Watford Tales

Concussion

Baz

Nurse puts 20 stitches in Simon's head and he spends two nights in the infirmary with a concussion. Dev has three broken fingers.

I go to lessons and stay in our room and am generally miserable. And scared. I hunt when I need to. I stare at the wall. I'm not getting any work done. I can't believe I slipped up like that. I've seen Simon bleed before. I know the smell of his blood. It smells distinct to me from anyone else's. There was that time I punched him in the nose. He had blood all over his face that day. I guess that was before the change, though. But still. He cuts his face shaving sometimes, skins his knuckles practicing with that blasted sword.

I think I might just leave school. But I don't even have a place to go.

After two days of this Penny and Agatha show up in our room.

"Simon wants to see you," Penny says.

"He misses you," Agatha says.

"Come on, Baz," Penny says. "Stop being an idiot."

It's against my better judgement but I miss him, too. I miss him a lot. A ridiculous amount, to tell the truth. I'm yearning for him. So I let them drag me to the infirmary.

Simon's sitting up in this metal bed, painted white, that looks like something out of the 1920s. He has a huge white bandage wrapped around his head. Ebb's sitting in a chair beside him, holding his hand and he's got the baby gwythaint on his lap, feeding it with a spoon. Simon gives me a wry smile when I walk in, and the gwythaint hisses at me. I almost hiss back.

But it's all right. I can smell the blood, his blood, but it's muffled by the bandages and it's not fresh. I feel a tingle in my fangs but it's nothing I can't handle. Nothing I haven't tamped back a million times before.

Ebb collects the gwythaint from Simon's lap, nods to me briefly and leaves with the ungainly black bird clinging to her shoulder. I spend the night in the chair beside Simon's bed, with my legs across his knees, his hand clasped in mine. In the morning, Nurse releases him and we go back to our room.

The minute the door closes Simon leans in to kiss me. I'm so hungry for him, for his mouth, his touch, but I push him away, in spite of the fact that every molecule in my body is yearning towards him. He lets out a frustrated moan and tries to pull me close again, and next thing I know, we're kind of tussling back and forth.

"Simon, no," I insist.

"Why not?" he says, trying to kiss me again. I have to slap his mouth away.

"Because you're still sick, you dolt! You have a concussion. You're not supposed to exert yourself. And besides, it might not be safe. I.....I can still smell the blood."

"Oh," he says. He seems convinced. I know he saw my fangs pop for his blood, the other night. I could see it in his eyes. He sits down on his bed, and I sit down on mine. It's like before, before everything started between us. Like the past seven years of our lives. The two of us staring across the room, each on our own bed.

The small rectangle of bare floor between us feels like a chasm.

"Baz," he says.

"What?"

"I feel fine."

"You have a concussion."

"I miss you."

"Me too."

He flops back on his bed and puts his hands behind his head and huffs out his breath. "Can't we just..... Hold each other?"

"No."

Silence.

"Baz?"

"What?"