Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch considered himself adjacent to a hero - not one himself. It wasn’t that he had lingering self-esteem issues - at least, not about that - so much as when he compared his motivations for doing heroic things, they were abysmally lacking in comparison to the bright-eyed, devil-tailed, might-be-actually-on-fire companion currently fighting next to him: say what you would about Simon Snow, he looked good in motion.
The corrupted vultures? Baz couldn’t say the same. They were loathsome, smelly things, some breed of mutant blood mage who had aspirations of being roadkill or some such thing judging by the aura of rotten feathers. He was mostly just grumpy that he couldn’t drink from them; the deepstalkers the previous week had been a perfectly fine meal, but these abominations? His standards weren’t that low.
He and Simon had been out walking home past dinner. Simon had insisted on doing the thing where he asked if Baz was thirsty, eyebrow waggle included, and rather than fight him, Baz had agreed to go with him into the forest just for a quick jaunt. The jaunt had turned out to be disgusting corrupted vulture heaven, for they’d been attacked as soon as they’d left the relative safety of town.
“We behead them, right?” Baz asked, his voice a growl as he narrowly avoided tripping; his corrupted vulture was doing something strange with the ground.
"I can't exactly get that close to them to behead them," Simon snapped back. The one being a twat with the ground was diverting his attention, but instincts told him to watch the one to his right.
When Simon had suggested they get a drink in the forest—because Simon was respectful of his boyfriend's needs, even if said boyfriend had googled how to tell people he was a horrible vampire, which, Simon supremely disagreed—this was not it. In fact, it quite ruined the mood he was going for. Nowhere was safe, and all Simon wanted to do was keep Baz safe. Stupid really, Simon wasn't allowed to want things without it going horrifically wrong.
The sword he had on him, the practice one he currently never took off unless absolutely necessary, was gripped tightly in his hand. Thinking about being effortlessly cool in the face of danger was actually the last thing on his mind. His wings flared wide, in a protective gesture. Baz had magic, Baz could take care of himself, but Simon's gut instinct was to throw himself foolhardy into battle.
Magic or no magic, his body moved faster than his mind.
Simon swung at one, but the corrupted Vulture seemed unimpressed and caught the blade between his taloned hand. This was problematic. "Baz—" Simon started to say but was cut off with an ear-piercing screech.
“Oh, for Morgana’s sakes-- drop it like it’s hot,” Baz roared at the winged abomination, pointing his wand efficiently. It let go of Simon’s blade with a furious cry, unused to such magic, but the interruption bought them only a second of relief as one of the other corrupted vultures (the very one on the right that Simon had marked earlier) used the opportunity to leap upon Baz when his attention was elsewhere.
Baz, being Simon Snow’s roommate, was at least well-versed in what to do when jumped by unpleasant creatures: he dropped to the ground instantly, missing a talon to his throat by a few inches. Instead, it scraped up his forehead and scalp, a bright bloom of pain but it was shallow, at least. He cast a hasty guts for garters but it went wide, hitting another vulture who shrieked (he hoped it was another vulture and not Simon).
He brought his knee up hard and high and all but tore the vulture off of him, spitting feathers as he struggled (thank Crowley for vampire strength). “How many are left? Snow!”
Distracted, don't get distracted. But Baz going all sexy-feral-vampire on their attacker was just brilliant. He stumbled back from the Vulture letting go, but then recovered fast, faster than the eldritch bird horror in front of him did, and took the opportunity to, well, behead the thing in a flash of blinding metal and strength. He hoped Baz saw that.
Simon spun around, beaming, sword dripping with black sludge that—yes, that was their blood—that he flicked off, and his face nearly crumpled at the sight of the gash on Baz's forehead and spitting feathers. Simon went from zero to one-hundred, all fierce and fiery anger. He was going to rip the head off the other Vulture. With his bare hands.
"One," Simon said, voice dropping dangerously low as he slingshotted himself across the small space to the one behind Baz, tackling it to the ground. No finesse, no strategy, simply going for the jugular because how dare.
