Chapter Text
Sunday 24th December
BAZ
It feels like an eternity before I’m able to shut the door to our room behind us. I lean against it and close my eyes, letting out a long breath.
Simon collapses straight onto the bed with a flop, one arm resting above his head as he stares at the ceiling, his wings spread out under him.
“That was weird right?” He asks, once I’ve opened my eyes again. “Like, that wasn’t just me. That was weird?”
I huff another sigh. “Yes, Snow. That was weird.” It was bloody weird.
“That’s my second Christmas Eve meal with your family. Do you think they’re all going to be that weird?”
My heart squeezes at the knowledge of our definite future for indefiniteness. “Probably,” I shrug, because Snow’s a corrupting influence on me. I pull off my tie and throw it onto the dresser, before slumping down next to him on the bed, my hair brushing his. “But then again I never thought we’d get here . So maybe anything’s possible.”
I’m sitting here, in a bedroom in my family’s Oxford hunting lodge, in an extension built just for me. On a double bed that my stepmother picked out, a double bed that I’m sharing with my boyfriend , under the same roof as my parents . (I half-expected to arrive here to two single beds. It still would’ve felt blissfully impossible.)
Simon turns his head to face me. “Your siblings seemed to like me though.”
I snort. “Except Mordelia. But to be fair, she’s going through a phase where she doesn’t like anybody.” The twins are both utterly enamoured by him, though. And Swithin couldn’t stop giggling. (I’m beginning to become concerned that my infatuation for Simon is genetic, and I don’t particularly like those implications.)
He raises an eyebrow at me. Maybe we’re worse influences on each other than I thought. “Did you ever leave that phase, Baz?”
I poke him in the side, and he laughs, a real laugh, and I can’t help but join in. Snow’s always been like the sun, and I his moon. His brightness is contagious.
We sit in a moment of comfortable silence, and Simon’s hand tangles absent-mindedly with my own. “It was a good weird though,” he says, breaking the silence.
I reach with my free hand to push an errant curl from his cheek. “Yes, Snow. It was a good weird.”
“Not like last time.”
I hum. “No. Nothing like last time.” Last time was the epitome of bad weird. Last time was an amalgamation of pent-up frustration and desperate longing glances. Last time was thinking I was at the end of something, something just out of reach that I couldn’t quite see. Last time was reaching blindly for Simon in the dark, my fingertips only managing to brush his shirt.
I’ve only recently managed to get a firmer grip on him.
I’ve one hand secured around his, and a leg twisted in a rope-like tail, and I know neither of us are letting go any time soon.
“Shall I light the fire?” I ask, after a couple of long minutes. Because not only did my parents build an extension, they built one with a bloody fireplace. Once a Grimm, always a Grimm.
Simon shoots me an alarmed look. “Are you actually still a pyro?”
“Pyromaniac. Do you even know what that really means?”
He shrugs. “I know you like setting fire to shit.”
I scoff. “I don’t like setting fire to shit. That was a one-time incident. It’s just a useful tool.” And an atmospheric one at that.
He eyes me warily for a moment, before nodding reluctantly. I hold out my wand in silent question which he nods in response, so I mutter a few words and get the fire going.
We don’t say anything for another moment, but then Snow is pulling on my hand and dragging us both down to the floor in front of the fire. He doesn’t say anything, but I know we’re both thinking of a different Christmas Eve, of different kisses and different firsts, and a different fireplace.
We sit side by side, watching the flames flicker and ebb towards me, as if gravitating towards my magic. I didn’t even mean for them to do that.
“Do you want your present now?” Simon suddenly blurts. I raise an eyebrow at him. “It’s just- I’d rather do it now. If that’s okay with you. It’s less pressure. And no one’s watching.”
I give him a look, trying to act like his words haven’t made me go soft. “What exactly have you bought me that requires no audience, Snow?”
I get a short laugh out of him for that one, and he bats me on the arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Pitch.”
“Who said it was ever there?”
He groans but places a kiss in the crease between my eyebrows, before reaching down with his free hand under the bed, for a small wrapped package.
He drops it unceremoniously onto my lap and just watches me.
The wrapping is horrendous, but at least it’s clear Simon did it- patterned snowflakes with an overload of Sellotape, and battered corners where it’s been jostled in his bag too much.
