(no subject)

[worst_greatest_one]

The first few nights in Darrow, I slept like the dead. I didn't know where I was, but I knew that the Humdrum wasn't here, and that made all the difference.

Now, though - now I can hardly catch a few hours at a time before my racing heart wakes me up. The care homes had always been noisy, even at night, and at Watford I'd had Baz's rhythmic breathing in my ear. It's too quiet in my apartment, even when I leave the telly on, but somehow my thoughts are loud enough to drag me from sleep.

Why are we here? What sort of shadowy world did Bitty and his friends get trapped in? Will it happen to me? Who's controlling it?

What am I going to do without Penny?

My first nightmare melts my bedside lamp, so I don't replace it. I huddle in my blankets in the dark and close my eyes, but sleep is a long time coming.

I dream of my room at Watford. Can you dream about dreaming? I have, more than once. I dream about sleeping a whole night through, I dream about waking up to sunlight pouring through the open window at the top of Mummers House. I dream of sleeping for hours, but I always wake up after one or two.

It's three in the morning, and I turn over in bed. It's so damn quiet. In my desperation, I breathe in and out, listening to my own air as if it were Baz in the bed across from me. Somehow, it helps, and when sleep returns, shifts, mutates into a nightmare of fire that I can't control, for some reason the spectre of Baz I've called up is still there, standing in the middle of the flames.

"Make a wish," I murmur. I want to scream it, but my voice is only a whisper, and there's no magic in it at all. "Make a wish."

Comments

[sidestepdestiny]

I wake up to the smell of burning. It's a plastic, paint smell, and I immediately sit up, alert, because where there's burning there's fire. Did that heavily jeweled man misuse his microwave again?

I jump out of bed, disentangling myself from the sheets, and that's when I notice it.

It's my wall. My bedroom wall is literally melting, globs of wall are bubbling and steaming on the floor. It's like what I imagine volcano lava looks like, only it smells repugnant. I can see Snow right on the other side, his bed mere feet away from the all the burning. He's sleeping through it, I think. Crowley. I scramble for my wand, kept at my bedside table, and quickly cast.

"Make a wish!" It stops some of the burning, and I aim my wand at Snow, next. "Wake up, sleepyhead!"

[worst_greatest_one]

I sit bolt upright, and before I've even said the incantation, the Sword of Mages is in my hand. I stare down at it, then at the flames, then at Baz, sitting upright in his own bed.

I don't even register the fact that we can see each other through the smoldering remains of our joined apartment wall. All I register is that he's trying to burn me. I leap to my feet atop my bedsheets and heft up my sword, but I'm so disoriented for waking up so fast that I promptly fall over, trapped between my bed and the far wall.

[sidestepdestiny]

I think maybe if I hadn't just woken up with my wall burning down I'd have a good laugh at Snow leaping atop his bed like he was going to take on the Humdrum himself, only to fall off, tangled up in the sheets.

"Amazing."

As usual, Snow is no help. I cast Make a wish! once more, and add a Stop and smell the roses! to get rid of that horrendous smell.

"Are you alive back there?" I call over.

Through where our bedroom wall used to be.

Crowley.

[worst_greatest_one]

I stabbed myself.

For a whole minute it's all I can think, and I lie paralyzed with terror and shame that this is how it all ends, and then I realize it's just the power strip on the floor digging into my lower back.

Slowly, I pull myself upright and peer at Baz over the mattress. "What's happened?" I ask, struggling to my feet. The whole wall that separates our bedrooms has melted like hot glue, and I gape at it.

"Was it the Humdrum?"

[sidestepdestiny]

"Oh, yes, I suspect it was. He must have known that without a wall between us I'll have an easier time assassinating you," I say with a winning smile, though my eyes are glaring daggers.

"No, you prat," I cut in before he can reply, waving my wand. "Can't you smell your own magic? You were talking in your sleep, you must have been dreaming of setting my bed on fire and missed!"

[worst_greatest_one]

"I wasn't!" I insist, and despite my outrage I do smell the air. It smells like smoke, which makes every bit of sense when there's been a fire, but I know my own magic.

I did this.

