Work Text:
SIMON:
It all started in our 7th year after a new mandatory class was introduced into Watford’s curriculum. It was decided after the school board realized most students lacked the creativity to excel when they were asked to create a spell, in their final year. In order to attempt fixing this problem, they decided that we should all have a creativity class. It was the first time we had a class that didn’t involve using magick and I was somehow thrilled about it.
Miss Winter, the teacher, is an eccentric person. She wears her hair really short, dyed in every colour you can imagine, and pulled up in little spikes around her head. Her eyes are purple, in a colour I never thought eyes could have. Her face is smooth and her features are soft, although her ears are pointy and sharp like those of an elf. She wears her clothes all black, which contrasts with her joyful personality. She is a mage, although she told us she doesn’t take advantage of it often. She rarely casts spells, as she thinks living the Normal way is more challenging. She is incredibly sweet and thoughtful, and she told us all she wants in this class is for us to find our inner voice. She frequently quotes one of her favourite painters, Picasso, when one of us is worried about the work they’ve done. “Every child is an artist.” She says, putting on her acting face. “The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
Creativity became my favourite subject as soon as it began. Miss Winter didn’t care if we were good or not at whatever activity we were doing, as long as we were passionate about it. She kept telling us nobody was good at everything (Baz was, but she didn’t mention it), and that projects we made were only to help us find our own creativity even in the things we weren’t as talented for (except for Baz who was talented for everything).
I don’t think there was a single creativity class in which we didn’t learn something. We read, we wrote, we sang, we played instruments, we built instruments, we sew, we acted, we built things from scratch, we did pottery… there was always something new, and every day I saw Baz excel at each task. It infuriated me, but it also amazed me. I have always known how Baz was good at everything, but I never realized how good. He was an artist in the widest sense of the word. There was not a single thing that came out of his hands being anything but perfect. And I kept feeling drawn to his creations, to him. Everything he did seemed familiar, and it all made me feel intrigued. Like I had seen those things before. Like they reminded me of something I had experienced, someday. To me, that is what defines a true artist – the ability to make their viewer feel something; the ability to make the viewer feel like they belong in the creation; the ability to take their own world and make it the viewer’s.
Every day, I felt like I was getting to know a new part of my roommate I had never seen before. It had been a while since I had considered him a monster, but this… this made me see him as something I never thought I would. Something I didn’t even dare to think about. Something I wasn’t able to admit even to myself for a long time.
Everything he did was art.
Sometimes, looking at him, I felt like he was art himself.
BAZ:
Despite what I told everyone who asked me about it, creativity class was the best thing the board ever did to this school since I remember. Not that I needed a class to explore or enhance my creative side, but because it allowed me to do so without having to hide it. It was my moment of daily peace, when I took whatever challenge Miss Winter gave us that day and turned it into something that was entirely mine.
Well, not entirely, if I am being perfectly honest. Partially, it was his. Not because I was stealing any of his ideas (I had plenty of my own), but because all my thoughts revolved around him. All of my thoughts have always been revolving around him. It was almost as if he had his own magnetic field – one that only pulled me in. Sometimes, I wondered if it was in the stars scattered around his body. If those constellations of freckles and moles were what really made my thoughts (and me, if I wasn’t careful) gravitate towards him over, and over again.
Last year, I realized I was in love with Simon Snow. This year, I made peace with it. Creativity class had a big part in that. Every single one of my creations was made, in its own way, of him. And, even if just for a while, I could pretend he was as mine as they were.
As the year went on, I became bolder (or dumber, depending on how you look at it). At first, they were just allusions that I put into my creations. Little things that reminded me of him, but that no one could guess unless that were in my head. It was the title of the poem, the tune of the song, the blue of the jar I had just built. Little things that even he couldn’t guess reminded me of him. Once I realized how drawn he was to everything I did, I decided this could be my chance of telling him how I felt without actually having to say it. I started writing lyrics about the boy I loved, writing stories about the winter snow, painting my pots golden like his skin.
And then, one day, Miss Winter told us we would be painting.
I painted him.
SIMON:
The day we painted on creativity class was the day everything changed. When we walked into the classroom, a whole bunch of canvases greeted us. I remember that Miss Winter told us we should paint whatever our heart desired. That it didn’t matter whether it was realistic, abstract or impressionist. It didn’t matter if we made up a whole new style of our own, as long as it meant something to us. As long as we put our hearts to it.
