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float_on_alright) wrote2018-12-31 10:23 pm
All Apologies
No Magic AU
“Oh, how could it possibly get any worse, Penny?”
“It could always be worse, Simon. My mum says never tempt fate by saying it couldn’t be worse.” Penny didn’t look up from her copy of the American Journal of Medicine to answer. Simon wondered if she was even really paying attention, or if she was responding by rote at this point.
“I’d like to see fate try,” Simon said as he kicked the ground in front of him before proceeding to toe clumps of dirt and grass up from the ground. Penny hadn’t told him to stop yet, but it was only a matter of time before she told him to leave the pitch alone.
“You didn’t lose your scholarship.” Penny looked up and peered over her glasses at Simon. At least he knew she was listening.
“It wasn’t like I started this!” Simon felt the usual protest pop out of his mouth before he could think to stop it.
Penny huffed and set down the journal. “It doesn’t matter who started, Simon. Fighting isn’t allowed. You could’ve been expelled! You’re very lucky.”
“If I were lucky, I wouldn’t have to keep living with Baz.”
“The only way you’re going to get out of living with Baz this year is if you get sent home, and that wouldn’t be lucky at all. Don’t you want to stay here?”
“Yes, of course. It’s just… He’s so bloody infuriating. ‘Simon, clean your desk.’ ‘Simon, close your mouth.’ ‘Simon, honestly, don’t you know anything?’ ‘Simon, your tie is crooked.’ Like he’s perfect or something. Oh, right, except he is fucking perfect.” Penny executed a perfect eye roll. Simon figured that she’d gotten a lot of practice since they became friends.
Simon hadn’t realized he was pulling on his hair until Penny tugged on his hand away from his head. He sighed, and let Penny take his hand.
“Baz isn’t perfect,” she said softly.
“The hell he isn’t, Penny. He’s handsome and wicked smart and graceful and tidy... and he can part his hair until it’s perfectly swooped and gelled like he’s going to be on the red carpet at any moment. Even after he’s played a perfect game of perfect football, it just falls back into place bloody perfect.”
“He’s also a snob.”
“I’m aware,” Simon shot back.
“Being a snob is a flaw.”
“I just wanted to punch him in his perfect face and break his perfect nose so there would be something not perfect about him.”
“Now that you’ve punched him in his ‘perfect’ face—” Penny said ‘perfect in such a way that Simon could see the implied air quotes. “—and broken his perfect nose, do you feel any better?”
“Hell, I don’t know, Penny. I think I might actually feel worse. I’m certainly confused. He’s been trying to run me off since I got here and suddenly he has the ideal opportunity to get me kicked out of school and what does he do? He lies and says it was all an accident. That we were horsing around and we fell. Why would he do that? Why would he lie in my favor?”
“You said you didn’t start it. Maybe he thought the only way to save his own butt was to lie said butt off?”
“I punched him in the face.” Simon stood up to pace between the football pitch, and the impermanent metal stands Penny still sat on.
“Yes, you mentioned. Now you’re talking in circles. If you aren’t going to contribute something new to the conversation, can I please go back to reading this article? Micah wanted to talk about it tonight.”
“You don’t get it, Penny. I didn’t start our rivalry, technically, but I did start this fight. I punched him in the face to make him shut up. He was being shitty about my mum, but I doubt he would’ve gotten expelled.”
“Simon, just go ask him.”
“He’s not going to tell me.”
“Maybe he won’t, but I certainly can’t. I’m glad you’re okay and that you’re not expelled. Good gracious, Simon. I don’t think your mom would care enough about some shitty comment from Bazilton Grimm-Pitch for her to want you to lose your place here over her.”
Simon stopped pacing and smiled at his friend. “Love you, too, Penny.”
Penny executed another perfect eye roll and let out a huff that sounded like she was exasperated with him, but he knew she cared about him. “I hate to say this, but I think you owe Baz an apology.”
“He wouldn’t apologize to me.”
“Haven’t we already established that Baz is an arsehole? And then you can thank him for not getting you expelled.”
Simon balked. “You are out of your mind.”
“Well, you can sit here silently and watch me read this article, or you can go find something else to do, but so help me, Simon, if you ask me again why Baz didn’t try to get you expelled I’m going to duct tape your mouth shut.”
“Fine.”
Simon kicked the dirt one more time and left Penny to her magazine. She wouldn’t have actually duct taped his mouth shut, but after seven years of listening to Simon complain about Baz, her tolerance for it was about shot. Had Simon had something else he wanted to talk about she would’ve been there for him.
Simon decided to walk through the grounds. It was beautiful this time of year with everything turning a bright green and the flowers blooming. And, honestly, he couldn’t blame her.
