wiped out! - snowbaz

6 - simon

simon's back in his room, sat at his laptop. and it strikes him as strange that baz hasn't been on whatsapp for over three hours- baz is always on his phone, and he promised simon that he'd call him as soon as he go home, but he hasn't done that. whatever, maybe he just forgot.

for once, simon goes to sleep as soon as his head hits the pillow.

-----

the weekend drags by slowly. baz doesn't text him once, and simon is starting to get worried. so worried, in fact, that he doesn't sleep a wink on sunday night, and gets up on monday morning feeling like someone has tried to superglue his eyelids together.

he pours himself a cup of tea and sits down at the kitchen table, trying to keep his eyes open for longer than three seconds. he's so tired that he doesn't stop to think about baz, or check his phone to see if he's texted him.

but when he gets to the bus stop, baz is all he can think about. because baz isn't there to meet him.

he switches on his phone and immediately a flurry of text messages arrive on the screen, all from penny.

'simon, have u heard from baz?'

'simon'

'SIMON!!'

'SIMON ANSWER YOUR SODDING PHONE'

simon hastily dials baz's number, but it goes straight to voicemail.

"hi, you've reached baz pitch. i'm probably planning my own death right now, so call back later and i might consider answering if you're worth my energy. bye."

he calls penny. she picks up on the third ring.

"simon?"

"penny, what's going on?"

"oh god, simon, i don't know what to do. he normally texts me, to send me a meme or a link to something or whatever. but he hasn't for three days and i'm worried and he's not picking up his phone. is he with you?"

"no, he's not here. go to tutor, look for him."

"be quick, simon. i think he might be missing."

simon really hopes that for once, penelope is wrong.

-----

baz isn't at school. kind of typical, really, that he doesn't turn up right when simon needs him to be there. simon can see him in his head, can see himself walking into their tutor base, and baz sitting at their table with a sheepish look on his face and an explanation that his phone is lost or broken. the image is so real to him that his heart plummets to his toes when baz isn't there. but let's be honest- his heart would've done that whether he imagined baz to be there or not. bottom line is, baz isn't where he should be.

and simon is terrified.

it gets progressively worse when he is pulled out of lessons by a teacher he doesn't recognise. she takes him to a little office with cold mint green paint and shelves full of tattered books. he spots a pot of green play-dough on the table next to a box of dolls and grimaces.

a shrink.

simon has only seen a psychiatrist once before, and that was because of steve. after they left his house and moved to lucy's mum's house, he started getting nightmares that wouldn't go away. so he went to see a psychiatrist. her name was katelyn and she wore glasses that were too big for her face. she asked really uncomfortable questions, and if anything, just made his already pretty nasty anxiety issues worse. he only ended up going for three sessions.

he learned to deal with the anxiety himself after that.

penny's sat on one of the uncomfortable-looking bottle green sofas, her hands twisted in her lap. her purple hair looks flat and rumpled, like she's been running her hand through it.

"hey, simon."

she's been biting her lip, too, and simon can see a dribble of red blood staining her front teeth red. she licks her lips and the blood is gone, but he can still see it when he closes his eyes. his brain starts to conjure up the smell of gore in his nostrils.

the shrink sits down and puts on a pair of ugly yellow glasses.

"so, simon, penelope. i'll get straight to it. do you have any information about the location of tyrannus pitch?

"um- tyrannus?"

"yes, tyrannus- or basilton. whatever you know him as. do you know where he is?"

"no- we've been trying to call him all morning and we don't know where he is and i-"

"calm down, please, miss bunce. he'll turn up. we just need to figure out when- and where he could be."

"have you tried calling his house?"

"well, we have, but he told the office his house telephone number had changed, and that would appear to be a lie."

where the hell is baz?