Chapter Text
Agatha stared incredulously at Penny’s manic expression through the gap in the door. Before she had time to ask what in Crowley’s name was going on, a hand reached forward, grasping her arm and dragging her inside the room.
“You weren’t seen, were you?” Penny asked, her eyes more than a little wild.
“Seen by who?”
Penny’s breath came out in a huff of frustration, and she rolled her eyes before turning back towards the chaos that was strewn across her desk. Already she had snatched up a piece of paper and was mumbling to herself.
“Seen by who, Penny? What are you doing?” Agatha said.
Penny looked up, her eyes narrowed behind the large frames of her glasses.
“By Simon, you numpty,” she said before her attention went back to the page.
Agatha wasn’t sure whether she should be offended or impressed that the normally cheerful Penny had snapped at her. She walked closer, angling her head to try to get a look at whatever it was that had Penny so stirred up.
The page was covered in Penny’s neat writing, quotes and equations blurring together into a jumbled mess. Agatha didn’t doubt there was some order to it--Penny always seemed to have some path that she was following--but from where she stood it was random chaos with only the words Ready Player One decipherable.
“You have ten minutes until I have to go to lacrosse practice; if you want my help, you better start telling me what in Merlin’s name you’re trying to do,” Agatha said.
With more care than the scruffy page deserved, Penny set the sheet of paper down on top of her bedspread--the only spot on her side of the room that wasn’t covered in clutter. She finally turned her attention back to Agatha, one hand rising up to push her glasses up from where they had slid down her nose.
“It’s the May Bank Holiday, of course.”
Agatha wondered what alternate world she had wandered into.
“The May Bank Holiday?” she said carefully, trying to listen to the words as she spoke in case there was some spell she was missing.
Nope, they were as unmagical as you would expect, but Penny kept looking at her like they should mean something.
“Yeah, you know...the holiday in May…” Penny said slowly.
“I know what the day is, I just don’t know why it has you acting like one of those Normal shut-in types. Please tell me this isn’t going to be some absurd theory about Sherlock. I thought you and Simon had moved past that.”
Penny’s glare intensified. “Those theories were not absurd! Ugh, why do we even...I still can’t believe you never finished that season of Lost I lent you!”
“It was boring! All they ever talked about was the hatch.”
“In the first season,” Penny said, her voice threaded through with exasperation. She took a breath, shaking her head as if to pull her thoughts back on track. “The May holiday is when Simon and I have our day.”
“What?”
“You know, our friendship day. He’s always with you at Christmas and at the group home for his birthday, so it’s our chance to do something together.”
Agatha knew it was small and petty of her to feel a surge of jealousy at Penny’s words. She really shouldn’t care--she was pretty sure she didn’t --but there was something about being confronted with the fact that Simon and Penny had a closeness she could never hope to intrude on, no matter how long she dated Simon.
“Okay, so your ridiculous made up holiday. Why did you need me to come over? You said it was urgent,” Agatha said waspishly.
“Well...I just...I’m trying to get his gift ready--”
“You started doing gifts?”
Penny shrugged.
“Sort of. I do small stuff and Simon just promises not to talk about Baz for the whole day.”
“And he agrees to that?” Agatha said, each word dripping with incredulity. The last date she and Simon had--if you could call going out to sit on the school lawn to do homework a date--he had spent the whole time complaining about Baz’s nighttime routine. She’d had to sit through fifteen minutes of Simon explaining exactly how Baz laid out his clothes for the next day.
“Yeah, though he hasn’t been able to go a whole day yet…”
That sounded more about what Agatha would expect.
She lifted up her wrist to glance down at her watch.
“You’ve got five minutes now. What do I have to do with your gift?” Agatha said.
Penny’s eyes lit up and she bounced on the balls of her feet. Agatha half expected to see sparks snapping and popping off her.
“I finally figured out the perfect thing, and I couldn’t wait until the bank holiday to show someone.”
“So I’m just a convenient admirer? Someone to ooh and ah over whatever you’ve devised?”
Penny didn’t even have the good grace to look apologetic, instead just shrugging.
“It’s just really good. I’m thinking of using it as my senior project. I spent two weeks straight going through every book I could think of; I had to get my mum to send me some stuff they didn’t have in the library.” Penny’s excitement only continued to ratchet up with every word.
“You created a spell for him? And all you’re getting out of it is Simon attempting to shut up about Baz?” Agatha said dubiously. She loved Simon--she thought she did at least, most days--but that seemed like way too much effort.
