Archive of Our Own

It's come to this Tasha, I'm breaking into some godforsaken flatshare in the arse-end of nowhere just to speak to your son. Can’t even use magic to do it - your boy’s too powerful and that Bunce kid is too smart - I’m sure as shit that something will blow up if I try as much as an
Open Sesame
on the door; so I’m on my knees like some Normal with a pair of bobby pins and a finite amount of patience cursing out your son.

If he weren’t my favourite, if he weren’t made of trouble, if he weren’t yours, I would have packed this shit in and left him for the fucking fairies. But I can’t do that, can I, sis?

That’s not Bunce.

“Alright Basil, how’s it goin’?” Fiona: boots on the coffee table, flicking the ash from the end of her stubby cigarette into Bunce’s favourite mug with one hand and waving her wand like an orchestra conductor with the other. “Chosen One,” her eyes narrow, “why don’t you Take A Walk.”

Snow turns to go and I grab his wrist, I give the smallest flick of my wand and whisper “Stand By Me,” and he turns back. I step between him and Fiona, not dropping my hold on him, but sliding my hand down his wrist ‘til our fingers interlock and give his hand a tight, quick squeeze.

“Fiona, so nice of your to drop by, pray tell, what the fuck do you want?” She gets the icy cool Grimm-Pitch delivery, the one without a hint of emotion, the one that betrays nothing, the one I used for seven years on Snow.

She takes a deep drag of her cigarette and blows a long, slow cloud of smoke above her head. It smells divine. “Just wanted to catch-up with my favourite nephew, he did a midnight flit four months ago and now won’t even return my texts.” I sense Snow shifting behind me, he didn’t know about this, but he says nothing and rubs his thumb in reassuring circles atop mine. I don’t know if his silence is from fear of Fiona casting something worse at him or an unexpected emotional effect of Stand By Me but whichever it is I’m grateful, I can only process of these problems at a time.

He’s all Grimm right now, back poker-straight and a glower that he could have only learned from Malcolm. It’s the last thing he’d want to hear and I know there and then I could use it to break him into a thousand little pieces.

“Have a seat, Basil,” I nod to the empty armchair across from me.

“No, thank you.” Impeccable manners, that boy, swearing aside.

“Sit down, boyo,” I don’t force magic into the words, but they come out with enough venom that we both know the next time I have to ask I will. He doesn’t sit in the armchair, he leads the Chosen One by the hand and they sit side-by-side at the dining table across the room. He rests their still-clasped hands on the table between them, deliberately, daring me to say something. I don’t give a fuck if Baz wants to hold hands with some boy, he could throw some boy over the table and ride him like a cowboy ‘til the sun comes up for all I care; the problem is with that particular boy.

“He wants you to come home to Oxford.”

“No, thank you.”

“It’s not a request, Baz. He’s ordered you home. He thinks this rebellious phase of your’s has gone far enough.”

“Which particular ’phase’ has got him especially riled up this time?” He practically spits the question at me, “Being a vampire? Being queer? Not being his murderous puppet?”

“Being an obnoxious little shit.”

“I’ve always been an obnoxious little shit.” He’s got me there. “If he wants me to go to Oxford he can come here and ask me himself, he’s more than capable of it, he doesn’t need to send some lackey.”

“I’m not some fuckin’ lackey Baz, I have been covering for you for months. I haven’t told him you moved out, I haven’t told him jack-shit. I’m running out of excuses for you.”

Liar.

He cocks an eyebrow, silently calling me on that last lie. (Did he get that from me or you, Tasha?) He knows. He knows I’ll take his side, he knows that if he’s gonna fight for the Chosen One then I’ll have his back. (Of course I’ll have his back, someone has to lest he gets kidnapped by fucking numpties again.) He knows that he doesn’t even have to ask; he’s Tyrannus Basilton Pitch, he just gets.

How can one cocked eyebrow say so much?

They’re doing that thing where they speak to each other without using words. Baz does it to me all the time: ’Don’t be stupid, Snow’ and ‘Use your words, Snow’; there’re more but I haven’t deciphered what they all mean yet - but I will. He does it with Penny too when he thinks I won’t notice - but I do. I notice everything he does. Like right now, he’s plotting, definitely plotting. I know his I’m-plotting-but-you-don’t-know-it face; I spent seven years pointing out to Penny every single time he used that face and yes, I didn’t get what he was plotting exactly spot on, but I was right about him being a plotting plotter who plots.

And right now, he’s plotting. Definitely plotting. Defiantly plotting.

His expression changes ever so slightly, his arched eyebrow getting even higher, the faintest smirk at the corners of his mouth. “Fuck, Baz,” Fiona stands up, defeated, “you really need to grow a pair,” she says tapping another cigarette out from her packet.

He saunters across the room and plucks the unlit cigarette from her fingers. He conjures a small ball of fire which he uses to light the cigarette and lets the flames dance across his knuckles and wrap around his fingers while he inhales deeply. He knows that terrifies me; he’s flammable.

He stubs out the cigarette after just one draw and extinguishes the flames a moment later. He nods to the cigarette packet on the table, “Thanks,” but the stare between them is saying something I don’t catch.

“Fuck you, Baz,” she says, not unkindly.

“Oh, he will,” he turns to flash me a salacious grin and I can feel my entire body turn embarrassingly pink.

Fiona reaches up with both hands and pulls Baz’s head down to place a quick peck on his forehead, “You owe me, big time.” She grabs her cigarettes and heads to the door.

“Anything for you, dear Aunt.”

“A wedding and babies,” she says, “better make that lots of babies, that way there’s a chance at least one of them won’t take after you.”