"I was trying to put it out," I say, staring helplessly where the wall used to be. "I swear I was. There was a fire and I wanted to put it out."

I stare at him. "Did you get burned?" If he did, he should've gone up in smoke like a vampire, but it feels polite to ask.

[sidestepdestiny]

"No, but it's good to know you can potentially murder me in your sleep," I say scathingly. I keep tracking the melted frame of where the wall used to be with my eyes, thinking if I know a spell that can rebuild it. I didn't exactly take any magickal architect classes, though.

"Especially now that your bed is three feet away from mine."

Snow is standing on the opposite side of his bed from me, and it's a good thing, because I wouldn't mind strangling him just now. I raise my wand at the mess instead, and try, "Into thin air!" to get rid of the mottled, bubbled edges of where the wall burned away.

[worst_greatest_one]

"As you were," I offer, gripping my wand, but jump back as a whole section of wall reforms already melting. "Fuck!" I shove my wand beneath my pillow and decide to leave it to Baz, even if I am a little glad a section of burning wall stands between me and his furious expression. "Put it out again!"

[sidestepdestiny]

"Stop casting!" I yell in disbelief. "You should have your wand revoked, I fucking swear-- Make a wish!" At this point I'm casting so many powerful spells I'm going to have to drain an entire buck. And I've been trying to go easy so I don't take out the forest's whole deer population.

I cast another Stop and smell the roses! and Into think air!, and sit down on my bed. I haven't had breakfast of any kind yet, or even a sip of water. My leg is already starting a dull throb at the hip.

"Just leave it, Snow. I'll try to rebuild the wall later."

[worst_greatest_one]

He looks completely drained when he sits, and mutual hatred or not, I feel awful. I've destroyed both our apartments, or at least, an integral part of them being two and not one, and Baz looks awful.

I'm still wearing my clothes from the day before - I never wear pajamas outside of Watford - but my feet are bare, and I curl my toes against the carpet as I sit.

"I'm sorry," I say again. "Maybe I can help." I worry at my lip and stare at him. "Are you alright?"

[sidestepdestiny]

"No, please don't help. You'll burn the rest of the walls down," I grumble, looking away from how he chews at his lip. I hate it when he does that. I realize belatedly, after all the excitement, that I'm dressed only in my black boxer briefs and an undershirt. I suppose it doesn't matter, but I feel self-conscious all the same, so I get up to find a pair of pants.

"I'm fine." I pause a moment, and remember my manners as I'm opening my dresser drawer. "Are you?"

[worst_greatest_one]

"Sure," I exhale, mostly in wonderment that he's asked. Perhaps I've traumatized him. In truth, I feel like shit, and not just in the guilty way. My head aches and I swear my skin itches, rivulets of magic still traveling down my nerves.

"It was a nightmare," I offer in explanation. "There was a fire, and you were in it. I was trying to put it out."

[sidestepdestiny]

I freeze, reaching for my pants. Snow was dreaming of me? And not in a bad way? I know it's just a dream, a nightmare, even, but it's still surprising to hear he'd be saving me from a fire instead of lighting me up.

"You didn't even take advantage of the situation in a dream?" I say lightly, taking a pair of jeans out and turning my back to him to pull them on.

[worst_greatest_one]

I actually manage to improve on things when I get home. I'm disappointed in myself, I think, for messing up so badly when I was only asleep, but somehow the guilt keeps me from getting to excitable when I grip my wand.

I as you were the part of the wall that joins our beds, so even if it's not completely private, there's at least a partition between our beds now, and everything in its place all the burnt bits off the floor. It's not perfect, but it almost looks like someone meant to do this, rather than accidentally burnt a hole between rooms.

I feel a little better about it by the time I hear Baz come home.

[sidestepdestiny]

I eat half of Snow's breakfast and get the rest boxed up for him. It would be a waste otherwise, I tell myself. Then I hunt for my real breakfast in the forest. I eat a few squirrels and a rabbit. It's nicer than the rats, though rabbits are harder to find.

When I get home, the missing wall is a shock for a moment. Especially since half of it seems to have reappeared. Snow's head pops into view and I raise my eyebrows.

"Was this you?" I ask, motioning to the wall.

