sidestepdestiny | (no subject)

It's been a few days now, and I'm starting to lose it a little. I've been trying not to, after all, I'm not alone. I maintain my composure for Demelza's sake especially, she has her children back home to worry about.

Not that Dragon Simon is being mean, exactly, apart from kidnapping us and keeping us trapped at the top of a tower that didn't exist two days ago. He even brought me an umbrella. It's a bit torn on the one side on account of his massive claws, but there must be some part of my Simon in his dragon brain to remember that the sunlight hurts me. He's brought pillows, food, even water cupped in his claw. He's also amassed a pile of seemingly random objects, anything shiny, really, from hubcaps to a bright silver mailbox. It's ridiculous and maddening, and no amount of pleading or coaxing has convinced him to let us down.

And then Dragon Simon brings us a blond, and that's when things get really crazy. Because the blond brings a taller man chasing after him with a sword. Simon dives after him, and I don't think he means to fight, I think he's attracted by the shine of the blade, but the man attacks and then I finally do use it. Maybe Simon is a giant fire-breathing dragon, but he's still Simon.

My Simon.

I wish suddenly vampires could turn into bats so I could swoop down and rip the fucking sword from his hand myself, but I'm useless up here. I shout spells down, anything I think I can manage without a wand, Stay Put! when he isn't even wearing a hat, Take It Away! in an attempt to rid him of the sword, to no avail. Some Like It Hot! has no effect. Even Candle In The Wind! - and I swear this one makes him nearly fall, but it could just be the fact that he's trying to stab a giant dragon.

And then something incredible happens. As he gets a few slices in, the dragon grows smaller. He stabs Simon in the chest, and in the blink of an eye Simon isn't a dragon anymore, but himself. He has large red wings and a tail, like when Katherine had kidnapped him, and he falls to the ground in a heap. A mostly human heap.

"Simon!" I yell.

Whatever spell he was under reveals a trapdoor in the floor of the tower and I rush down with the others, though not to my freedom but to Simon's side. He's naked and covered with soot, I have to touch him to make sure he's real, that he's himself again. "Simon?"

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From:

worst_greatest_one

I feel like I've been boiled.

Actually, no, I feel like I went off about a hundred times, but I can't remember why. Confusingly, I do remember more than I usually do when I go off, but I can't make sense of the images in my head.

Flying over pastures of green grass.

Lifting a mailbox with my...feet?

A woman pleading and Baz, pleading, too, but why with me?

And has someone come at me with a sword?

I sit up and nearly lie flat again, I'm so dizzy, but I'm up long enough to realize I'm starkers. I hear Baz calling my name from somewhere distant but getting closer, and I look up. Whatever's happened, Baz will know what to do.

From:

sidestepdestiny

"Fuck, you're alive," I breathe, dizzy with relief. I'd kept waiting for someone to find the tower and to help us escape. If I'd just been able to get to my wand surely I would have been able to do something. But it was slaying Simon that had been what it had taken to change him back in the end.

(Which doesn't mean I'm still not going to find that giant bastard and clock him.) (Or spell his obnoxious muscles gone.)

I gather Simon into my lap, which is a bit awkward considering the large, leathery wings and the tail, and brush his curls from his face. "Stay cool," I murmur, a simple spell that should work without my wand. "Darling, can you speak?"

From:

worst_greatest_one

A wash of something goes through me, chasing away the very worst of that boiled feeling, but I still don't feel right. Baz lifts me up into his arms and I realize part of it is that there's more of me than usual. I huff, and I see the obvious red line of my tail.

"Aw, fuck," I rasp, clutching at my throat after. "What's happened? Have I gone off?" There's usually a crater, you see, not a tall stone tower like something shipped straight here from Watford.

From:

sidestepdestiny

"Not exactly--" I follow the path of Simon's hand along his throat, my own cool, always so much cooler than his, while his skin feels like he's just been dunked in a tub of hot water. The spell hasn't seemed to work as it should which just gives me more incentive to get him inside so I can get my wand.

(And some pants for Simon.)

"Help me a little, let's get you inside and then I can explain," I tell him, struggling to stand while holding him, gritting my teeth against the pain in my bad leg. But I'm stronger than most thanks to my vampirism and it just takes a little maneuvering to get to my feet. "You don't remember any of it?"

From:

worst_greatest_one

"Inside there?" I ask, looking past his shoulder to the tower. For a moment it looks like home, a place of safety hidden away from the rest of the world, but I've no idea why. And the longer I look, the more that feeling fades, until it's just a big tower in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Baz helps me up, and I startle to realize there are other people there. Luckily they don't seem to mind my being naked. Unluckily, that's because they're busy staring at me with fear. "Baz," I say unhappily, "What've I done?"