There was another loud noise, several of them actually, a cacophony of guttural sounds above them. One vulture turned into two, into three. Didn't someone mention their senses carrying them toward sources of magical power? Oh, no.
Simon was predictably distracted from his throttling, and the Vulture underneath him blasted him with a maelstrom spell. Simon went crashing into the underbrush of the forest, losing his sword in the process.
It would have been, Baz would later reflect, an awfully sexy move had it not concluded with Simon’s ass poking out of a bush. He hoped for his boyfriend’s sake that it wasn’t anything like poison ivy. But no, Simon’s fierceness, his immediate rage, that blistering competency that was so rarely on display and yet the personal bug zapper to his moth… it all added up to a brazen spirit that had captured the vampire back when he’d hated the bastard.
He didn’t even really mind that Simon had just gotten his ass gently kicked. That was a lot of unexpected corrupted vultures for one person to take on at once.
Sitting up quickly, Baz rubbed at his cut with the back of his arm, not wanting blood to drip into his eyes as he snarled a quick “Off with his head,” at the corrupted vulture currently lunging for Simon.
Of course it didn’t work. Nothing could be that easy, could it? So Baz added a “float like a butterfly”, pointed at Simon, figuring if he couldn’t stop the vulture from charging, he could at least get his boyfriend back into the air. He wasn’t able to gauge the success of his spell when another corrupted vulture leapt at him, and he was fully occupied in fighting.
Fighting in the forest was the absolute worst. Simon did not like being flung into the brushes, and he did not like his rage at a monster being cut short. He needed to experience it, in all its mishandled glory. He needed to get back to Baz. Simon reached for the sword, the one that was not there because it had left his grip the moment he went involuntarily flying. Bloody hell.
He scrambled for something in leaves, a twig, a rattlesnake, literally anything, until his hand closed around a familiar hilt. The surprise of it shocked him and he let it go—that was the moment he started to float like a butterfly, thanks to Baz's spell. But it didn't last long, which meant Baz was distracted, hurt, and all that boiling rage was back inside of him, spilling over. He grabbed for the hilt again.
The Sword of Mages was in his hand. It had appeared in his time of need, because the sword, autonomous in its magicalness, chose this moment to trust him. No time to overthink it, he could do that later.
Simon was shooting off into the sky and landing back in the middle of the battle, surrounded by more Vultures. "Stop using—" Simon grabbed a hold of the Vulture on Baz, whipping it away. "Your magic!" He swung at the next one, catching a hand in the process and lobbing it off. "You perfect twat!"
Okay, not the best way to say they are drawn to magic, you're making it more dangerous, but Simon had an excuse.
Baz, who had a tendency to do the opposite of whatever Simon suggested on a good day, hesitated for a half-second, baring his teeth (that were fangs at this point; he was well and truly pissed at these awful things). Whatever retort he had been about to holler at the other man died on his lips when he saw Simon hovering above the fray with what was clearly the Sword of Mages clutched in his hands.
How… he wanted to ask, but didn’t, his face folding in something like a grin over his teeth, and with a whoop he punched a corrupted vulture in its stupid face, grabbed it by its hair, and gave its head a sharp and wretched yank. He didn’t like fighting this bestial way; didn’t like tossing his magical education aside as if it was meant for another Baz, but Simon had a point about every spell he was tossing attracting another one of them. Sort of. Maybe. A slight point.
And Simon was causing his own dripping chaos, and for a moment watching him move with that sword felt almost like opening a door to home. Simon was vicious, he was competent, he was alight in sweat and movement and moonlight filtering through tree branches, he was unstoppable, he was also covered in gore but so was Baz at this point (of fucking course it was one of his nice new shirts). And so Baz just took a moment - just a half-second, really - to appreciate it…
...before he slinked behind Simon, back to back, and hissed: “there’s at least another four more waiting in the trees. I hope you’re ready to be an absolute problem?”
