Chapter Text
BAZ
“Did you see the second page?”
Simon looks up when I approach, pulling his gaze from the first signs of approaching summer out the library window to look at me. It still stops my heart in my chest, the way he looks at me—his mouth twitches into a pleased smile of its own accord, his blue eyes light up, as if I am, myself, the coming of summer. Simon likes summer, even though he sometimes complains the weather is getting too hot for comfort. I think summer feels lazy and slow, but if I'm spending it with Simon, I don't think I'll mind it so much. It's nearly been a month since he decided to stay, and he hasn't changed his mind about staying, so I do truly believe I will be spending summer with Simon.
And as this. As we are.
As lovers.
“What is it?” Simon peers over at the newspaper clutched in my hands.
It's the newspaper that Shepard has revived and now has farther reach than ever. Not only does Shepard gather essays and submissions from many sources (though not David Salisbury's anymore), but he's somehow managed to rope all of us into it, and it's begun to feel a bit like it belongs to all of us. Penny has opinion pieces she writes that Shepard always jumps to publish, and no one can blame him. They're brilliant. Shepard's own little pieces are always about experience: his experience as a networker, his experience as a soldier, his experience in jail, his experience getting broken out, and they provide a flash of indulgent storytelling amid essay-filled pages. I still don't know how Shepard got me to add a word of my own, but there's no denying this week's issue has my name on it—Baz, to preserve anonymity. Economics, mostly. How to strategically become economically independent, how to hurt the British economy, the basics.
Simon points to it. “It's you!” He's grinning ear to ear. He looks like a fool. “Baz! That's yours!”
“I know.” I give him a flat look, but I can tell he isn't fooled because he turns his face to mine and presses a kiss to my cheek. “You printed about a thousand of these.”
He shrugs. He shrugs so much, and I shouldn’t find it so endearing. “It’s different seeing it after distribution.” His eyes dart back and forth across the lines of my essay, even though he must've read it plenty of times while he printed them. He's gotten faster at learning, and the way he mouths some of the more complicated sentences out silently, pausing thoughtfully at the commas, makes my heart swell in my chest. “It's good enough that you have to read more than once to really get it.”
“That's not what I was looking at, anyway,” I mumble, flushing. I let the top half of the page, where my essay is printed, fall back, holding up the bottom. “Look at you.”
Simon's bit is straight to the point and short, no fancy words, with a few drawings beside it—a whole bunch of weaponry technicalities I don't understand for the life of me, reasons why the Patriots are doing well, and reasons why they really have a chance. Something to do with the guns they use, the careful way they make the most of what they have. The way they fight, doing away with the stupid lines of soldiers standing shoulder-to-shoulder and just killing each other like barbarians. We agree on that much at least: the traditional way of fighting a war is the most idiotic thing you can do. At least be strategic about it or something. I approve of the hiding behind trees and shooting with cover.
Simon bites his lip, his eyes narrowing. His arm slips around my waist and draws me close, close enough that I can smell the sun and grass on his skin, the faint scent of his sweat. He's still picking around for mistakes.
“It's clean,” I tell him, offering him the paper. “Read it over for you, didn't I?”
His focus shifts from the thick print letters to me. So blue. “Did you even look at the first page?”
“Yours isn't on the first page.” I love to make a game of making him smile. It's so much more fun than the game of poking him.
“No, but—” Simon pulls away from me and looks about, probably searching for the first page. “—the headline…”
“What?”
He spots it where I left it on the desk, now strewn with haphazard notes that Shepard has jotted down, planning out the next paper. Snatching it up, he passes it over to me. I probably should’ve read the headline, but I wanted to find Simon’s bit—it is something else to see it after distribution.
I read it now: “Congress introduces the motion to declare independence—”
A jolt passes through me.
I look at Simon. “Declare independence?”
He nods wordlessly, waving me on. “Read it to me, read it to me. There are excerpts of it on the back pages, let me find them.” Simon flips through the rest of the newspaper hurriedly.
“What?” I’m having a hard time catching up. “From Britain?”
“Like you haven’t heard me mention it—”
“That was you, you optimistic fool, I didn’t think Congress—when did this happen?”