I slide my finger under the layers of tape and ease back the paper, conscious of Simon’s heart thudding dangerously fast only an inch away from me. I put us both out of our misery and rip the final part open, revealing the hardback book inside.
It’s not like any book I’ve ever seen before. Not one you could ever find on the shelves at Waterstones, mass printed and mass consumed. This book looks well-loved and one of a kind; the distinct lack of barcode on the back is striking.
And it’s written almost entirely in Italian.
I have a disjointed knowledge of Italian, partially from my mother’s brief introduction to my family history, though mostly from the Latin similarities with French, though I know enough to translate the majority of the front cover.
Enough to understand that Simon has gifted me an authentic Italian cookbook.
I must be silent for a beat too long, because Snow starts vomiting stunted words at me. “It’s stupid- I don’t- I never think. You’re only, like, part Italian. You speak- French? Fuck. Fuck, Baz, I’m sorry, I-”
“ Simon. ” He meets my eyes, his own watery and shining with deep-rooted guilt. “ Simon ,” I say again, to drive the point home. “I can’t- I feel like you, I don’t even have the words for how perfect this is. Something we can do together, too. Cook together, learn our favourites. And- well. I’ve been meaning to try and properly learn Italian for a while actually. There’s a course I can pick up at uni. Merlin Simon, where did you even find this?”
His eyes are big behind his lashes. I want to kiss him. I don’t, not yet. (I will, and soon.) “I looked online at a lot of second-hand sellers. But in the end I found this little bookshop while you were in lectures. The owner was actually Italian, and he helped me pick something out that wouldn’t be too complicated. He said there’s some notes in English too, in case the Italian is too hard to decipher.”
“No one’s ever thought of me like this. In a gift. No one’s ever got me something like this.”
“You mean you don’t hate it?”
“Fuck, Simon, how could I hate it? How could I hate the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever given me?” I can’t stop myself now. I pull him in by the back of his neck and into a crushing kiss, arguing my point most effectively. He responds with immediate fervour, and I feel his posture relaxing against me as we move as one.
Before we can get too far though, I pull away, keeping my hand on his neck as I declare, “My turn.”
He starts to stiffen again, and I shake him loose. “ Simon .”
“Baz,” he whispers.
“It’s okay .”
“You don’t have to do this now if you don’t want to.”
“I know.”
“Just because I did it. You don’t have to.”
“I’m aware.”
He lets out a long breath. “Okay.”
I reach over for one of my suitcases, pulling the small package out from where it was hidden at the bottom and bundled in a pair of my socks. I pass it over to him, and he takes it after a second.
He turns it over in his hands without saying anything, and I’m content to watch him. (My wrapping, by contrast, is flawless.) (And I didn’t even use magic this year- I’m a man of endless talents.)
He pokes his finger under the Sellotape, copying my movements from earlier, and I sigh. I sneer for good measure, and raise a falsely dismissive hand at him. “Go on then. Carry on, Simon.”
He rips through the paper and hesitates for only half a second before ripping the lid of the box off too.
And then he pauses, his expression melting as he takes in the contents.
“I thought you might miss having something to wear there,” I say softly, as he gazes at the small box, unmistakable warmth flooding his eyes. Inside, is a small gold star necklace.
He turns his gaze up to me, and I’m momentarily stunned by the sheer force of the love in it. “Like our night with the stars,” he whispers. And relief courses through my still veins, that he instantly understood it. That that night was of as much importance to him, as it still is to me. That he thinks about it still too.
And that it isn’t dirtied with sullied thoughts of magic.
“Put it on me,” he whispers, handing the box to me.
He turns away, and I drape the chain around his neck, smirking at the little shiver he can’t hide as my skin brushes his. All these years, and that’s still all it takes. I pull the clasp together and press a kiss over the top, sealing it all together, as the small star pendant rests against his heart.
Simon pulls me back to him immediately, pressing himself into my side and pulling his wings around both of us. It’s a little stifling, with the heat from the fireplace, but I’m surrounded by his scent and the constant, impossible reminder that he’s mine and I’m his and it’s never going to be any other way.
And as the clock ticks over to midnight, I drift to sleep in Simon’s arms, the fire still dancing in front of us.
And I think, distantly, that maybe it’s okay if some things end in flames.