I remember sitting there, unsure of what to do. I was always better at performing arts, and classes involving visual arts were my least favourite. I remember looking over at Penny’s drawing and seeing a messy canvas with thousands of colours. Somehow, I was sure it was the most Penny painting I would ever see. I remember looking around the room to my classmates, all of them invested in their paintings except for one. Baz, who was sitting right across for me, kept throwing glances in my direction. At some point, when he realized I caught him staring, he blushed and looked away, but I could still feel his gaze on me whenever I wasn’t looking.
I ended up doing very little in that class, painting a sour cherry scone because I couldn’t think of something more meaningful to me when Baz kept staring in my direction. At the end of the class, when we hung our paintings up, I felt embarrassed. My painting of a scone was, by far, the least appealing one. However, I didn’t care about it for long. In fact, I totally forgot about any of the other paintings when I spotted his.
Baz’s painting looked as if it could have been taken straight out of an art gallery or a museum. It pulled you in from the moment you stared at it. The whole canvas was painted black. Pure black. But, in the middle of the painting, you could see the outline of a person. A person made solely of stars. A whole galaxy of them. It was so beautiful, and it felt so familiar, I almost wanted to cry.
And, in that moment, I realized I needed to know who it was that Baz thought to be as beautiful as the night sky. It was also the moment I realized that I desperately wanted it to be me.
BAZ:
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest as I saw Simon Snow observing my painting. He stayed there staring at it for a long time, his mouth open (mouth breather), his eyes wide, his face unreadable. I wanted to know if he figured it out, but I couldn’t. After a while, I had to look away. It was becoming too painful waiting for his reaction. As I did so, I caught Bunce’s eyes. She was staring at me with an eyebrow pulled up and a stupid smirk on her face. Her whole expression was one I could imagine myself doing, one I probably did more than just a few times throughout the years, and I knew she had figured it out. I almost begged with my gaze for her not to tell Simon about it, but she just smiled and turned away.
I spent the whole day stressing about whether Bunce had told Simon about the painting or not. I kept throwing glances at them from wherever I stood, and she kept smirking at me, which only made it worse.
That night, I took longer than I usually do in the catacombs. I wanted to avoid the room for as long as possible. I wanted to avoid Snow for as long as possible. I was already regretting painting him because I knew, even though we were on speaking terms since the beginning of the year, that he would never feel for me the same way I feel about him.
When I entered the room, almost at dawn, after having fallen asleep on the floor near my mother’s tomb, Snow was asleep.
The next day, he didn’t say anything about it. And although I knew I should be relieved, I wasn’t. Somehow, deep within me, I wanted him to know.
I was too proud to tell him. I was too afraid if I was being honest. But I still wanted him to know. So, I painted him once more. And one more time after that. I kept painting him until the day he would finally ask.
When that day came, I would think of what to say. For now, all I had to do was paint him.
SIMON:
The day Baz painted the person made of stars, I realized I was in love with him. It was also the day I realized Baz must have been in love with someone else. Someone he thought to be made of stars. Of the night sky itself.
At the beginning of the fifth year, after Agatha and I broke up, my relationship with Baz shifted. I can’t say we became friends because that would be a stretch, but we stopped being enemies. I was expecting him to try his chance with my ex-girlfriend after he heard the news. However, although he had seemed slightly happier than usual after that, he never did anything to try and win Agatha. Much to her dismay, I think. Despite being sure that his lack of interest in her had nothing to do with me, it still made me look at Baz differently from then on. As if he had chosen not to do anything out of respect for me.
Throughout the sixth year, we had barely spoken to each other. We mostly went on with our lives pretending the other didn’t exist. Which was, to most people, an improvement from where he had stood before. I, for one, hated it. Not that fighting Baz or having him sneer at me at every hour of every day was pleasant. But having him not talking to me altogether was just too weird. And I realized I hated it.
That’s why, this year, I had decided to become friends with Baz. Which is easier said than done, because Baz never seemed interested in becoming friends with anyone, let alone me. However, as this year went on, I knew I was making progress. It was barely noticeable. In fact, I think someone who spent less time with Baz than I did would never see it. But I could see how he rolled his eyes a little less, how he sighed a little less when I tried to talk with him, how he helped me out with little things a little more when he saw me struggling. And I was fine with a little friendship. But then… then the paintings started.