Dashing over to the desk, Penny unearthed a Normal game console from the piles of detritus. Carefully she set it in front of the small TV that she had smuggled into the dorm.
“I thought your gift was a spell…”
Penny nodded, her fingers trailing lovingly over the plastic case.
“Don’t you recognize this? This is that game console Simon was going on about all last year. He loves this thing, and then when he and Baz got into that row during the spring term and he went off...you know how delicate Normal technology can be when it comes to magic--when it comes to Simon’s magic.”
Everything was delicate when it came to Simon and his untamed magic, so far as Agatha was concerned. Nothing fragile lasted long in his care, not that she could ever point that out to Penny.
“Okay, so you have a broken video game thing. Hurry it up, you’ve got three minutes left.”
Penny sighed like Agatha was the most thick person she’d ever encountered, which seemed unreasonable considering this whole conversation was about Simon. Charming, earnest, and fit Simon may be, but top of the class he was not.
“The spell is to fix it! It took me ages, but I think I’ve found a spell that’ll get it working again!” Penny crowed.
Agatha nodded, deciding to humour Penny.
“Alright. Cool. Let’s see it.”
“What? Now?”
“Yeah, let’s give it a go. No time like the present.”
Penny nodded, smoothing her hands along her waist.
“Okay, yeah. We could even try playing one of the games--make sure it works,” she said.
Again Agatha nodded.
“Sure. You get the spell to work and I’ll blow off practice.”
Smiling, Penny knelt in front of the small plastic box and placed one hand on top of it.
“Ready player one,” Penny whispered, the words resonating through the small dorm room. She glanced up to smile at Agatha.
“Shall we?”
It didn’t take long to get the system hooked up to the TV, and soon the two were sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the glowing screen. There was a brief flicker and a burst of static, and then they were staring at an illustrated map of Watford and the word START in an ornate script.
“There’s a Watford game?” Agatha said. Penny had clearly outdone herself with this spell if she’d found a way to create a game as well as fix the system itself.
Slowly Penny shook her head.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t make it. The spell was just supposed to fix the console, but maybe it’s absorbed enough of the magic at Watford to create a Sims type game?”
Agatha turned to look at Penny.
“You know about The Sims?”
Penny just rolled her eyes.
“Should we try it out?”
Instead of answering, Agatha snatched up a controller and hit the start button.
The screen transitioned to what looked like the generic interior of any of the Watford dorm rooms. If you added in stacks of books and flung pixie glitter about, it could have been the room they were sitting in now. A box with a cursor blinking in it stretched across the bottom of the screen, cutting off the bottom of one of the beds.
“I guess we need to create a character?” Penny said.
Agatha hit enter to see if any options or instructions would come up. An alphabet appeared overtop of the graphics. When she hit the up arrow, she saw the A light up. Hitting enter again took her to a list of names all beginning with A.
“You’re on the list!” Penny said, leaning forward to squint at the screen. “All the names are students.”
It was a little unnerving to see her name there in glowing white; Agatha didn’t like the idea that someone could be sitting somewhere with a video game version of her, making the avatar do Merlin knows what. She could only hope that this was the only version of the game in existence. Though, playing as herself...could be sort of exciting, in a way. What kinds of things could her avatar-self get up to?
She scrolled down until her name was highlighted and hit enter.
Almost immediately, a window popped up.
You cannot play as yourself. Please choose another character.
Penny laughed, snatching the controller out of Agatha’s hands and returning to the alphabet display.
“That’s what you get for your narcissism,” Penny said. “Even this game knows you need to think about other people. Now who are we going to pick?”
The two scrolled through the options for a few different letters. It wasn’t until they’d reached the letter T that the two shared a mischievous look.
“We’ve got to play as Baz, right?” Penny said.
Agatha thought back on all of her dates with Simon that Baz had ruined, either by making a mood-killing appearance or being the only topic of conversation that Simon could muster. Only that morning, Agatha had been trying to get Simon to finally commit to a weekend where they could go riding--he'd been putting her off for ages, but when she’d pointed out how he’d begged off the last time so he could go to one of Baz’s football games, he’d started to give in. And then, Baz had sauntered over. With one sneer he’d captured all Simon’s attention, leaving Agatha forgotten. After Simon had stormed off, Baz had just smirked at her, looking weirdly satisfied.
She didn’t care what sort of game this was, she already knew she wanted to see Baz look as ridiculous as possible.