Simon pushes the newspaper back into my hands, turned to a new page, laughing openly at my stunned expression. The colonies free of British rule—not just their law or their interference, but their rule. My heart skips in my chest. Now that sounds like a future. And a mess. But if there’s anything I’ve learned with Simon, it’s that just because the future is messy and confusing and uncertain doesn’t mean it can’t be good at the same time.
“Happened yesterday. June seventh.” Simon’s dragging me over to the couches by the bookshelf, his hand warm in mine. “Will you read it to me?”
I do.
“Independence,” Simon murmurs when I finish, his eyes following the headline as I re-fold the newspaper along its creases, the faint gray of ink on my hands. “Britain isn’t going to like that.”
I laugh quietly, and I can feel the vibration of him laughing along with me where his body presses against mine, squeezed close so we could both see the paper. “No kidding.”
“It isn’t going to be clean, if it even works. If we can even win.”
“If it even passes Congress, first of all,” I hurry to point out, but I think they will. I think that if Congress dared introduce the notion of independence on a formal declaration, rather than leaving it to the revolutionary rabble to bounce about from mouth to mouth, they wouldn’t dare take it back. They’d lose political respect, power, regard—there’s nothing more cowardly and pointless than thinking about taking a step for forever and ever and ever, and then finally taking that step, and then walking right back to where you were.
I would know.
But I’ve tried not to focus on the ever-growing possibility of the notion of independence being taken more seriously than it was before, moving from the voices of the radicals to the voices of the common people…by which I mean I have not stopped thinking about it for weeks.
What it means for the colonies.
What it means for Simon.
“If it passes Congress…” I begin hesitantly. I know what Simon will choose, but I need to hear it out loud. I need my mind to accept it, or the future will tumble around in my mind over and over, my thoughts searching and searching for a spot in its impermeable shield to tear it apart. But there isn’t a spot like that. “If it passes Congress, there is no way it will not be a full war. Pulling out all the stops.”
And if there is a full, complete war, Simon will pull out all the stops, too. He’ll go to fight. It is as certain as the sun rises in the sky every morning. No matter how many times I project what I know, what I predict, what could happen into the future, again and again, searching for a maybe, I know that I won’t find one.
And I’m not sure I want to.
If Simon gets injured. If Simon gets sick. If all of Simon’s shoes suddenly go missing. For whatever reason, if Simon can’t fight—I know that he will be miserable. If Simon can’t fight, I know that I will be miserable, because he will wish he was there and I will wish he could be happy.
Simon isn’t saying anything. He doesn’t like talking about the future much farther than two weeks, and the only reason he ever tries to is that he knows uncertainty puts me on edge. It warms my heart that he tries, even if he is always frustratingly vague.
“If there’s a war…,” I push on.
“If there’s a bigger war than the one we have now, then there’s a bigger war,” Simon cuts in abruptly. “And we’ll do whatever seems best.”
“Snow.” It comes out harsher than I mean it to, and Simon’s eyes jerk to mine. I try to soften my voice. “Snow. We already know what you’re going to do, I just. I need you to say it. To settle it.”
His mouth twists, wry, humorless. I think I’m rubbing off on him. “Closure.”
“Closure.”
Simon’s eyes are fixed intently on my face, his brow wrinkled. He has shifted away from me to face me properly, and my side feels cold where it used to be pressed against him, but I can’t bring myself to mind when he reaches out and takes ahold of my hand. “You think…” His thumb strokes the side of my hand as if the movement helps him think—that makes one of us; the heat of his fingers is utterly distracting. “You think I’m going to fight.”
I blink. “I do.”
Simon breaks eye contact with me, his shoulders hunched. “And leave you here?”
“Simon, the revolution is your life.” It’s funny; I’ve had so many daydreams about him, utterly ridiculous daydreams, where the Patriot army comes straight to our door asking for him and he tells them he’s under orders from his lover to not put himself in any danger, but thanks for the offer. In my daydreams, he comes back and kisses me, and he tells me there’s nothing else that matters more in the world to him than me—how could he possibly leave?
His voice is rough. “You make it sound like you want me to fight.”
And now that we’re here, it’s as if I’m the one convincing him to get out on that field. Now that we’re here, I realize—isn’t that what love is? Not only to value your time with them, or to value them and their company: to value their passions, their purpose, their happiness.