Simon felt like a different person. No, not different, just more himself. The sword, a confidence-boosting weight in his grip. And Baz was—he was so in love with him like this, it was stupid. The grin Simon flashed him, his tongue darting out to run over his own canine as a tease to Baz's vampiric one, was disgustingly smitten. Simon liked when Baz was his overwrought self, which made when he let loose even more exciting to see.
"I'm always an absolute problem," Simon said, brandishing the sword with a familiar twirl. He liked being aware of Baz, knowing that he still had his back. Not that he doubted, not that Simon expected him to leave, but there was surety in fighting with one another. Some kind of strange, unwoven thread between them was starting to knit back together.
He eyed the trees, their surroundings, counting the four. He grabbed Baz's wrist, bringing his hand to his lips, kissing his bloodied knuckles in a dismissively casual gesture. "Stay behind me," Simon said, before yelling into the trees, "Which one of you tossers wants to be next!"
And then something akin to green lightning danced across the sky, narrowly missing both of them, as two of the monsters launched from the canopy. Alright, then.
Sometime between the brush of Simon’s lips across his disgusting knuckles and nearly getting fried by green lightning, Baz had melted. It was an unlikely reaction, especially for someone of his nature - he spent most of his time feeling cold. Lacking. But he associated nearly everything of Simon’s with warmth - from the heat of the rage that he’d felt hating his guts during school to the spike of lust he’d felt watching him fight. But this was different: it was laying in the back of a car listening to the roll of the ocean, shoulder to shoulder, it was coming home late from uni and seeing a light still burning. It was the reason he’d stuck around even when he and Simon had fought, and worse, not-fought with one another. It was the opposite of the apathetic grey Baz had warred with the year after the Mage had died and the Insidious Humdrum was defeated.
It was-- Simon Snow.
“Gross,” Baz observed, because how could he not, his hand had been covered in -- viscera -- but nothing in his eye or smirk that had lit up his face indicated that he was, in fact, grossed out. Maybe later he’d work up some proper grousing, but now--
Now, he just tried to stay alive (in a manner of speaking). The Corrupted Vultures didn’t go down easily. It was hell, actually, not using magic; it was second nature by now and later it would drive him a greater appreciation for what Simon had lost. But now, he dodged, he tore, he leaped, he slashed, and most importantly, he stayed out of Simon’s way, and goddamn if there weren’t a satisfying amount of heads on the ground by the end of it.
Simon was a flurry of showmanship and skill. He channeled all that single-minded ferocity into something wildly competent. Save Baz, keep Baz safe, kick so much arse. It was a good mantra as he incorporated his fighting prowess against the Vultures. They may have had magic, and Simon's instinct might have been to reach for it to fight back, but he had somehow grown out of the habit after a year of being without.
The rest of his instincts were intact, though. And by the time he landed back in the middle of the clearing, covered in—Crowley, he didn't want to know—of the monstrosities, Simon was so keyed up he could have fought another hundred. He was breathing heavily, staring Baz down who looked equally doused in the blood of their enemies.
He crossed what little space was left between them, Sword of Mages still in his grip, and used his other hand to pull Baz into him for an urgent kiss, ignoring the gore and the fangs and literally everything else around them. This seemed a better way to use up his sizzling energy.
When he pulled away to wipe away blood from Baz's cheek with his thumb, and honestly just smearing it, Simon looked concerned. "You alright?"
Baz had barely lowered his hands from their defensive stance when Simon had grabbed him and kissed him. It was surprising - Baz was frankly shocked, it had been --- a while - but it didn’t stop him from leaning into Simon and the kiss with the same ferocity he’d shown in battle only moments before, eyes slamming shut as he just took… a moment. He just wanted a moment.
Simon with a purpose was one of Baz’s favorite Simons out of many, and one he hadn’t seen much of in recent months after Simon had lost his magic. For a while there, he hadn’t been sure he’d see this Simon again, and it felt a little - Baz was embarrassed to admit - like reuniting with someone from years ago.
