I don’t feel it. I bob peacefully along and ignore the trees ripped up by the roots and the houses tumbling into the torrent.

Then I’m on my back being wheeled into the operating room. The light overhead is most of what I can see and it seems to be growing to fill my vision. Faceless people in surgical scrubs and masks appear and disappear on the edges of my vision. They shave down the stubble over my previous surgical scars, from the electrode test last week, and someone injects something that makes my scalp feel dead within seconds.

Some sort of apparatus is used to fix my head in place, so I can’t move it, and then they hook me up to an IV that drips anaesthesia into my veins. I blink out.

Baz

Is it unethical to watch my maybe-boyfriend’s brain surgery on the hospital’s surveillance system?

Maybe. Take it up with the courts.

That’s one thing we sort of resolved this morning, in the car on the way to the hospital. Simon was unusually silent. I just figured that he was trying to manage his fear about the upcoming procedure, and I let him be, other than squeezing his hand as often as I could afford to remove mine from the gear shift.

He gave me a wan smile each time I did it, but swiftly receded away from me after each touch.

It probably seems self-centred, but I couldn’t help thinking about last night. About holding him, in my arms, in my hand. Kissing him and touching him and doing everything I could think of to show him that I love him. Telling him that I love him. Hearing him say it in return. Hearing him promise that we’ll be together after today. If…

If.

I thought that was all I’d get, and I was happy with that, honestly. But then, as I took advantage of my privilege and pulled into physician parking (much closer than patient parking), he cleared his throat.

“Baz,” he said softly.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“I know we didn’t make any specific promises, but I want you to know…I want you to be my boyfriend, yeah? I mean…if you want that too. Tomorrow. When I wake up. We’ll be boyfriends, won’t we?

I felt a knot in my throat. I wanted that, so much that the want burned inside me. But he needed to focus on making it through this. I couldn’t overwhelm him with my worries, with my feelings.

“I’d like that,” is all I said. Even if it’s just a single drop of the tsunami of things I wanted to say.

But Simon nodded, apparently satisfied with my milquetoast response.

I was scheduled to work today, but I told Possibelf just what she could do with any patients she wanted to shove in my direction. For once, I think she decided to grant me grace. She knows how I feel about Simon, and probably knew I’d be useless on the wards today. So I’m holed up in my office, my eyes glued to my computer monitor, which I’ve rigged to show the feed from the surveillance cameras in Surgery One.

Simon is awake and talking to the surgeon, and I wish this feed had audio. What he’s saying and how he’s saying it would tell me so much more about how he’s coming through this. But watching him speak tells me nothing much. His eyes are half-closed in a drowse, and he only speaks when the surgeon speaks to him first.

I mean, I know that many brain surgeries are done this way, with the patient sedated but semi alert, so the surgeon can test the effect of his actions on different parts of the brain by questioning the patient. It’s still unsettling to watch. Only the fact that Simon’s face is slack and free from pain keeps me from rushing into the surgical suite to scream at them for having him awake while they’re cutting into his brain.

I have to take a break around noon to shake the nervous energy out of my limbs and get some hot coffee. Even if the coffee the hospital canteen sells is complete and utter dreck. I manage to stay away from my screen for a full twelve minutes before my panicky brain tells me something will have gone wrong while I was out of the room, and Simon is probably dying because I wasn’t keeping watch to notice if the surgeon made some devastating mistake.

Of course, when I return to my office, absolutely nothing has changed from twelve minutes ago. Simon is still in twilight sleep, occasionally answering the surgeon’s questions as they’re asked. The cameras aren’t precise enough to show me what the surgeons are seeing in his brain, but their movements are calm and slow, so nothing exciting has shown up in their work yet.

I settle in for the long haul.

~~*~~

It’s four p.m. and I’m idly watching the change of shifts happening outside my office, as a break from watching the screen. He’s been in surgery for six hours now, and a standard brain surgery takes between five and seven hours. Nothing much of note has happened yet.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I notice a flurry of activity on the screen. The head surgeon is pointing at something he sees in Simon’s brain, and the residents and assistant surgeons are all leaning close to examine it for themselves.

I bring both my fists down on my desk with a satisfying crash. It’s maddening that I can’t see what they found! To keep from pummeling my desk into smithereens, I wrap my hands around the arms of my desk chair and clutch them tightly.

I watch as the surgeon pushes a metal probe in where all of the doctors were looking before. Then he says something to Simon and Simon mumbles an answer back. The doctor nods sharply, and to my eyes, he looks satisfied. That’s good, right?

I’m doomed not to find out. As if there were nothing of note, the medical team goes back to work on Snow’s head. An hour later, I watch as they suture my lover’s scalp shut. I’m no more enlightened than I was before. And I can’t check Snow’s medical file, because Possibelf locked me out of it the day after she took me off of his case. Privacy issues, she told me, unsympathetically.