I couldn’t be the one holding him back when we weren’t anything but enemies and all he was doing was firing a couple canons to make some noise, and I certainly can’t hold him back now, not when I love him even more than before, not when this has the potential to become the war Simon always wanted to fight. Real independence.
It’s Simon, through and through.
“I do want you to fight.” I sound sure. I am sure. “You can’t stay here for me. Penny would tell you to go. Shepard’s probably going with you.”
“Ms. Petty would have a few curse words I don’t even know if she heard I was staying for you, I guess.”
I remember Fiona taking off my ear about the hardships and sacrifices of love, how they’re worth every inch. “I’m not sure about that, actually. But I wish you’d stop calling her Ms. Petty, or there’s two Ms. Pettys in the household, and that’s a mess.”
“Miss Ebb,” Simon says contentedly. “Fiona.” His nose wrinkles as if he’s smelled something bad. “She’s too scary for me to call her Fiona out loud.” I’m about to object, but he pushes on: “I thought you’d forbid me to go.”
“I’m not.”
“Why?”
It’s inherently wrong, I want to say. That’s just not the way the world is meant to play out. You belong out there. I say, “Keeping you from the Revolution would be like keeping a violinist from his violin.”
Simon raises his eyebrows, looking nonplussed. “Impossible?”
“Possible, I suppose. Heartless. Cruel. Selfish.”
Simon blinks, his eyebrows drawing together. “You really think it is? To want to keep me from danger?”
“To keep you from something you’ve wanted for so long,” I say. His brow wrinkles further, and I hurry to add, “And anyway, you’re an ace shot. It’ll do that miserable army some good to have someone who can do what you do.”
He doesn’t object. No one who’s ever seen him go at it can say he’s a bad fighter, and those who’ve seen him enough can say there’s a magic to the way he moves, as if he was made for physical action, jumping, ducking, reloading, bracing just right for the kick of the gun. He says, “I’ve wanted you for a long time, too.”
I ignore the burst in my heart, rushing through me. “If you stayed for me, you’d grow to resent me.”
“No.”
“Yes,” I say, because I know I’m right. “You think you won’t, but you will. And I would resent me, too, for keeping you here, when you could be out there.”
Simon’s still staring at me intently, not like he’s trying to puzzle me out, but like he hopes the force of his gaze will just shatter me and inside will be some sort of answer. Like he wants to crack me open like a gem. “And if I don’t want to fight?”
“Oh, please.” I push up from the couch and head for the library door. “Talk to me about this when you have some self-awareness.”
“Baz,” he says. There are footsteps behind me, following me down the hallway towards the staircase that opens to the yard—I need some clean air and space to think. “Baz!”
Simon’s warm hand catches around my wrist, and in the blink of an eye, I’m up against the white-painted walls of the staircase, his hot hands burning brands into my shoulders. “You think it’s an easy decision for me, but it’s not. It’s not.”
“The Revolution—” I begin, and Simon’s eyes flash with frustration, his hands flying up to tug at his hair.
“God,” he says. “God! I love you, don’t you get it? I love you. I can’t just—It’s only been you and me for—I can’t leave, not now. Do you—are you listening?”
I’m gaping at him. I probably look as if someone has taken away every thought in my brain, blank, dumb. It’s how I feel, in any case. “Yes,” I make myself say, an automatic reflex.
Simon shakes his head. His curls tumble. “Yeah, but are you listening?”
“Love me,” I say weakly, like a fool, “You.”
“Yes,” he confirms impatiently, waving me on with his hands, but I can’t get any further than that. I’m stuck there, running over the words. He groans and fills in the rest for me. “And I don’t want to leave you. Do you—yes?”
“Yes,” I agree, not quite sure what I’m agreeing to. Not sure that I care. I love you. I love you, don’t you get it? I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I—
“You understand,” he says, shoulders slumping with relief.
I furrow my brow. I love you. It means that he loves me. It’s very hard to wrap my mind around conceptually, but I understand all the words individually, and I understand what he’s saying, only—only—him? Loving me? It’s so impossible to imagine this canyon, this violent, aching, tenderness in my chest that is hungry for him and only him to somehow be transplanted into his chest, calling for me. It isn’t that I don’t think he can love, or that I don’t think someone could love me, but this feeling, this thing inside me that I know to be love feels so completely, exquisitely unique. I can’t imagine anyone with this force in their chest. Simon? For me?