After a few moments, he pulled back only slightly, his face very--- soft. He tried to form some sort of disapproving expression, like a sneer or something, but Baz wasn’t successful. Instead, he just looked tentative, overwhelmed. His tongue snaked out and with a deliberate bit of concentration he withdrew his fangs, wanted to chide Simon for taking the risk, couldn’t.
“Not bad, Simon,” he said, forgetting to say “Snow”. That was probably another tell. Baz huffed lightly, under his breath, one of his hands snaking up the side of Simon’s face and gripping his bronze curls, giving them a light tug. “Crowley. You’re a complete mess.”
Simon was waiting for it, expecting a scolding remark from Baz. When it didn't come, when Baz's face remained that kind, slightly ruffled look, Simon simply smiled more, cheeky and inordinately pleased. He should have been kissing him more often. Why wasn't he kissing him more often? Simon was just about to lean in and do it again—fangs or no fangs, blood or not blood, Simon quite frankly didn't give a shit—but then Baz was saying his name, and it stopped him short.
"I'm a mess? Me? I'm good, just a bit of monster guts. Look at you! I was just doing my—" Job wasn't the right word, so he chose not to say anything at all. He touched his hand the gash on Baz's forehead with a frown and went to use his other hand to do another inspection when he realized it wasn't exactly empty.
Blimey, the sword!
Simon lifted it between them. "Look what I found in the woods," Simon said, trying to sound nonchalant, though the Sword of Mages appearing was anything but. "Not sure what to do with it. If it disappears, I won't be able to... " Simon made a noise as if letting Baz fill in the blanks.
Baz started to reach for it but his fingers fell short; it belonged to Simon, after all, and it looked as if it had been forged to be wielded by him. “It came when you called for it once,” he said slowly, eyes flicking back up to Simon’s bright blue pair. “There’s no reason to think that it would have come all this way - made it through Vallo’s--- wards, or whatever they are - if it was only going to disappear again.”
Which was his careful, loving way of saying: “It found you again. I doubt it’ll be gone for good now.”
With a despairing noise that was somewhat put on, Baz gave his sticky clothes a shake and nudged one of the dead corrupted vultures with his foot. Their blood did not smell alluring. “Let’s head back,” he suggested, his nose wrinkling. “I don’t want another round of these to show up, and I’ll be fine without drinking anything for a while,” he added in a firmer tone, not wanting Simon to protest. He did, however, slide his (somewhat slippery) fingers into Simon’s hand, giving him a tug.
Simon absolutely wanted to protest and he made a loud huff to show his displeasure of Baz putting off drinking. But Simon also didn't want to be caught fighting any more of these magic-wielding, disgusting humanoid feather beasts. Quite frankly, he wanted out of this forest as quick as possible.
And Baz's hand in his was a nice distraction. They could pull apart the sudden appearance of the Sword of Mages later when they were safely tucked inside Morningside. And Baz could order food—was their vampire blood delivery? Why had he never thought this through before? Determination flooded him, in a different sense than fighting did, and he sheathed the sword where the other used to go.
"Then you won't mind if I do this," Simon said, tugging Baz back to him and scooping him up—yes, like a bride—because it was both practical (so Baz didn't waste any more energy) and romantic (because Simon was really feeling it.) And maybe, just maybe, a little bit to be annoying.
"I'll stay low, for stealth," Simon said, which meant he wasn't taking off to the sky, and started their trek out of the woods and toward their flat.
“What the-- Crowley, Snow, absolutely no-” But Baz had already been handled, which was so annoying on multiple levels because he was taller and this was undignified and he kind of liked it, but once they were well above the tree line he stopped squirming in protest, not wanting to be dropped.
Not that he thought Snow was going to drop him. No, for the first time in a long while, Baz felt on stable ground with the other man… even if they were flying like birds against the polished coin of the moon.