Penny was looking at her oddly--Agatha realized she probably had quite a vicious glint in her eyes. Oh well. “Do it,” she said, unable to keep the glee from her voice.
The name Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch glowed for a moment after Penny had hit enter, and then the text disappeared. The dorm room they were staring at morphed from the generic one, becoming a little larger. Items appeared across the floor and the beds, and Baz was seated at one of the two desks.
“Wow,” Penny said, giving the screen an odd look. “That looks exactly like their room.”
Agatha turned to eye Penny suspiciously.
“How do you know what their room looks like?”
Penny fidgeted with the giant purple ring she always wore, her gaze not quite meeting Agatha’s.
“Oh, I think I saw a blueprint or something in the library one time…”
“Crowley, you’re a bad liar,” Agatha muttered. “Let’s just see what the hell we’re supposed to do in the game.”
Through the TV’s speakers, they heard a knock at the door. Baz glanced up and a small text box appeared at the bottom of the screen.
Someone is at the door. What do you do?
(a) Answer it
(b) Ignore it
(c) Yell for them to piss off
(d) Spell the door locked
“What do we do?” Penny said. “What would Baz do?”
“I think the answer’s obvious--he’s a moody prat; choose (c).”
Penny scrolled down to option (c) and hit enter. As soon as she’d done so, the avatar of Baz looked up from his desk--even here, Agatha could see his trademark frown--and yelled at the visitor.
“Piss off!” Baz shouted.
There was a muffled reply through the door.
The person is not going away. What do you do?
(a) Answer the door
(b) Ignore it
(c) Escape out the window
(d) Set something on fire
Before Agatha had even had time to think about what she was doing, she’d snatched the controller away from Penny and had scrolled down to option (c). Penny’s eyes went wide.
They watched Baz push himself up from the desk and walk over to the window, his hand reaching for the latch. But instead of having the satisfaction of seeing Baz plummet down towards the merwolves, a new box popped up.
You don’t have a death wish, and you’re not wearing a jacket.
Penny snorted. “A jacket? Really?”
Below that was the same list of options, with (c) now greyed out. Agatha dropped down to (d) and hit enter.
There is no fire safety equipment in your room. Do you...
(a) Go find a fire extinguisher
(b) Answer the door
(c) Pout
(d) Spell the door locked
“Well, we know ‘pout’ would be what the actual Baz would do,” Penny muttered.
Agatha agreed with her, but already she was starting to get bored. All of the fun options seemed to be locked out, and she was getting tired of just staring at Baz as he hovered awkwardly near the bedroom window. She wanted to see what else could happen.
She selected option (b).
Baz walked over to the door, flinging it open dramatically. Niall was standing there, his football bag thrown over one shoulder.
“You ready for practice?” Niall said.
It’s time for football practice. Do you…
(a) Follow Niall
(b) Do your homework instead
(c) Slam the door in Niall’s face
(d) Run away
Agatha had sat through far more of Baz Pitch’s football matches than she had ever wanted thanks to Simon’s obsessive need to monitor his whereabouts at all times--there was no way she was going to watch him practice, even if he was fit in his football shorts with his hair pulled back. Instead, she hit (d).
Baz awkwardly shoved Niall out of the way and bolted down the hallway. They could hear Niall’s confused voice calling after Baz, and then the thump of Baz’s shoes as he hit the staircase and started to run down. Within a few minutes he was throwing open the door of Mummers’ House and racing across the lawn. He didn’t stop until he was halfway to the chapel. Agatha cackled as they saw other students turning to look at Baz in confusion.
This is more like it.
In the corner of the screen, two new metres popped up. The red one looked to be close to full but the blue one was only at about a quarter. Beside the metres, a dialogue box popped up.
You are hungry. What do you do?
(a) Go to the dining hall
(b) Yell at the sky
(c) Pout
(d) Set something on fire
Agatha was halfway towards set something on fire before Penny reclaimed the controller.
“Nothing is ever going to happen if you keep choosing the ridiculous options,” Penny said before she selected (a).
Baz set out across the campus towards the dining hall. Occasionally he would wave at a few of the other characters he passed, people Agatha recognized as other students, but he didn’t stop walking until he was inside.
“The graphics in this game are incredible,” Penny muttered as the screen showed them the interior of the dining hall.
It was pretty amazing, Agatha had to admit. The game had the dining room down to the exact placement of the tables, the way the service table was set up for afternoon tea. At one of the tables, with a notebook set out in front of him and a scone halfway towards his mouth, there was even Simon. It was actually a little weird to see Simon sitting on his own; he was one of those people that never seemed to have a problem striking up a conversation at school.