From:

sidestepdestiny

"No, not in there. The Gardens are just up the way, here," I explain, carrying him away from the tower and prying eyes. "And I'll tell you everything once I get you inside. You smell like barbecue."

Not for the first time I hope that someone's kept the orphanage running in our absence. It would be a crushing blow for Simon to learn what happened and have it followed up by losing our license. But those worries will have to wait, because my main priority right now is getting Simon inside and making sure he's okay.

"Open Sesame!" I cast once I reach the entrance, wandless, at the door. It drifts open like it's been pushed by the wind and I sigh, opening it further with my shoulder and carrying Simon right to our wing. "Here, sit while I draw you a bath."

From:

worst_greatest_one

I sit huddled at the edge of the tub, grubby and miserable. I knew it was bad when I woke up with wings and a tail again, but now it's so bad Baz won't even tell me until he can hold me underwater and keep me there until I calm down.

"Just tell me," I say when the water is halfway full, turning to flop myself ungracefully into the water. "Is anyone hurt? Are you?" He looks like he hasn't combed his hair in days. "You look a mess as well."

From:

sidestepdestiny

I don't even want to know what I look like, honestly, but I manage a smile despite the past few days. I tell myself nothing will ever be worse than the months I was held captive by the fucking numpties. At least Simon hadn't put me in a coffin.

"I'm fine." I pause and sigh, passing him the soap. "You turned into a dragon. Not just as you are now, but...giant. Like something out of Tolkien. And then you brought me to that tower, which, for Crowley's sake I have no idea where it came from. You were...collecting people. And things. There's a bike and some jewelry we're definitely going to need to try and return to someone."

From:

worst_greatest_one

I take the soap, holding it in my hand as Baz speaks. At some point, the soap sinks into the water, and I do, too, listening as if being in water almost to my nose will stop the truth.

I can't even say it's a surprise. The how is a surprise, certainly, but not the what. I turned into a monster. It's not even the first time, and I don't mean the dragon part. I'm the Humdrum, or at least, I'm directly responsible for Him. Of course I turned into a monster.

My eyes grow hot, but I think it must be the only warm thing about me. I don't feel like I've been boiled anymore. I don't actually feel much of anything. I think I'd sink beneath the water and just stay there if Baz wasn't there to watch me, and it's only for his sake that I retrieve the soap and drag it half-heartedly along my arm.

"Shiny things," I say quietly. "I think I remember."

From:

sidestepdestiny

The expression on Simon's face is enough to break my heart, but I couldn't bear to have lied to him. If it wasn't me telling him it would have been someone else, or he would have remembered in time. He looks like he can't even wash himself, so I pull of my shirt and slip out of my pants and underwear and join him in the tub.

"Let me, darling," I say quietly, taking the soap from his hand and running it over his sooty skin myself.

"You didn't hurt anyone."

At least I desperately hope not, as I realize with a start that I have no idea what Simon was up to when he wasn't at the tower except stealing things. But it couldn't have been too terrible, could it? Or else people would have come by sooner.

"It's not your fault, Simon. It's the city, you know how it likes to fuck with us."

From:

worst_greatest_one

"It didn't do anything to you," I point out, then almost wish I hadn't, for why would the city need to bother? I did something to Baz. I flew off with him and made him live with me in a tower and Merlin knows what else. I could have set him on fire.

"Maybe this is just how I am, Baz. Or what I am." I drag my hand in the water but can't be arsed to make a splash. "On the inside."

From:

sidestepdestiny

"Simon," I say, quiet, but firm. I move in the water, dropping the soap to take his chin in hand so he'll have to look at me. While part of me secretly delights in the fact that the both of us are monsters, I know he takes no such joy from it. And Humdrum or not, his personality doesn't match up.

"Would a monster choose to build a children's home?" I ask him, moving my hand from his chin to cup his neck. "Does that sound like someone who's evil inside?"

From:

worst_greatest_one

"It doesn't," I admit, looking up at him until the earnestness in his grey eyes hurts too much. "But it doesn't seem to matter what I want, or what I think, or what I care about. Bad things keep happening, Baz."

I lean back against his chest. "There must be a reason."

From:

sidestepdestiny

I shift, putting myself between Simon and the tub and tucking him against me. I don't bother to retrieve the soap, it'll be easier to simply clean him up with a spell when we get out. The warm water feels good, it's enough of a reason to stay in the tub for now.

"I think the reason is this place," I finally say, because like anything else here there doesn't seem to be a reason. "Maybe it feels like it's targeting you, but I don't think it's because of anything you've done or who you are."