I imagine him alone in his room, thinking about me. So overcome he has to simply sit still, hands on his knees, staring at the floor, and force himself to embrace the emotion or it will overwhelm him entirely.
No, no. That seems like something no one but I am foolish enough to do.
Simon makes a frustrated sound at my expression. “You’re second to nothing. Maybe the Revolution is tied, I don’t know. But I can’t just—” He gestures helplessly, miming shoving me aside to get somewhere else. “Christ, Baz, it isn’t that complicated.”
“Remember when I stayed in Boston for you instead of going to England?”
“For Shepard.”
“Yes. And for you.”
“Oh.” Simon’s expression shifts into the smallest smile, almost reluctantly. “Yeah.” He looks at me, waiting.
I shrug. “That’s it. I was just thinking about it, is all.”
Simon’s eyebrows jump up. “Alright, maybe we should sleep on this conversation.”
As if on cue, the supper bell rings from downstairs, loud and crisp, followed by the clinking of silverware and plates.
“Why? It makes sense to remember it now—they’re similar—”
Taking a hold of my sleeve, Simon pulls me along, resuming our course down the staircase. “I think you need a minute; we can talk about it tomorrow.”
“Do you remember when I let you go fight for the Revolution instead of trying to stop you?”
Simon slows his pace. “Yeah,” he says, his voice quiet. “Yeah, I do.”
“I loved you then,” I confess. The words are easier on my tongue than I expected. The truth is easier than I expected—it doesn’t kick and scream and claw at my throat; I don’t have to drag it out. It’s there in my mouth already, as if it has been waiting for me. “I didn’t try to stop you because I know that, beyond anything, you’re a revolutionary.”
A long silence. I don’t know why either of us is pretending to go to supper; we’re both dragging our feet, wandering over so slowly that it’s a wonder we don’t come to a full stop right here in the hallway.
“Come with me,” Simon urges abruptly, and it takes me a few seconds to understand what he means. “You can think about it. I won’t go if you don’t.”
“But—” This I do not understand. With him? I picture myself, trussed up in some make-shift uniform, shouldering a gun I don’t even know how to point and following him like a dog after his master. “I don’t know how to fight.”
It’s your world, I want to say instead. It’s not the kind of place I step into.
“Not on the battlefield,” Simon clarifies, in a tone that implies I’m being a little slow. “You know how they fight, you know their strategies and their plans—”
“Some of them.”
“—And you’re brilliant with strategy.”
“They’re not going to listen to me.” British. Spy. And eighteen years old.
Simon just gives me another one of his shrugs. “I’ve never seen anyone weigh the risks and rewards as thoroughly as you; you would be great.” His mouth is turned up; he’s teasing, and I scowl at him. His smile only widens. “Or be a spy. You’ve got the accent and the posh attitude, and you sure know how to steal important information off of someone’s desk when you actually want to.”
"You're assuming I even want to help in the revolution."
Simon only sends me a flat look, stopping walking completely to wait me out.
A smile fights its way onto my mouth, and I roll my eyes at him, stepping into the dining room. "Fine," I throw over my shoulder, "I'll think about it."
Shepard talks about the news all through supper, gesturing enthusiastically as he makes his case for why Congress is most certainly going to accept this proposal.
“It isn’t so easy,” I interject, because someone has to. Simon rolls his eyes beside me, but he does it so fondly I almost don’t kick him under the table. Almost. “This representative government you have here—it’s made to be contrarian. Everyone’s going to argue over every little bit.”
“They’ll revise it until everyone’s happy.”
“There’s no way for everyone to be happy.” I sigh. He’s no better than Simon. “But perhaps they will come to a compromise.”
“Did Baz just have a cheerful thought?” Penny leans forward and passes the plate of gingerbread around.
“The wonders never cease,” Fiona remarks dryly. “Simon must have some good blackmail on him.”
“Leave me alone,” I grumble, “It’s only that if the measure is introduced and they don’t approve it, they must know how depressing of morale that must be to the sentiments of revolution—the steam would go out of the movement completely.”
“Morale is very important,” Penny agrees mock-wisely, and I curse her mentally. “That’s why they say never send a man to war without a kiss from his sweetheart.”
I feel myself flush crimson, unhelped by the look Simon shoots me—unabashed delight.