Simon wasn't sure if this his favorite time of year, he could never really a pick a favorite, but it was glorious to be here in the spring. He wondered if Eb was out with her goats since she often brought them onto the school grounds. The goats helped keep the grass and some of the other wildlife at bay. The school did have a groundskeeper, but it was a lot of acreage. The school was just a small part of what the estate really was. The founders had wanted to make a preservation of sorts, or so they claimed. Simon had always suspected that the founders had just been rich snobs, like Baz, who wanted to keep the riff-raff far away from their precious elite.
Although now he had to question that a little bit. Not the founders, he was still reasonably sure that they didn't give a rats arse about "conservation" or any other such thing, but about Baz wanting Simon gone from the school. It was eating at him that he couldn't understand what Baz had been thinking. It just didn't make sense. Baz had been torturing Simon for years. Even before Simon started being hostile back, Baz had badgered him continuously. Simon wanted to pretend it didn't matter. That none of it mattered. They'd all be done with school in a few months, and they'd be onto other things. Simon wasn't sure what was next for him, exactly. He'd been accepted to a few universities, and he had been offered a few scholarships, being an orphan meant there were lots of schools who wanted to take you in as a charity case, just like Watford had. But Simon wasn't sure he could deal with that sort of attitude for another four years.
Still, as much as he tried putting it off his mind, he couldn't let go of why Baz hadn't just gotten him expelled. They'd been assigned to clean the desks in the classrooms every day after class for the next week, which meant that not only would Simon not get expelled from the school, but Baz would also be forced to clean with him after they were done with class. They usually avoided each other as much as possible in off class times. Sleeping in the same room and having most of their classes together had more than enough time.
It irked Simon that Baz had put him in this situation. Simon had been so eager to make a friend when he’d first started at the school. He’d been so hopeful that his roommate could be that friend, but then Baz had sneered at Simon from the first moment they’d met, and Simon’s hoped had been dashed. Still, he’d tried to be friendly in the beginning, thinking Baz might come around eventually, but after their first year Simon gave up on that. Since then it had been years of antagonism and sneers. Not one kind word or gesture had passed between them in over five years.
Which came back around to the fact that Baz took on detention and more time with Simon rather than getting Simon expelled. That was kind. Or at least an apology of some kind wasn’t it?
Maybe Penny was right; maybe he should ask Baz why he covered for Simon.
He'd head back to their room and wait for Baz to get back there as well. It wasn't like he usually stayed out terribly late. There were curfew times for the rooms, and Baz took school surprisingly seriously for someone who had always seemed to be so cool to Simon.
Back in his room, Simon tried to work on his homework, he really did, but his head wasn't cooperating. He couldn't seem to wrangle his brain at all. He already struggled with his attention span (and his words if you asked Baz), and he decided that he would just have to give up on the English paper for tonight. He had a decent outline and a few notes taken so it wouldn't take him long to finish it once he could focus a little again. It was just that everything seemed to remind him of Baz somehow. He was about to throw his book against the wall in frustration, but Baz opened the door at that moment.
Then Baz was in the door. Simon searched the other boy's face, but he wasn't sure what he was looking for there. But as they stared at each other, Baz's face seemed to shutter close, and Simon felt a pang in his heart for it. Christ, what even was that? That hurt? Yet another thing he was going to have to figure out eventually. But not right at this moment.
Baz strode in and closed the door behind him and headed to their ensuite bathroom. Simon usually loved that they'd won that lottery, but right at this moment, he wanted to curse the damned thing.
"Baz, listen."
"Why?"
"It's just that wanted... I mean..."
"Use your words, Simon, I don't have time for this." Baz's tone was harsh as it always was, but it didn't seem the same somehow to Simon. He didn't know if Baz had changed or if something in the way he saw Baz had.
Simon took a deep breath, and let it out. "I wanted to say, thank you. I don't know why you didn't just get me kicked out, but I appreciate that you didn't. You could've, and you didn't. So, thank you. And I'm sorry for, you know."
"For existing?" Baz shot back.
In the past, that would've spun Simon out, but tonight, well. Something was different tonight. "For punching you in your perfect face."
“My perfect what?”
“Just, I’m sorry, okay?”
Simon couldn’t be sure, but he thought Baz might have blushed. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him.
“Yeah, okay.” Baz nodded. He made one step towards their bathroom door, but then stopped and turned again. “I… don’t want you to get kicked out. I mean, who would I torture if you weren’t here?” And then Baz was in the bathroom, door locked, and shower running.
Simon wasn’t sure what to make of any of that, but he suspected something had just changed.