Watford Tales

Scar and Stars

Baz

Over the next few days there's plenty to do. We meet every night up in our room, the four of us, going through the Mage's notes and the books, trying to figure out what he was trying to do. It's just as Ebb told Simon. The Mage was researching ancient Druid magic, mostly blood magic. He was trying to figure out how to control the Humdrum, how to control Simon. It's pretty clear that he knew that every time Simon went off, it made the Humdrum stronger, and that the appearance of the Humdrum is linked to Simon's birth. Some of it is pretty cold. I can see Simon blanch as he sees himself referred to in these note as the C.O. (for chosen one) as if he isn't a person at all. I know he believed the Mage cared about him all these years. But the harsh truth is there, in the Mage's chicken scratch writing. It's all about preserving and channeling Simon's power. Nothing about Simon himself.

Bunce would be having a field day if she were here, but she's still home, caring for her grief stricken parents, and nursing her own grief, I suppose. Simon has talked to her a few times on the illegal mobile she gave him. It sounds pretty grim at her house.

One night Niall brings a bottle of Vodka he nicked from his parents and we polish it off together, the four of us, sitting in our usual positions, Simon and I each on our beds, Dev and Niall in the two desk chairs. The talk, naturally, turns to sex. Niall is trying to get up the nerve to ask out this sixth year girl named Rowan. She's a real beauty with long dark hair and sparkling blue eyes, but a bit full of herself, in my opinion. Dev starts pumping Simon for information about Agatha. Simon is still kind of sensitive about Agatha, but he's drunk enough to be feeling a bit expansive, and tells Dev to go ahead and ask her out if he really wants to.

Premal's funeral is the next day. Niall is going, his family is fairly close to the Bunces. He and Simon are taking the early train to London in the morning. Dev and I are from a different camp, our parents are aligned squarely opposite to the Bunces, and we wouldn't be welcome. Simon showing up there is pushing it a little actually, these days, but he can't bear to be away from Penny at a time like this and I don't really blame him.

By the time Dev and Niall gather their drunken arses off their chairs and head out the door I'm more than ready for them to leave. "Have fun, then, you two," says Niall, with a wink and he shuts the door behind him.

Fuck.

Simon has his arms around me the second the door closes, but I'm kind of freaked out and I sit down in my desk chair with my head in my hands. We're outed. I don't know if I mind or not. I always told myself I wouldn't care, so I guess I don't, but still, it feels weird. I've never tried to hide my queerness from Dev and Niall, but I've never exactly made a point of it either.

Simon keeps trying to kiss me and I keep turning my face away and eventually he just hauls me out of the chair and over onto his bed and lays down next to me and holds me. We're both drunk, but I'm more used to it than he is. Simon hardly ever drinks. It is literally the first time I have lain next to him that I haven't felt like the world was on fire, so I guess I must be pretty upset. But he just keeps at me, kissing me, stroking my face, my neck, my back and it isn't really too long before I'm kissing him back and he's hitched himself on top of me and we're pressing and gasping against each other, and it's really good, so good that I realize I don't give a fuck what Dev and Niall think.

I want him. I need him. I need him like I need blood except it's a completely different part of my brain, almost an opposite instinct. I'm used to holding back, to suppressing that basic desire, my need for blood. That hunger that never goes away. But this is a desire I can satisfy, and it makes me want it more, makes me want it too much. He's the sun and I'm flying right into him. He's the sun and I'm Icarus, and I'm headed for a fall, and I guess that is why instead of getting down to business I'm crying in his arms.