“Do they really?” Simon’s warm hand finds mine under the table. It’s his left and my right, so I actually can’t eat, but I just hold his hand back, unable to let go of the feel of his calluses against my skin.
“I’m still convinced she made it up.” I look around the table. “Has anyone else heard that said before?”
Shepard says he has, but he’s unreliable because I think he could tell a British soldier to his face that he’s a Loyalist without so much as a falter in his grin. “In a book!”
I nod. “Sure.”
Shepard looks at me, earnest, wide eyes, but I can see the laughter in them too. “I'm not kidding! It's from a book, isn't it, Penny? War for the Lover, I believe. It was one of the first ones we connected over, because we had a copy at the printer where we print the newspapers. And Penny, of course, had read it and had quite a few opinions on it by the time I got through it.”
Simon's looking at them both, a fond look in his eye. “I remember,” he says. “I thought we were just going to step into the tavern for a drink and some information, but we ended up staying there for ages while you two talked and talked and talked…”
“You two should read it.” Penny leans forward, eyes bright the way they always get when literature enters the conversation, “It's another very popular novel, a bit like the one you were reading back at the old place, and there's a copy here at the library.”
“She's already reread it here.” Shepard laughs. “That's how you know it's a good one.”
“It's a different edition!” Penny says defensively. “There's a commentary on the social criticisms in the story at the back from the author herself—I had to reread it to remind myself exactly what was said in Lover so that I could fully appreciate the comments she provides.”
“Of course you did.” Lucy smiles affectionately at Penny. She's been louder, more energetic, in the passing weeks since David's disappearance. I wonder if this is how she used to be, when she was young, before she married David—bold, bright, stubborn. “I can't imagine you could've left it alone.”
“I love the book, anyway.” Penny turns to me and Simon. “I can find it for you tomorrow.”
“Sounds like it's decided for us.” I try not to sound too pleased, but I don't think I'm fooling anyone. Penny's adjusted to Simon and I being together like you wouldn't believe, and even seemed to think it made sense, as if somehow it had provided a puzzle piece she'd been missing.
“I think we'll like it.” Simon nudges my foot under the table. “Just this time, let's try not to take month-long breaks right at the best part of the story.”
“I think we can manage that.”
“If there's an approval from Congress, there will be a more serious war,” Fiona says abruptly, bringing us back to the declaration that has been submitted to Congress without preamble. “Which one of you will take the book then?”
I guess bringing up the things no one wants to talk about runs in the family.
“I don't know,” Simon answers firmly. “I don't think it would be as enjoyable to read it on my own—” He looks to me again. “When you gave me our book when I left for Dorchester, I missed reading with you.”
“I think he's in love with my reading voice,” I tell the table. “That's the real reason he wants to read it.”
“I'm in love with you,” Simon scoffs, but his cheeks are pink, and I think I am not the only one who feels as if their face might burst into flames right here at the table.
“Okay, you two, that's enough,” Fiona grumbles, but she looks pleased. Happy for me.
“I'll read with you,” Shepard offers Simon. “If we go off to war.”
“Or I will,” Penny chimes in, her mouth twisted mischievously. “Even if I don't read as prettily as Basilton does.”
“Stop, all of you,” I mutter. “You don't even know if we're going to have a war for independence on our hands.”
“You're coming?” Simon asks Penny, his blue eyes wide. “If Congress does end up accepting the declaration,” he amends.
“Thank you,” I say.
Penny just smiles and turns the brightly dyed ends of her hair between her fingers. “I'm a decent medic. I have to be, if I'm Simon's friend.”
Simon and Shepard laugh, and Lucy sighs.
“Damn right,” I huff.
“In any case, I've read enough about shooting to try a bit of it myself," Penny continues, eyes still sparkling, “and I've been hiding this hair for years anyway, if they don't have enough sense to take women.”
Ebb sniffles, her smile wobbly. “You're growing up, all of you. Young people get so brave so fast.” Her hands smooth other her napkin, agitated. “You all be careful, if they pass the measure.”
“They will.” Lucy's voice is sure, mildly impatient, as if she's grown tired of us all saying if, if, if. “Baz is right—it would be a huge political blunder to not declare independence now that they've put it on the table.”
