Chapter Text
BAZ
“Will you stay with me? The whole week, I mean.”
Simon Snow has just asked me to stay here with him in his flat, just the two of us, while Bunce visits with her boyfriend in America.
“It's okay if you don't want to,” he says. “It's just, you're always around anyway and, well. I thought it'd be nice, the two of us. You know. It's fine if you-,”
“Simon,” I say. “Slow down, would you? You're going to hurt yourself. Of course I'll stay with you.” I'm going to stay here, in Simon Snow's flat, alone with him, for an entire week.
It's not like I've never slept over. I do that quite frequently, actually, but Bunce is almost always around. (She only has two and a half friends, and Simon and I are most of them. I'm still not sure whether it's me or Wellbelove who's half the friend.)
Simon doesn't like being left alone, especially after the fiasco with the Mage and the Humdrum and his goatherd friend. I won't leave him here alone, not when there's a clear solution. That week'll be the last before uni starts. It’ll be nice to spend time with him without the stress of my coursework in the back of my mind.
He’s smiling at me, this goofy little love-drunk grin that’s become something of a mainstay recently. (Perhaps that’s just wishful thinking on my part.) It manages to be simultaneously moronic and endearing, and it’s like an electric shock to my cold, dead heart.
“It’ll be fun!” he says. “It’ll be like Watford again, like we’re roommates, you know, except without all the contempt and trying to kill each other.”
I realize I’ve been staring at his mouth this whole time. “Yes, well, without the Anathema there’ll be nothing to keep my hands off you.” Did...did I just say that?
“Oh,” he says, mouth hanging open a bit (mouth breather). He closes it, pulls his bottom lip between his teeth. “Good, then.”
What?!
Snow - Simon - and I haven't talked much about this, the eventual inevitability (I hope) that is the sexual part of our relationship.
The first time it happened (or rather, the first time I noticed ), it was late and we’d been kissing in his bed for a while. We were lying on our sides when he rolled on top of me (the wings tend to get in his way; he sleeps on his stomach for the most part, these days).
And there it was, a tell-tale hardness against my thigh.
I do believe I was rendered stupid. Speechless, too, if my mouth hadn’t been occupied, because Crowley, that was Simon Snow’s cock against my leg. Simon Snow was hard for me.
I tried not to acknowledge it but my own gasp betrayed me.
He flushed a brilliant shade of scarlet and said, “Baz...you should know. I’ve not. I mean. I don’t. Um. I’m not... experienced.”
I knew things were a bit sticky with Wellbelove at the end, but to think that she and Simon had never …
“You mean you and Wellbelove never-,”
“No ! No, we didn’t. I mean, maybe I thought about it once or twice, but after that it sort of just went on the list of things I didn’t think about. It wasn’t a priority, you know.”
I remember thinking, Are you attracted to women at all, Snow ? But then I reasoned that it was probably some stupid chivalry thing. Maybe he didn’t want to have sex with her until he knew for sure that I’d lost, that he wouldn’t be dying any time soon.
Before we got together we spent years antagonizing each other, and although I do think all that frustration has an exciting potential for our sex life, we seem to have silently agreed that taking things slowly is probably a good idea.
There's also the fact that Simon didn't even realize he's attracted to men till he kissed me. That was a miniature sexual awakening in itself. I suppose I wanted to leave the decision of when to progress to the actual sex bit up to him, because if I'm being honest I've been ready to give everything to Simon for literal years.
“Good, then?” I repeat, and I think I’m hoping that he’ll elaborate but that proves to be wishful thinking.
He shrugs instead.
“Simon—” I’m not sure what I’m going to say but I figure I’ll think of something. That’s when he says it.
“Baz, I love you.”
Simon has a knack for rendering me stupid and speechless, it seems. “Pardon?” is all I manage to get out as my brain is too focused on replaying what he’s just said over and over and over again.
“I mean, you said so a few months back. You said I fell in love. You were right, as per usual.”
Is he talking about that day I helped him and Bunce move into this place? That was a slip of the tongue, a quip. Wishful thinking. He hadn’t said anything at the time. Obviously he’s attracted to me - he does keep snogging me - but I didn’t think he was actually in love with me.
I wonder, not for the first time, if this is actually my life or if I’ve borrowed time from someone else’s.
Say something, I think. Tell him you love him. Say something.
“What?” I say.
Simon’s face is on fire. “Um. Well, anyway. It took me a while to figure it out, you know? There was so much going on with the Humdrum and the Mage and being Normal and not knowing if I’m gay and, well. I’ve been working through a lot, you know?” He’s rubbing at the back of his neck rather aggressively so I grab his hand and hold it. It’s the least I can do while I don’t have words. “There’s still a lot I don’t know. I don’t know how gay I am, but my therapist says it’s a spectrum so I guess the only thing that’s important is what I do know. And I know I love you, Baz.”
I don’t think my heart’s ever beat so fast.
“I, um. Penny told me about that spell you cast. Back at Christmas.” The hand I’m holding squeezes mine. “Well, she didn’t tell me till I told her I thought I was in love with you, so don’t be cross with her.”
I’m still just staring.
“On love’s light wings,” he says, softly, and of course there’s no actual magic in his words, but at the same time I don’t think I’ve ever felt something so magical as this moment.
I realize I’m turning into an absolute cliché and I’m not even mad about it.
“And, well, a lot’s changed since then. But you said you choose me anyway. And I believe you, so.” He breathes in, deep.
My faculties switch back on, it seems, because I say, “I do choose you.” And I step closer to him, grab his other hand so I’m holding them both in mine. “I’ll always choose you.” Our foreheads touch. I have to bend a bit to manage it, but I do. “I love you, too,” I say, and the words are stronger than any spell.