[worst_greatest_one]

"Yeah," I answer, and I don't feel proud but I do feel better, enough that when I see the takeout box in his hands, my stomach immediately rumbles.

"What's in there?" I ask, stepping closer to him and the box, but even before I'm near I can see that Baz looks better. His colour is up, and he's standing straighter.

[sidestepdestiny]

A half wall between our beds is at least a little more privacy than no wall at all, though part of me-- no, I won't let my mind go there. I'm distracted, though, and only after I cross the room to hand him the bag do I realize I've ended up too close to his stupid handsome hopeful smiling face. I shove the bag at him.

"Your breakfast," I snap, though there's nothing to snap over. "You left it there. It was rather rude and the waitress was probably insulted so I had her box it up for you."

[worst_greatest_one]

I grab the bag before it opens and spills with the force of his shove, taking it into my kitchen to open. "You ate some!" I say, and my frustration with him just shoving the bag at me gets tempered with relief. He really did look ready to keel over before.

I grab a fork and stick it into the box, pulling out a mouthful of pancake and sausage. Fuck, it's good, and I stick another forkful into my mouth before I've even swallowed the first.

"Did you tip her?" I call, muffled. "That's a thing here."

[sidestepdestiny]

He sounds more pleased than angry that I ate some of his food, and I stand there stupidly for a moment. And then he starts stuffing his face and I cringe and turn away, running a hand through my hair, unintentionally dislodging how I'd combed it earlier.

"Yes, Snow. I've caught on by now with as much as I eat out," I say, knocking my knuckles on the half wall to test how real it is. It looks like it's always been there.

"Speaking of which, have you noticed the bank money doesn't magickally replenish itself?"

[worst_greatest_one]

"It's meant to every month," I tell him, mouth full of three more bites. It's getting hard to swallow the pancakes, and I turn and pour myself a glass of water, draining it all in one go before I return to the food. It's already half gone, I note with a pang.

"Just enough to live on," I add. "If we want to live like your family is used to, we have to get jobs. Good ones."

[sidestepdestiny]

"It does?" I ask in surprise. How did Snow know something I didn't? I thought I'd properly researched this place, but I must have missed that somewhere. And here I'd been stressed out for the past few days, wondering if it would have to come down to me finding some retail job until we come up with a plan. Or until someone rescues us. (Ugh.)

I roll my eyes at the mention of my families' wealth. I doubt there's a job I can find here that will pay enough for me to live like that. Most of that money has been in the family for generations.

"Were you planning on finding a job? Perhaps there's some mines that need to be blown up."

[worst_greatest_one]

I've been thinking about waiting tables, or maybe helping in the kitchens at that cafe I like, but then he mentions mines, and my food goes to ash in my mouth.

"Fuck you," I mutter. "I'm not a bomb." I am. It's why I hate it when he calls me that so much. "Or a joke." I steel myself, mostly because I have no idea if the truce will prevent what I say next. "Tosser."

[sidestepdestiny]

That's better.

"You're kind of a joke," I say lightly with a flippant smile, crossing back over to my apartment to take off my jacket and shoes. I put the kettle on for tea, and flop down my my bed to relax.

"I've no idea what sort of job this place expects a person to get without records of even a high school diploma," he says to the half wall, turning on the TV. "I won't be a janitor."

[worst_greatest_one]

Nothing happens to the truce when I insult him, but my victory is shortlived when he calls me a joke again like it's nothing. Like I'm nothing. "I'm not a joke, Baz," I snarl, but over my heaving breaths I hear something shrill coming from his apartment, the sound high and urgent.

Hurrying over, I step right through his bedroom to find the teapot in his kitchen spitting mad, steam coming out the tiny spaces around it's lid and spout. "When did you put that on?"

[sidestepdestiny]

I wish I could see him get worked up. If we're going to have to share an apartment, at least let me see the spoils of my efforts. But the kettle interrupts and I'm hopping up just as Snow's crossing the room in hurried strides. The kettle sounds like it's about to explode.

"Like two seconds ago," I say defensively, and then slowly look over at Snow in realization. Merlin's ghost. "Are you going to melt the entire flat? Can you warn me first so I'm not here when it happens?"