“Yes.” Fiona looks to Ebb. “It's finally happening, love.”
“We've waited for this for a long time.” Ebb's eyes water. “You're right. I think it's here.”
“We'll see,” Shepard interjects diplomatically, “But I see what you mean. You should do political opinion pieces, Baz. It'd be a good perspective.”
I suppose it would; my father raised me to assess every event through a political lens, from a battle to a single line in a newspaper, to who is sat next to who when the high families dine. “Penny does those, but I suppose I could always put in a word or two.”
“I'd read them. They'd be better than Davy's,” Lucy says mildly, and Shepard, who's heard of what happened, who landed him in jail, whistles low.
Fiona grins, sharp. “Sure would. That rabble wasn't worth half one of Basilton's sentences.”
Simon laughs, surprised, but thankfully, unhurt. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess you're right. Rabble. There wasn't too much substance there.”
“Not like Lover.”
Shepard shakes his head. “I'm telling you, she loves that book more than she loves any of you.”
Penny pretends to think, and Simon pretends to be put out. “It must say something about how much I love you, then, if I'm letting you have it.”
“We're so thankful,” I deadpan, but I mean it.
It's a thick book, longer than the one we finished a few months ago, and worn, well-loved. When Penny hands it over the next day, she does so with care, and Simon accepts it with equal reverence, turning through the pages absently before she slaps him lightly.
“Don't look ahead!” she scolds him.
Simon closes it. “I already heard you talking about it with Shepard!”
We curl up on the couch together, Simon and I. His skin uncomfortably hot in the blooming summer, like I'm pressed against the sun itself, but I don't pull away.
“So you know a bit about this book, then?” I ask.
His fingers tap the cover. “Bits and pieces.”
“What's it about?”
Simon laughs, a hiccup in his chest that I can feel. “Actually. Well, it's really—It's about—it takes place during a war.”
“War for the Lover, yes I could've guessed.”
“It's a couple of young lovers who go to fight for an army that is... less equipped than their opponent... and one of them is a very good fighter. The other... a very good strategist.”
“Christ,” I mutter.
“Yeah.” Simon's mouth twists wryly.
“I bet they did it on purpose.”
“Shepard and Penny?”
“Yeah. Recommended this one. This one.” I shake my head, too impressed to be annoyed with them. “War for the Lover.”
“Lots about difficulties with supplies, rationing. Starvation. Disease. Prison. Death. Brave, determined soldiers fighting a battle, losing, and in the end, their battle having no impact at all. The strategist trying to balance wanting to protect the soldier and knowing that he's best for the cause if he's put in the front lines.”
I raise my eyebrows. “This one is dark.”
“Penny likes those,” Simon explains, handing me the book, open to the first page. “Tragedies.”
I take the book and look at the dedication page, a passage on this girl's love for her own sweetheart. I open my mouth to start reading, and then I pause. “You read it,” I say. “I'll follow along.”
Simon looks at me. “I…” I know he wants to say he's slower, but we both know that. “You're sure?”
“How am I going to fall in love with your reading voice if you never read to me?” I ask lightly, caught in the blue of his eyes.
He looks at me a moment longer, both our hands on the book. “I'll do it,” he warns.
“So do it.”
Seeming to find whatever he's looking for on my face, he takes the book from me and begins the dedication page. I wonder if anyone else notices the author's choice of wording—she doesn't use pronouns over the entire page.
When he reaches the first page of the story, I stop him for a moment. “You called it a tragedy—is it?”
Simon pauses, his brow wrinkling. “I... I don't know. Penny never said how it ended, I think, but she likes to read tragedies generally.” He shoots me a wry look. “I guess you already think they're doomed.”
I gaze at him—his bright eyes, his stubborn jaw, the way his eyes never hide what he's feeling. A war, an outmatched army, disease and starvation, a soldier made for the front lines, a couple of revolutionaries fighting for a cause. “I think they're going to make it,” I decide.
“They get a happy ending?” Simon's smiling at me, and when I smile back, he leans over and kisses me, gentle and lingering. “Really?”
I lay my head on his shoulder. “Yeah. I've got a feeling.”
Simon draws me closer, an arm around my waist, and takes a breath. “Once upon a time is a phrase you have undoubtedly heard a great many times before, and, if you are lucky, one that you will hear a great many times more…”