Penny and Agatha had Baz work his way down the table, filling a plate with scones and the small sandwiches that were always on offer. Food ready, he turned to stare at the tables around the room.
You need to sit down. Where do you go?
(a) Go to an empty table
(b) Sit with the first years
(c) Sit with Simon
(d) Eat standing up
Penny’s laugh was loud and surprisingly villainous before she scrolled down to option (c). Agatha wondered if she’d been all wrong about Penny--she never would have thought her capable of doing anything against Simon, even if it was just an extremely realistic avatar of him.
As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, Penny looked over at her, a blush rising up in her cheeks. She was smirking.
“I thought...if Simon wants to talk about Baz all the time, well...let’s give Simon exactly what he wants.”
If Agatha had known about this side of Penny, she might have been more willing to hang out with her without having Simon there as a buffer.
She turned her attention back to the screen. Baz had already taken his plate over to Simon’s table and had dropped it down in the spot opposite Simon. Without saying anything, Baz pulled out the chair and sat down.
Simon glanced up, his face shifting between incredulity, aggravation, and suspicion. There was even a smear of jam near the corner of his lip. The graphics really were amazing.
How do you want to break the ice?
(a) Compliment Simon
(b) Give Simon a scone
(c) Brush jam off of Simon’s face
(d) Set something on fire
What even are these options?” Agatha muttered.
Penny laughed, “Yeah, the choices do seem a little odd. I don’t think the actual Baz is capable of doing anything nice for Simon. I don’t know what to choose.”
“Just choose (c). That jam is really bothering me. Even in the game, Simon is such a disaster.”
Option (c) selected, they watched Baz reach forward, his thumb brushing across Simon’s cheek to remove the jam. She wasn’t sure if it was a glitch, but it seemed as though Baz’s touch lingered a second longer than it needed to. This was seriously weird.
“Food is supposed to go in your mouth, you peasant,” Baz said.
Ok, that was more true to life.
Simon looked thunderstruck for a moment, and then his expression turned dark.
“What are you playing at?”
Simon has asked you a question. How will you respond?
(a) Compliment Simon
(b) Give Simon a scone
(c) Tell Simon to shut up
(d) Set something on fire
Penny selected option (b).
Baz picked up one of the scones, dropping it onto Simon’s plate.
“Here. I know how you like to constantly shove these into your face,” Baz said.
Simon stared down at the scone like it might be cursed.
“What the hell happened to you? Did you wake up on the wrong side of your coffin?” Simon said.
Agatha was almost proud of game-Simon’s attempt at a comeback.
Again, a dialogue box popped up.
Simon has chosen not to eat the scone. How will you respond?
(a) Compliment Simon
(b) Hand feed Simon the scone
(c) Cast Some Like It Hot on the scone
(d) Set something on fire
Penny had to set the controller down as she wiped away tears from her eyes, her shoulders shaking with laughter.
“Could you imagine actual Baz doing any of this?” Penny said. “Setting something on fire seems about right, but everything else...I’m pretty sure he’d be quicker to punch Simon than compliment him.”
Agatha looked down at her watch, nodding vaguely. The game definitely had a certain appeal, but she was starting to get bored, and she had things to do.
“Just choose (d). I want to see if it will actually work this time.”
Nodding, Penny selected the last option.
Unlike the times before, there was no text box that followed the selection. Instead they saw Baz narrowing his gaze until he was glaring at the scone on Simon’s plate. In the bottom right hand corner, a purple meter had appeared, the bar of colour decreasing slightly as Baz muttered something under his breath. There was a soft chime through the speakers and then the scone was engulfed in flames.
Simon jerked away from the flames. “What the fuck, Baz?”
But Baz had already pushed himself back from the table and was starting to walk out of the dining room.
“Well, that was anticlimatic,” Agatha grumbled. “I thought he’d at least set fire to something bigger.”
***
Simon stared at the space across the table that had only just recently been occupied by his roommate. He could still smell charred scone, and there were scorch marks across his plate.
What just happened?
Was it possible for mages to randomly go crazy? Or maybe this was a vampire thing.
All Simon knew was that in the space of three minutes, Baz had joined him in the dining hall, touched his face, insulted him--twice--given him a scone, and then set the scone on fire.
It had to be a plot...right?
Simon looked around the hall for Penny and Agatha, wondering what was keeping them from afternoon tea. They weren’t going to believe him when he told them what had happened.