Fuck that.

I go searching for Rhys.

Simon

I drift.

There’s a soft rumble above and around me. Voices. I ignore it.

Occasionally, there’s a louder voice. A question. I strain through the mists to try to answer it. It’s important, I know. I don’t know how I know. But I do.

Eventually the rumble stops. I sleep.

Baz

I sit by Simon’s bedside, holding on to his hand, and to hope, simultaneously. I’ve got news to share with Simon; Rhys was, for once, extremely helpful, even offering up information without me having to demand it.

From the look in his eyes, I think he was pitying me. It’s intolerable, but it got me the information I needed, so I did my best to ignore it.

We’ve got a chance. We can get through this. But only if Simon wakes up. Only if Simon wakes up as himself. If he’s himself and he knows me.

The left temporal lobe plays a large role in processing emotions and in storing memory. It’s only too possible that Simon Snow will wake up, well and happy, with no memory of me. Or only the negative memories of me from all those years ago. Or he could wake up remembering me, but forget that he loves me.

I think it would kill me to face a Simon Snow who once again regards me only with dislike and distrust.

He’s due to wake up within the next couple of hours, so I’ve been clutching at his hand like a drowning man hangs on to a fellow swimmer, and letting all the worst case scenarios run through my head over and over.

I’m so lost in my thoughts that it takes me a full minute to register that Simon’s eyes are open. When I meet his curious gaze, my heart stops.

“S–Simon?” I stutter. I’m praying to so many deities I don’t believe in right now, that the Simon peering at me now is the same Simon I kissed good-bye yesterday morning.

He regards me silently for a moment. Or maybe an hour. However long it is, it’s too long for my fragile heart to bear. His blue-eyed gaze is solemn and gives away nothing. And when he finally tries to speak, he coughs, and clutches at his throat.

Fuck, that’s right. Anaesthesia dries out your mouth. I rush to offer him a styrofoam cup of water with a bendy straw sticking out of it. He lets me push the straw past his lips and then he sucks down several mouthfuls of water before letting the plastic fall free from his mouth.

He still hasn’t spoken and the suspense is killing me. “Simon? How are you feeling?”

He swallows several times, and then opens his mouth to speak before freezing and looking frustrated. His mouth opens and shuts several times before he manages to push words out.

“Baz…” he whispers.

My heart is galloping. He knows me, at least. But which Baz does he know?

“I’m here, darling,” I say, risking it all. The endearment will revolt him if he doesn’t remember that he loves me. “Are you hurting? Is there anything I can do?”

He closes his eyes, and I think, at first, that he’s fallen asleep again. But then the corners of his lips tilt up.

“Never thought I’d see Baz Pitch acting the nursemaid,” he murmurs, and my heart stops. Does this mean…

My nerves are jagged with fear when he opens his eyes and pins me to my seat with them again. Then he lets his crooked grin fall into a real smile and says, his voice stronger this time, “You really must love me if you’re willing to wait on me hand and foot.”

Simon

Baz’s eyes fall shut and he gasps, in relief I think. I watch his face. My thoughts aren’t really clear yet, but I don’t think that’s because of brain damage. I think I’ve just not completely shrugged off the effects of the anaesthesia.

So, I’ve had my brain cut apart and come through the other side. And Baz is still here, and still loves me. He called me darling. There’s just one question left unanswered, and the open fear I saw on Baz’s face when I woke is the opposite of reassuring. Is he frightened because the news is bad? Or for some other reason?

I’ve been staring at him in silence for too long; Baz is starting to look uncomfortable. “What is it, Simon?” he asks.

I’m afraid to ask. So much hinges on the answer: my future health and happiness. Hell, my future, period. Whether I actually have a future.

Baz’s face tightens more and more the longer it takes for me to speak. I’m upsetting him. I don’t want that. I’ve just got to have the fucking balls to find out the truth.

“Baz…” I whisper. He leans closer to hear me. I lick my lips and try again. “Baz…the tumour…is it…”

Baz pulls back abruptly, eyes widening. Then, to my dismay, those beautiful eyes of his fill with tears. Shit, that means the news is bad, doesn’t it?

But then he’s smiling through his tears, and it’s like a sunbeam lancing through the darkest rain cloud.

“The tumour,” Baz says, so softly I have to strain to hear him, “was benign.”

Benign. Benign! That means…that means…

But Baz is still speaking, and his words eerily echo my thoughts. “That means,” he says, “that you get to be a pain in my arse for the rest of your hopefully very long life.” Then he drops the mocking tone, and continues, “if you want that with me.”

I want to strangle every human on this earth, including myself, who put that self-doubt in Baz’s voice. But I’ve got the rest of my life to convince him. The rest of my normal, full, human life-span to show him how much I love him, and how much he deserves love in return.

I squeeze the hand that I’ve just now realised has been clinging to mine this whole time.

“I want that,” I say.