The day after Baz painted the sky in someone, when I woke up, he was painting. This time, you could clearly see the outline of a person with his back turned to the viewer. The whole background was white, but the person was, just like last time, completely made of stars.
“What are you doing?” I asked Baz. He nearly fell off his chair startled.
“I’m clearly painting, Snow.” He replied.
That morning, I let it go. I realized he wasn’t up for talking, so I left.
About a week later, when I woke up, he was painting again. The same person made of stars, a different setting. But always the stars. Always.
“You’re painting that star person again.” I say. It was supposed to be a question, but it came out as a statement.
“Star person?” He asks, looking at me and cocking an eyebrow.
“Yes, it’s a person made of stars.”
“I can understand the title, Snow. I’m just amused you named him.” He says.
“Him?” I ask, surprised. Is Baz in love with a boy? Does it mean I could maybe stand a chance if he wasn’t in love with someone else?
BAZ:
Fuck.
“Him?” He repeats. He is clearly not letting this go. And I just outed my sexuality to my roommate, who happens to be the person I am in love with, out of pure stupidity. I sigh.
“Yes.” I simply say.
“So, it’s star boy.” He states. And I am so relieved he is not making a big deal out of this. I am so relieved he doesn’t seem to care whether I like boys or girls. I am so relieved it means nothing to him. Although, deep down, I wish it did. “Why are you painting him again?”
“Because I feel like it.” I almost told him the truth, right there, but it felt wrong. And I wasn’t courageous enough.
“I like star boy.” Snow says, leaning over me to look at my work. I can feel his breathing on my hair, and his burning scent is so strong I suddenly have a hard time concentrating.
“I like star boy too.” I tell him. In a way, that was the day I told him the truth. That was the day I told him I loved him. He just didn’t know it yet.
It took him a few weeks until he decided to ask about star boy again. It was late night and I had just returned from my trip to the catacombs. We were both lying on our beds, but we both knew the other one was awake. Snow kept throwing glances at me, as he if wanted to check whether I was still awake. I pretended to be asleep, but he didn’t buy it.
“Baz.” I hear him whisper, looking at me. I open my eyes and look at him. The moonlight is hitting his face, and I can see his eyes full of wonder.
“What?” I ask, trying to sound annoyed. “I was trying to sleep, Snow.”
“I’m sorry. Sleep.” He replies, slightly pouting.
“Just tell me, Snow. I know you won’t rest until you ask whatever it is that is on your mind.” I say, rolling around on the bed to look at him.
“I was just wondering why is our room filled with star boy paintings.” He says, also turning to face me. His eyes are piercing me from across the room, and there is something in them I can’t read. If I didn’t know better, I would say it was tenderness.
“Because I like to paint him.” I reply. ‘Because he is you’, I think. ‘Because this is my way of telling you how much I love you’.
“Why is he made of stars?” He asks me. And, for some reason to this day I still can’t understand, I answer.
“Because he is. Every time I look at him, all I see are stars. Constellations of them. A whole galaxy. And because, to me, he is as unreachable as the stars themselves.” And it is true. He is. Ethereal. Out of reach. Just like the stars.
SIMON:
Baz has always been obsessed with the night sky. He has always been obsessed with stars. I’ve seen him read books about the cosmos often throughout our 7 years of living together. I’ve caught him looking out the window in the middle of the night just staring at the sky. I’ve noticed his drawings of constellations in the corners of his notebooks. But this was the first time I realized his love for those stars had a different reason behind it.
“He is important to you.” I say. I don’t have to ask because I know. He still answers me.
“He is.”
“Does he know?” I ask, and Baz laughs.
“I don’t think so, no.” He replies, after a while.
“Why don’t you tell him?” I question, looking at him. His eyes meet mine and there is something in them I can’t read. It’s wonder, and something else that, if I didn’t know better, I would say was tenderness.
“I’ve tried.” He responds, after a while. “Merlin, I’ve tried.”
BAZ:
I became obsessed with the stars the moment I met Simon Snow. I didn’t know it until much later on – almost five years later, to be exact – but I remember walking up to our room that first night at Watford, look at the night sky, and feel at peace. Some would say the night sky would bring anyone peace. That it didn’t necessarily had to have anything to do with Simon Snow. But I know it does. Because, even then, when I was a ten-year-old vampire, away from home for the first time, stuck with the Mage’s heir, who I knew by then I was supposed to hate, as a roommate, when I looked at the stars I saw him. I saw the freckles on his face in the constellations that stood ahead of me.
I didn’t understand it then, and I couldn’t understand it for a long time. As time went on and I found all the constellations of freckles and moles Simon was made of, my obsession with the night sky became deeper. For a long time, I was confused. I couldn’t understand how something that reminded me of my said enemy could make me feel so bewitched. I couldn’t understand how my heart felt completed as I looked into the void and imagined myself floating between those stars that reminded me of Simon. I couldn’t comprehend why something that reminded me of him could make my soul feel at home.
When I was fifteen and realized I was in love with him, everything started to make sense. He was made of galaxies and that’s why I became so obsessed with them. Because, since I couldn’t have him, I could at least pretend I had them.
I remember once reading a quote about how we are all made of stars. A quote that stuck with me to this day. I still know it by heart. “Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust.”
I remember reading this the first time and thinking how beautiful this was and how small it made me feel. We are all made of stars. But Simon… Simon is made of more stars than the rest of us.
SIMON:
The moment I put all the pieces together, I was in our room getting dressed. Baz had already left for breakfast or for the catacombs. He left in quite a hurry after hanging the latest star boy painting on the wall behind our mirror. Which was odd, considering we had been leaving for breakfast together every day for the past few weeks.
I was about to put my shirt on when something in the back of the mirror caught my eye. Something about the pattern in this new star boy portrait Baz had been painting looked so familiar. I move closer to the mirror instead of looking back at the painting because I am a little dumb sometimes. But, as I did so, I recognize one of the patterns on my left cheek.
My heart stops beating for a second as I look around the room to all those star boy paintings and realize the star patterns are always the same. The constellations are always the same, and they are the same as the ones on my face, the ones on my chest, the ones on my back.
I spent months envying whoever it was that Baz loved. I spent months jealous of whoever it was that Baz thought to be as beautiful as the night sky. I spent months wondering why he couldn’t be me, why Baz couldn’t just love me instead. And Baz spent all those months telling me he was me. He did love me.
I need to find him. I need to find Baz.
BAZ:
I haven’t stopped painting Simon since that day I told him, without him realizing it, that I was in love with him. I still haven’t been able to find the guts to tell him how I feel since that day, either. I don’t think our room could take another star boy painting, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop until he figures out how I feel.
This morning, I hung this week’s painting behind our mirror. I put it up there in hopes that Simon would see how the stars I paint mimic the stars he has in his body. I know I might as well tell him, but I don’t have the nerve to do that. Although I am doing exactly it by painting him over, and over again. I am doing exactly it by staying up every night talking to him about life. I am doing exactly it by helping him with homework and by teaching him how to have better control of his magic. I am doing exactly it by becoming his friend when what I really want to do is become his boyfriend.
This is what I am thinking about as I am crossing the hallways to my first class. I am thinking about Simon Snow and how much I love him. It is what I am always thinking about, if I am being truthful. Simon. It is him I am thinking about as he appears out of nowhere, running as if his life depended on it and halting just as he is inches away from me.
“I figured it out.” He says, still trying to catch his breath.
“What have you figured out, Snow?” I ask, cocking an eyebrow. I am trying to look as collected as I possibly can. I am trying not to think about what I think he figured out. Not to think about what it might mean to him for him to come running to me like this.
“I figured out who star boy is.” He says, taking a step towards me. He is so close I can feel his breath on my face. He is so close I am sure he can feel how fast my heart is beating. He is too close for me to think straight. But none of my thoughts about him were ever straight to begin with.
“You did?” I ask in a whisper.
“It’s me.” He says, smiling proudly. He did. He figured it out.
“It’s you.” I reply, unsure of what all this means.
“Oh, thank Crowley. It would have been embarrassing if I was wrong.” He says, right before pulling me by the neck and kissing me full on the mouth.
Let’s just say I never made it to that first class that day. Or to any class for that matter. I spent all day among the stars, looking at the stars, kissing the stars. Not the ones in the sky, but rather the ones on him. And Aleister Crowley, I am living a charmed life.